“As soon as I’m done with my workout,” he said with a grin, seeming relieved to be off the hook. “Have I told you you’re the best friend in the whole world?”

“I already know.”

He tossed the towel on the side of the treadmill and began to lower himself stomach-first to the floor. “Lay on my back.”

“Pass,” she said as he got into plank position.

“Come on. Like we used to do, when regular push-ups got too easy.”

“First of all, nobody likes people who say things like ‘regular push-ups got too easy.’ Second of all, that was in high school.”

He looked up. “I can wait all day, Dree. Just remember, the sooner I finish this workout, the sooner you don’t have to marry me.”

She pushed away from the door with a sigh. “You’ll get me all sweaty.”

“Good. If you ask me, it’s been way too long since you’ve had contact with a man’s sweat. Randy doesn’t count.”

“No, he doesn’t,” she agreed, since she and Randy had never gotten past the make-out stage before she’d seen his mirrored room of horror.

She kicked off her shoes and gingerly lowered herself so she and Clarke were back-to-back. “I don’t remember this being so hard when I was fifteen,” she said, putting her arms out for balance and laughing as she started to fall to the side when he lowered into a push-up.

“Yeah, you really have the hard part,” he said with an exaggerated grunt. “Maybe we need to talk about your chocolate addiction.”

She reached up and tugged his hair in reprimand. “A gentleman never comments on a lady’s weight.”

“Is that what this is? A lady’s weight?”

She tugged his hair harder.

For all his complaining, his push-ups seemed effortless once she found her balance, and he did a couple dozen or so with both their body weights before collapsing to the ground. “You’re right. It was easier in high school.”

“Most things were,” she said.

He turned his head slightly, propping his arms beneath his head, though making no effort to push her off. And she didn’t make an effort to move. She’d forgotten the unique sort of comfort that came from physical contact with someone else, even if it was being sprawled platonically atop her best friend.

“What’s up?” he asked.

She gave a little smile, appreciating that he knew her as well as she knew him. Appreciating that he knew, even from the most innocuous of statements, when something was bothering her.

She exhaled. “You know Scandal Boy?”

“I do not.”

“Instagram influencer. But the mean, gossipy kind. Likes to dig up dirt and expose it.”

“Ah. Society’s vermin.”