“Oh. No.” I leaned against the countertop. “It’s just we met yesterday. Like he said. So it was . . . awkward, I guess, but it’s not a big deal.” At all, at all, at all.

“Well.” Alice looked at herself in the mirror, slipping her contact lens back in. “I for one am mortified. He’s got to think I’m some monster racist right now. In hindsight, it’s completely obvious that he’s Dad’s student! I just, I don’t know, it didn’t connect at first. And you two seemed . . . cozy.”

“We weren’t even next to each other.”

“It was a vibe. I did think it was unprecedented. You bringing a guy home.”

“Like you’re one to talk.”

Since her “Unhealthy Obsession with Young Gustavo Dudamel” stage at age sixteen, I’d never known Alice to even crush on anyone. As far as I knew, she was married to her viola.

“Touché,” she said. But a flush was creeping up her neck.

“Oh my God,” I breathed. “You have somebody. Alice! Who is it?”

“Nobody!” Her cheeks were now practically purple. “It’s . . . well, it’s not a thing.”

“Who?” I grabbed her, scooting the bathroom door shut to give us privacy.

Alice reached past me to open it again. “Seriously, it’s . . . no.”

Clamped lips, glassy eyes, conversation over. We’d time-warped to a decade ago, when she was a teenager and I was tiny, permitted to talk to her while she did her makeup—but only to a point.

She scooted into the hall, and looked back, softening. “If it becomes a thing, I promise to fill you in.”

I knew not to take it personally. We all had our roles to play. Leo was the zealot, Win was the prince, and Alice was the secret agent. Given her near-clinical caginess, I was surprised anyone had gotten close enough to prompt a blush.

Still, as she walked down ahead of me, I felt myself hollowing.

What was my role again? I’d somehow forgotten.

When we got back to the table, Win and Oscar were locked in laughing conversation, Dad typing on his phone—tweeting, probably; the man was J. K. Rowling levels of addicted.

I started clearing plates, letting my hair curtain my face.

“Bear in mind, this woman is six years older than him,” Win said, knocking on the table to punctuate his words. “She’s an adult.”

I knew this story. He was making fun of Leo’s first date, with a famous violinist when he was nineteen. Was this Win’s way of making me feel better or worse?

“And he’s in agony, like, sweating. He comes to my room with this huge bouquet and wants my opinion on the flowers.”

Alice sat, shushing Win halfheartedly. I thought of poor Leo, hardly my closest sibling, but still—not even here to defend himself.

“Flowers! On a first date!”