“No. It’s hot gossip, though. Everyone knows.” She’d slid into the glitter skirt I’d had to beg my mom for, since it was dangerously short, and a lace camisole that showed off the boobs she’d been growing. I couldn’t wear that camisole unless I wore a shirt over it, because I had nothing to show off, but Luisa, as usual, showed me how my clothes were supposed to look. She whirled in front of the full-length mirror and said, “We should go over there.”

I finished wiping my eyes. We’d been friends since kindergarten, but gradually, I’d been getting the feeling Luisa had just been putting up with me—that she had a much different reason for wanting to spend time at my house. After all, my house wasn’t exactly a wonderland of fun. My parents circled each other like sharks, occasionally going in for bites, and I didn’t have a big-screen TV or a pool or video games.

My house’s one attribute was its proximity to Kane and Declan Weeks, and I guess that was enough.

“It’s nearly eleven. What do you want to do? Pull a Romeo outside his window?”

She tapped her blood-red lips with her finger. “Maybe.” Then she looked at herself in the mirror and said, “We look so hot. It’s a shame to waste this.”

Right. I was wearing my pajamas, and my eyes looked like I’d gone ten rounds in a prizefight. She’d done my lips nice, though, and put my hair up in this spunky, curly do on the top of my head. I grabbed my phone. “If you want to see them, I can text Kane.”

“Oh my God, no!” she said, grabbing the phone from me. “That’d be desperate. Let’s… I don’t know. Walk around the court. Like we’re minding our own business. Please.”

“All right.”

So that was how we ended up parading ourselves around and around the cul-de-sac at not quite midnight on a Saturday. Still, it worked. Kane had a radar for girls. After our second time around the circle, he threw open the window in Declan’s room, which was in the front of the house, and said, “You guys out for a stroll?”

I snorted. We were wearing our dress pumps. If that wasn’t desperate, the twelve new blisters crying out for mercy from my toes and heels definitely were. But Luisa had that innocent way about her—even when she was up to no good, she still reeked of sunshine. I yawned, glad that he was finally here. Luisa and Kane could say hey, share a few flirts, and then we could haul ass to bed.

He pushed up the window and slid out on the roof, then climbed down the rain gutter and trellis to the front porch. Luisa watched this feat in amazement. “He’s gonna kill himself.”