“Oh, so you see me over here now?” Keiran was still toting feelings about being ignored.

Scott gripped his shoulders, smile huge as usual. “Jealous much, K-2?”

Keiran rolled his eyes. Only Scott could get away with using that ridiculous nickname. “I’m just saying you sped by me like a full bus to greet Cherisse. Yeah, I’m going to feel some kind of way.”

Scott patted his cheek. “No worries, you’re still my fave, but Cherry’s cool. I know you two have a thing. Why do you two get on each other’s nerves like that? Unresolved sexual tension? Rivalry by osmosis? I mean, Remi and Maxi used to go at it like whoa, so I get wanting to have your sister’s back, but you two gonna fight to the grave?”

“I’ll take sexual tension for 500, Alex,” Eric piped up, and Keiran wondered if it was too late to trade in his friends for more loyal models.

“There’s no sexual tension.” What were they even getting at? Cherisse couldn’t stand him, and whatever ill-advised teenaged crush he’d had on her had long evaporated from his system.

Eric and Scott went on as if Keiran hadn’t spoken.

“I’m telling you, there’s something there,” Scott insisted. “You two would be cute together, too.”

“Right? If it’s wrong to ship people, you know I don’t wanna be right.”

Keiran frowned. “You’re saying a lot of words that don’t mean anything to me, and there’s no world in which Cherisse and I will ever happen. She’s going on a date with Tyler anyhow.” Why was he even mentioning that? Who Cherisse dated didn’t mean a damn to him.

The idea of them as anything but two people who had mutual friends but preferred not to interact—if they could help it—was too absurd to imagine.

Scott and Eric exchanged shocked glances.

“Tyler?” Eric’s nose wrinkled.

“And Cherisse?” Scott looked like the idea was the most farfetched thing he’d ever heard. Finally, a sensible response. The only reaction one should possibly have to that news. Sure, opposites attracted sometimes, but in this case, Keiran just couldn’t see it.

Nice. Tyler had said she was nice. The concept of Cherisse being nice was so foreign to Keiran; he couldn’t fathom how Tyler had arrived at such a conclusion. Okay, he knew how. Cherisse had carefully cultivated her persona, but how could Tyler not see the barely-contained fire underneath all that niceness? Or did it only come out around him?

And what was Cherisse’s angle in all this? She’d done a complete about-face within minutes. His curiosity was working overtime. Was Cherisse going on this date to please her mother? Keiran knew how overbearing West Indian mothers could be. They were good at making you feel bad if you didn’t at least try the thing they suggested, trotting out the ‘after I carried you for nine months and had to go through X number of hours of labor, you can’t even do this one thing for me?’ guilt trip.