We’re sitting on the couch in Micah’s apartment, and Duke is asking Vada all sorts of questions about Ann Arbor. She’s already offering to hook him up with a job at the Loud Lizard. I tip my head to hers. “Thanks for coming, babe.”

She rolls her eyes. “Like you could keep me from jumping on that plane. I only missed one class anyway. Luke’s getting the notes for me from my roommate. What you should really be thanking me for is that last forty-minute flight on the twelve-passenger death trap from Green Bay. I thought my heart was gonna fly out of my ass.”

“Thank you. I owe you massively. To be fair, we had planned on driving down to get you both. I’m sorry Luke couldn’t make it.”

Duke snorts.

“What?”

Micah scowls at him.

“What?” I repeat.

“You should have seen the act she put on to convince him to drive down,” Duke says to Vada, whose rusty eyebrows disappear under her adorable new blunt-cut bangs.

“You make it sound like I stripped or something.”

Micah clears his throat. “Listen. I was going to go anyway. And she definitely did not strip.”

“I don’t even know what you’re talking about.”

“It’s this fetish he has…” Duke says gleefully.

“Fetish?” I squeak.

Micah practically growls, but Duke laughs. “It’s not a fetish,” he insists.

“It’s the earrings, isn’t it?” Vada guesses.

Micah’s face goes slack. Duke throws his head back in a cackle. I turn to face my boyfriend. “Really?”

He winces. “If I say yes, will you think I’m a perv?”

Vada rolls her eyes. “Luke has the same one. What are the odds we find the two boys in the world with the same weird ear cuff fetish?”

“Not a fetish,” Micah tries again.

“It’s okay,” I say softly, taking his face in my hands. “I’m slightly obsessed with your forearms. Particularly”—I run a finger down his tattooed arm—“this one.”

“Speaking of obsessed,” Vada says, interrupting our loaded look with an unapologetic smirk. “I’m pretty obsessed with your wings. I sobbed a full minute when you sent the picture. Luke thought someone had died.”

I bite my cheek to keep from smiling. “It felt right.”

“It’s perfect,” she admits. “And your dad saw it?”

I nod. “Declan came up a few weeks after.”

“And your mom?”

I exhale through pursed lips. “Mom will likely disown me. But maybe one day she’ll accept me for who I’m becoming and talk to me freely about what happened, and maybe then we can be okay. Declan thinks she has it in her. Deep, deep down inside.”