“I don’t know,” Qwan said, his hand grazing her thigh above the knee, “we could hit the books a little harder.”

“So corny. Bye, Qwan. Bye, Del Rainey.” Halfway out the door, she spun and said the strangest thing to me. “And tell your sister I’m a fan.”

She’d descended the stairs too quick for me to respond. Qwan hustled to my side, looped an arm over my shoulder to watch her go. “I hope your weekend’s been as good as mine.”

“She knows Cressie?”

“Not personally. She talking about YouTube.”

“YouTube? What?”

His mouth stretched into an O. “Shit, D. You don’t know?”

Qwan tapped his phone screen rapidly, then flipped it around so I could see. Yes, that was my sister in a frozen YouTube thumbnail, face frowned, one hand raised in what might be the universal gesture for attitude.

I snatched the phone from him. Above the thumbnail, the video title: “FemFam with Cressida Rainey.”

There were two “episodes” posted for her first season. One called “Allow Me to Re-Introduce Myself,” the second, “The Trouble with College Bruhs.” Each video had netted a couple thousand views, and her channel had a respectable 657 subscribers.

I returned Qwan’s phone.

“You ain’t trying to watch?” he asked.

Truth: I felt weird watching . . . whatever Cressie was doing for the first time with a witness present. Maybe this is what her and Mom had been talking about? Why hadn’t I paid more attention? I played it off. “Not really. I watched her live show for sixteen years. When did Angie tell you about this?”

“I told her. Cressie’s, like, my first bae, so I saw when she posted about her new channel on the Gram. Why you acting salty about it?”

“I’m not salty.” My best friend’s unhealthy obsession with my sister aside, I didn’t expect today to be a Cressie day.

“Well, keep not being salty while I smash you on 2K?” He powered up his Xbox, and rap music from the basketball game start screen bumped through his speakers.

I reached for my preferred controller, stopping short when I noticed a sprinkling of glitter on it. “Dude, what were y’all doing in here?”

He grinned. “Maybe when you’re older, D.”

Qwan took the first game playing as the Milwaukee Bucks, but I was handling him after switching from the Raptors to the Rockets. And we talked. Not about his weekend with Angie. My preferred topic.

Qwan bricked a three-pointer, said, “It was probably smart to back off Kiera with Colossus getting blown up in the BabyGettersToo thing, but, I’m going to keep it one hundred with you, I think you’re a little too casual. Ain’t nobody else trying to run a long con like you. I saw Ricky slip his arm around her waist the other day between classes and start whispering in her ear, in front of everybody.”

“Ricky Nestor?”

“Yep.”

“And?”

“She slipped loose and bounced. Ricky’s game is nonexistent. I’m just telling you nobody else has an elaborate twelfth-dimensional chess game going to get at her. They’re shooting their shot. You should shoot your shot.”