Everything felt so easy and safe that my brain somehow turned off, finally not worrying about what my parents were doing in that moment, how I was going to untangle this web, what was wrong with my father. Because all that could wait. Like I said earlier, this was my night off, and right now, I deserved to be happy.

Chloe CHAPTER 43 ANSWERS

We kissed in every nook and cranny—against surfaces, on the floor, in an extra chair that held no painting. After an hour or two—I lost track of time—we came up for air. I didn’t know about Drew, but I’d worked off enough lamb and fish balls to make room for whatever literal dessert was coming.

Drew led me to a table on the far side of the roof with lit candles, slices of chocolate cake, and a pile of papers, which he gestured to first.

“Earlier, when you said you wished I had an application you could just read…” He picked up the stack. “Well, your wish is my command.”

“What?” It took my brain a second to register what he’d just said. “How?”

“This… is my application. To be an operative.” He handed me the packet, then tugged on his shirt collar. “I want you to have it. So we can be on square fifty together.”

Oh my God. I didn’t have any words for a second.

“We didn’t exactly have a meet-cute—” I started.

“Meet-purpose?” he suggested.

“More like a meet-weird.”

We laughed.

“But this?” I placed an appreciative hand on the papers. “This takes the mooncake.”

His shoulders relaxed and he grinned so wide I could see his first molars. He helped me with my folding chair—and good thing, because his application already had my full attention, and without him, my butt might have ended up missing the seat.

I skimmed, reading too fast because it all felt so urgent and overdue, but then I missed so much I had to go back and reread anyway.

“Your answers are, like, a sixth of the length of mine,” I teased, sneaking a bite of chocolate cake. Yum. Thick and dark, the way I preferred my chocolate. Just as I’d told him in my application.

He poured hot water from a travel thermos into my teacup, which was already loaded with a teabag. When the steam curls reached my nose and I smelled the familiar aroma of jasmine and oolong, I let out an embarrassing noise resembling aww.

He beamed. “All your favorites.”

I’d soon have that power too. Maybe not for his favorite kind of tea and dessert—I doubted Rent for Your ’Rents cared about those details—but I’d know other, more important facts. And the more surface-level ones, I could ask.

Q: Why do you want to do this?

A: To help people. And I’d be good at it. I think.