“Sorry, are you unfamiliar with the concept of imagining?”

“Consider my imagination limited,” he says, the words straining out through his lips, “by the very real possibility of death.”

“Then try to think about something else.”

“Think about what?”

“Something pleasant. Like strolling along a beach at dawn. Or coupon codes. Or dogs that can open doors. Or banana muffins—”

“Not the biggest fan of baked goods.”

I will my patience to stay put. “Or fresh daisies—”

“Allergic.”

My mouth drops open. “To flowers? Seriously? But they’re, like, the symbol of romance.”

“Which allergies are famously known to care about.”

I ignore his sarcasm and focus on posing my next question as if it’s something I just thought of, and not a sneaky way to secure vital information for my revenge plan. “What do you do if you want to buy flowers for your girlfriend?” I’m ninety-nine percent sure he doesn’t have a girlfriend. Call it a woman’s sixth sense, or just plain common sense, because while his face might be fine (okay, a little better than fine), he does share a personality type with most supervillains, and there’s just something about his aura that screams, I go straight home after school to mope over the state of the world instead of planning out cute movie nights with the girl I like. Still, if I’m going to proceed, I need to first be one-hundred-percent sure I’m not seducing someone who’s already taken.

Cyrus fixes me with a long look. “I don’t have a girlfriend.”

Perfect. I lean closer to him over the armrest and do my best to act surprised. “Really? Why not?”

He tips his head back and releases a quiet groan as more tremors grip the plane, his pulse beating visibly in his throat. “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I’d rather we discuss the dogs that can open doors.”

“Okay, fine. No more talking about your relationship status or lack thereof, or the flowers you’re allergic to, or highly skilled dogs.” I filter through my memory for inspiration, any conversation topic that won’t make him tense up like he’s getting his molars surgically removed. The first, unexpected thing that comes to mind is: “Do you still play piano?”

Even though the sky is swaying drunkenly outside the windows, the blue horizon tilting upward with sickening speed, he pauses for a moment, some of his fear dissolving into surprise. “You remember that?”

“Only because you were being such a show-off about the fact that you’d passed grade twenty when you were thirteen—”

“Leah, there is no grade twenty.”

“And,” I go on, skipping right over his correction, “as long as there was a piano in the general area, you would rush over to play it like it was your own private concert.”