I sigh and kick at a sidewalk crack as I shove my phone back in my pocket. Of course people love her. She’s incredibly magnetic and interesting and fierce and . . . even better in real life.

I’ve walked half a block further when I stop still in my tracks. My phone is vibrating against my leg. I nearly rip my pocket off in my desperate attempt to see who is calling.

“It’s her!” I shout at the top of my lungs, scaring the pants off about a dozen innocent bystanders. I scramble to answer the call, my big, dumb thumbs barely cooperating. I have no plan, I have no idea what to say, I have nothing but my heart in my throat and zero air in my lungs. But I don’t care. Being cool is for the birds. Jessie is calling me. She’s calling me. I answer.

Chapter Twenty-Three

“Jessie?! Hi.”

“. . .”

“Jessie? Hi. Are you there?”

“You called me Jessie.”

“Right. Hi. Wow. I’m so glad you called.”

“I wasn’t sure you even knew my name.”

“Oh, God. I . . . well, I didn’t. I’m a total twerp, I know. But I forgot it because the night we met was so . . . awful. And then I was too embarrassed to ask again, because we’d been through so much together at that point and . . . oh, boy. This is not going how I wanted this conversation to go.”

“How did you want it to go?”

“I don’t know. God. I’ve had all this time to think about nothing but this moment and I still have no idea what I wanted to happen. I just wanted to hear your voice. That’s all, really. I’ve missed your voice.”

“So . . . you’ve completely stolen my likeness for your webcomic.”

“You read it? Eek. Sorry. I sound like I swallowed a bug. Let me try again. You read it?”

“I read it. And I’m going to sue you.”

“I can’t tell if you’re joking. That’s okay. Go ahead and sue me. Let’s make it a really messy, protracted process. That way we can talk every day.”

“You don’t have a very strong self-protection instinct, you know.”

“Trust me—I know. That’s why I’m so grateful you were there that night. The night of the break-in. I knew you would kick ass for me, even if I couldn’t do it myself.”

“. . . I was glad I could be there, Eliot.”

“Jessie, I have to say something.”

“Okay.”

“That day on the street—”

“We don’t have to talk about that.”

“No. I really want to clear something up.”

“All right. Go ahead.”

“Well, turns out Frida Hawkins was there. She saw the whole thing.”

“Yeah. She was pumping me for gossip about it for a few days afterward.”