It had only been a week since the gala, and Liza was still getting a lot of social media attention for her stunt. “Somebody saw me on the news!” she sang. “A William somebody of PBI.” Her family was gathered around the kitchen table while Maurice scrambled eggs in long basketball shorts, no shirt, high white socks, and black flip-flops. How could he cook with oil and no shirt on?

“PBI? What even is that?” Janae asked.

“I’ll find out when I meet up with them in Greenbelt. He says they have experience outbidding Pemberley. He thinks we could be partners!” Liza finished the last part in a squeal.

“Liza, what do you think they’re going to do? They are only going to make it seem like they were in charge of your little protest the whole time,” Janae said. She pulled plates out of the dishwasher.

“The cause is won by more than one soldier, Janae. I can share the spotlight with the PBI.”

“I don’t think there’ll be much sharing going on,” Janae said. Her phone buzzed for the third time in a row, and she looked down and laughed.

“Are y’all texting now?” Liza asked.

“Who?”

“Heffa—”

“He’s cute and funny, okay? That’s it. I like to talk to him. Look at this meme he sent.”

Liza looked over at her sister’s phone. The picture was neither funny nor cute. It was the sort of thing you laugh at only when you like a guy. Liza’s face must have shown her opinion because Janae snatched her phone back.

“Janae, he seems . . . nice,” Liza offered.

Janae held her phone to her chest. “You just don’t think he’s genuine.”

“She doesn’t think anyone is genuine,” LeDeya chimed in. “Didn’t you break up with a guy because he still kissed his mom on the lips?”

“And I’d do it again,” Liza said.

“Don’t listen to her, J, she got burned at the party by that big K-pop dude, and now she’s salty,” Maurice said. He shoveled eggs on everyone’s plates.

“Nobody got burned, Reece.” Liza pushed down the annoyance bubbling up. “I would never dance with a man like that. And K-pop is fun and bursting with energy. That man was more like Special K.”

Janae stabbed her eggs. “Yeah, David thinks the world of that guy, but he was pretty standoffish with everyone.”

“ ‘Standoffish’? He was a snob,” Liza said.

LeDeya pulled out Liza’s laptop. “Okay, while you two are on Mars pretending that that man isn’t a snack, the internet says differently. And she’s got stories.” LeDeya easily reguessed her sister’s password and got to stalking. Liza leaned in to see what LeDeya found.