June bit her lip, tracing a finger down a stripe on the couch. “He looked at me in the moonlight and said, ‘You’re beautiful. And you don’t know how hard this is for me to say, but … I don’t think we should. I want to take this slow.’” She put her face in her hands. “I’d already started stripping, and then I had to pull my top back on. It was awful.”

Annika set her tweezers down and reached forward to squeeze her friend’s knee. She suddenly realized this was June’s first time ever being rejected by a guy. “I’m sorry. But—”

June peeked at Annika from between her painted fingernails. “But what?”

Annika shrugged and said hesitantly, “It sounds like the reason he said that is because he likes you. Like, he really likes you.”

“No!” June said immediately, as Annika had guessed she would. She picked up her coffee cup. “He doesn’t like me. Come on—we barely even know each other. He’s probably just weird about sex or something.”

Annika considered her friend for a moment. “What would you do, though?” she pressed. “If he does really like you? Would you continue to see him?”

June looked at her over the top of her coffee cup, her pale face swathed in steam. “I—I don’t know,” she said, looking completely thrown.

“Whoa.” Annika stared at her. “This is the first time you’ve ever responded with anything other than, ‘Move on because men are like trains. There’s always another one coming.’”

“Doesn’t mean anything,” June said, but she wouldn’t hold Annika’s gaze. Fascinating. Very, very fascinating. “Can we talk about something else now?”

“Sure.” Annika picked up her tweezers again and turned to study the palette of colored stickers. “Of course.”

If there was something going on here—if Ziggy really was somehow worming his way into June’s heart—she would be really happy for her. Happy like from-the-head-to-the-toes-of-her-soul happy. But there was a small part of her that felt … “jealous” was too strong a word. Call it … “unsettled.” Yes, unsettled had a better ring to it.

June was the one who went out on strings of first dates because she wanted to, not because they never called back—unlike Annika. She was famous for saying that her twenties were all about sowing wild oats and her thirties would be about wedding dresses and babies. She had a timeline all planned out, a timeline that made Annika feel infinitely better about not having a serious boyfriend yet. And now, here they were, all of twenty-four years old, and June seemed to be changing her mind. Wasn’t it a bit early for that?

And if June had found The One when she wasn’t even looking, what did that mean for Annika, who’d always been open to something serious? Was she completely hopeless and destined for solitude?