“Fair enough, mine too.” She stood, offering me a hand up. “Listen, back to a conversation I can understand, that Oscar guy seems cool and God knows you two looked into each other, but there are plenty of guys out there who would fall all over themselves to be with you, okay? This is all I’m saying. It is not that complicated.”

I smiled. “Thank you.”

“My guess is that he’s holding a boom box up to your window even as we speak, but on the off chance he isn’t . . . this isn’t exactly the best time for you to be in a relationship, right? So maybe keeping it platonic is—”

“What?”

She walked over to lean on the guardrail, peering out to the river. “You just broke up with your first love. You need to rebound before you can move on to something real.”

I understood a beat too slowly. She meant the piano, of course. My first love. It wasn’t that overblown a metaphor, because when I thought about it—recognized it—my heart started to hurt in a way that had nothing to do with exercising.

Jules was watching me with sympathetic eyes when a tangle of arms and legs flapped its way toward us so gracelessly that it took me a second to realize it was Sam.

“This! Is! Not! Fun!” she screamed. “What is the matter with you two?”

“I sort of agree,” I said.

“Come on,” Jules said, linking arms with both of us. “Let’s undo this run with some doughnuts.”

I was laughing when the three of us got back to our block, sugar glaze sticky on my lips. Sam was trying to catch us up on five seasons of this show Triplecross, playing every role in quick time, oblivious to all the pedestrians glancing back at her as we walked by.

“And then Chase Hernandez came out in real life? And they made his character bi to boost the ratings? And it was awesome because it turned out he’d been screwing the douchebag guy the whole time and they were the masterminds behind like everything from season one on. It’s a terrible show.”

Jules slowed down, pointing at my house, and whispered, “What did I tell you.”

Oscar was sitting on the stoop. Spotting us, he stood, and I was so paralyzed that it took me a second to see that he was holding a bouquet of multicolored carnations.

“Awwww,” Jules cooed under her breath. “How tacky!”

I kicked backward at her. Accidentally got Sam.

Jules patted my butt as they passed me. “We’ll leave you to it.” Then turned around to mouth, “I’m psychic.”

Oscar stepped into the middle of the sidewalk, owning it as always, pedestrians parting instinctively around him.

“I heard a rumor you thought flowers were a nice gesture?” He held the bouquet out.