I dove onto the couch, kicking various decorative cushions onto the floor, and arranged myself in a way that hopefully looked like I’d been chilling casually for ages, unconcerned Brooke had arrived. “How’s my hair?” I hissed to Ainsley.

She studied me with a critical eye, then shot her hands out to tousle my shoulder-length waves. With a nod of approval, she threw herself beside me and took out her phone, just in time to complete the picture of relaxed nonchalance as Brooke appeared.

My chest compressed. I swallowed my heart, which had lodged itself somewhere behind my tonsils.

Brooke glided into the living room, her stockinged feet silent on the carpet. She was yet to change out of her uniform, to my secret delight.

Our school uniform consisted of a navy blazer with the school logo on the breast, and a white button-down shirt, both of which had to be bought from the uniform shop. Outside of that, there was still a code, but it was a little more lax in terms of how we interpreted it. Bottoms had to be a beige, khaki color, with the choice of pants or a skirt, but we could buy them wherever we wanted. Guys had to wear ties, but the color and style of tie was up to them—barring any explicit or inappropriate prints. That rule had been added back in my sophomore year when Finn got his hands on a tie covered in marijuana leaves.

So, we’d come to a compromise that stopped the students from revolting. Uniform enough to keep the majority of parents and staff happy, but with enough expression that we didn’t feel like we were trapped in some stuffy British boarding school where individuality was illegal.

Now, it might sound like I was complaining about the uniform, but let the record show I was not. How could I complain, when Brooke looked like this in it? With her slender legs shown off by her flippy skirt and black tights, her gold locket pendant dangling in front of her buttoned collar, and her straight dark hair tumbling over the shoulders of her blazer, Brooke was a goddamn vision. I was quite sure that until the day I died, the sight of the St. Deodetus girl’s uniform would send my stomach into rollicking butterflies. All because of how it looked on Brooke Amanda Nguyen.

“Hey,” Brooke said, dropping to her knees in the center of the room. She dumped the canvas bag she’d carried in with her upside down on the carpet and dozens of sachets and tubes bounced out.

One of the great benefits of having Brooke as a friend—other than, you know, having her around to bring light and joy into my life each and every day—was her department store sales job.