“Sorry, are we meant to ignore the fact that your father owns a winery?” I demand, leaning back the same time the train eases forward, accelerating so smoothly and quietly that I don’t even realize we’ve left the station until I see the trees flashing by the window.

“Fourteen wineries,” Oliver clarifies. “But this winery was way bigger than the others. We were going to spend our summer break there last year, but after the possums took over, we had to change plans last minute and stay at one of our resorts in Sanya instead. Not even my favorite resort with the pony farm; just, like, a regular five-star resort. The sea views weren’t bad though.”

I stare at him as I digest this alarming information, and then press my fingers to my temple like I’m trying to remember something vital. “Oh my god, what is it called again?” I ask.

“The name of our winery?” Oliver says, confused.

“No, that word for when you feel bad for someone but also, at the same time, can’t bring yourself to feel that sorry for them at all.”

Cyrus releases a breath of laughter, then immediately hides it by pressing a fist to his lips.

“It’s okay, you only need to feel slightly sorry for me,” Oliver tells me, unbothered, and grins. “Just sorry enough to go out with me.”

I raise my brows. Every time I let myself entertain the idea that Oliver and I could become actual friends, he’ll say something like this, leaving me to try and figure out just how serious he’s being, and whether he’ll join the list of guys who stopped being nice to me the second they realized I wasn’t going to hook up with them. It would be a serious shame, because despite his bad jokes and severely bourgeois tastes, Oliver Kang’s kind of been growing on me. “Are you asking for a pity date?”

“I’ll take whatever I can get. A pity date. A pity kiss—that’s what you offered Cyrus, wasn’t it?”

“Yeah, I don’t really do those anymore,” I inform him, with a meaningful glance at Cyrus, who’s stopped laughing. “As you might be able to tell, it didn’t end well the last time.”

“It would be different with me,” Oliver says, gesturing theatrically between us. “I can’t be the only one who feels this connection we’ve got going on. As if our souls are bound together—”

“We barely know each other.”

“We can get to know each other better right now,” he says without missing a beat. “Like, for starters, what’s your thing?”

“What’s my thing?”