“If you kiss Jacob before the game then maybe we can cancel it. But I’m kind of just excited for it now, you know?”

No, I didn’t know because I wasn’t excited for it at all. “I can’t go around kissing random people now.”

“Why? Did Jacob ask you to be his girlfriend?”

I pressed my lips together. “No, but...”

“Were you planning on ghosting the kiss thief now that you’ve gone on one date with Jacob?”

“No, but Jacob is the kiss thief.”

“But what if he’s not?”

I exhaled slowly. Crap, she had a good point. I liked Jacob. And I liked the kiss thief. And I liked Axel. Gah. No. Scratch that last part. I shook my head. I was a mess.

I’d felt so good walking into school a few minutes ago. And now my stomach was twisted into knots.

“Don’t sweat it,” Sophie said. “Everything will be sorted by Saturday night. We’ll unmask the kiss thief after kissing a bunch of hot guys. And then we can have the best night ever at the after party to celebrate the first win of the season.”

Our versions of good nights were very different. But I did need to unmask the kiss thief. Because if it somehow wasn’t Jacob... I shook my head. Screw me.

***

“Are you excited for your date with Pavel?” I asked as we made our way to our last class of the day.

Sophie gave me a weird look. “My what?”

“Your date.”

“Did I call it that?” She laughed. “It’s not really a date. We’re just meeting up after school real quick.”

“Okay...”

“Just wait for it. It’s going to be epic.” She sounded just like RJ.

“Can we circle back to the mascot thing for a minute?” I’d been trying and failing all day to get out of Operation Kissing Booth. “Because if we can find out who dresses up like the Empire High eagle, we’ll have our answer.”

“Stop trying to get the kissing booth shut down. It’s going to be so freaking fun. Besides, I already asked everyone at lunch about the mascot, and no one knows who it is. Apparently the mascot is very mysterious.”

That didn’t make any sense. How could the mascot be on the varsity team and no one knew who it was? Or was he just lying about everything and wasn’t even on the team? My head was scrambled. There were so many little clues but no concrete facts.

“So let’s say the kiss thief just stole the mascot costume to take the picture,” I said. “After all, he is a thief. That narrows it down to...wait. That doesn’t narrow it down at all.” Yeah, my brain was definitely scrambled.