“I mean, if he’d been open to it, I would have gone for it,” Stevie said with a grin. “Glenda Jackson did it, after all.” I looked at her blankly. “On the West End and then Broadway, a couple of years ago,” she explained. “It was supposed to be amazing.” She reached out for her coat again, and I dodged her again. “I can carry my own coat, you know.”

“Let me do nice things for you!”

“Kat!”

“Stevie!” I replied, matching her tone, laughing.

“Katrina.”

“Stephanie.” I raised an eyebrow at her. “Should we do middle names now too?” Teri, as usual, was watching us with a patient, bemused expression on her face, like she was waiting for this to stop so she could continue the conversation again.

Stevie started to answer just as the second bell rang. The second bell meant you should really get a move on, and in the hallway all around us, flirting and conversations stopped and people picked up the pace as one, like this was a musical and the dance captain had just snapped out a tempo change.

“Here,” Stevie said, turning to me. As we walked, she twisted her long, thick hair around in a knot she pulled through on itself—and then it just stayed, like magic. I’d been seeing Stevie do this for years now, but it still impressed me every time. She reached into her bag and pulled out a bag of Doritos—Cool Ranch—and a can of Diet Coke. “Got you a snack.”

“Bless you,” I said, then looked around, realizing my hands were full with Stevie’s coat and textbook. “Fine,” I huffed, like I was giving her some big concession, and handed her back her stuff.

“Where did this come from?” she asked, holding up the textbook.

“Zach Ellison was at the locker.” I gave her a look. “I think he was disappointed you weren’t there.”

“Ooh,” Teri said, her face lighting up. “He’s cute! Stevie, you like him?”

Stevie shrugged one shoulder. “He’s okay.”

“You need a rebound,” I said firmly as I opened up the bag of chips and my stomach grumbled on cue. I hadn’t realized how hungry I was until I’d seen them. I crunched into the first chip. “Thank you for this. You’re the best.”

“I’m purely self-interested. I know how you get when you’re hangry.”

“What does that mean?” I snapped, then looked over to see her smiling at me. “Ah. Point made.” I tipped the bag toward her. Stevie preferred regular Ruffles but would eat Doritos if presented with them. She reached for the bag, concentration written all over her face. Stevie had big feelings about proper Dorito dust ratio and wasn’t about to leave this up to chance. She carefully selected one, and then I held the bag out to Teri, who took two at random—Teri had no strong feelings about Doritos—and crunched down on them.

“If you need a rebound,” Teri said, brushing her Dorito dust off on her jeans, “I could ask Ryan if he has any cute single friends.”