“Traitor!” I say, scandalized.

“Darling,” she says. “I do not look good in orange. Specifically prison orange. It makes me look very Hep C. I will throw you under the bus if I have to.” She leans over and gives me a kiss on the cheek. “But I still love you dearly.”

“This friendship is over,” I announce grandly.

“No, it’s not,” she says. “You’ll forgive me. You always do.” A weird glint comes into her eyes, the one that means she’s about to say something meant to cause trouble. “You even forgave me when I broke your heart.”

Oh no.

She turns back to the front seat. “Yes,” she sighs dramatically. “That’s right, Dominic. May I call you Dominic?” She doesn’t wait for a reply. “Young Tyson here and I used to be enamored with one another. We were… besotted, one might say. Well, certainly he was. But then, I am a pretty magnificent specimen.”

“Kori, please stop talking,” I beg.

Of course she doesn’t. “We dated for a time. Everything was sunshine and flowers and kisses and love, but then I broke his poor little heart. I told him we just weren’t meant to be. I saw something in him that I knew meant we’d be together forever, just not in the way we thought could be possible. We’re kindred spirits, he and I. Attached. He’s my soul mate, but not of the romantic kind.” She winks at me as if this is supposed to make me feel better.

“Yet you’d give him up to avoid jail time?” Dominic asks. Wonder of all wonders, he sounds almost amused. Gruff and rigid, sure. But almost amused. Kori does have that effect on people. It’s odd, really.

“In a heartbeat,” she says. “After all, no love is too great that it can’t be given up to avoid prison. I think Benjamin Franklin said that. Or Nelson Mandela. Or Kelly Clarkson. I’m not sure which.”

“I worry about the future of the world,” I say, “when a fictitious quote is attributed to Nelson Mandela or Kelly Clarkson. That says so much about our generation.”

“Mouthy little shit, isn’t he?” Kori asks Dominic, like they’re the best of friends.

“And you dated?” he asks her.

She nods gravely. “It burned brightly. But like any flame, it eventually went out. It was replaced by something else just as warm. Tyson and I are bound together forever now.”

“Ugh,” I say to no one in particular. “I feel like I didn’t get a say in the matter.”

“You didn’t,” she tells me sweetly.

“I noticed when I looked at your driver’s license…,” Dominic says. “Transgender?”

“Oh, look how progressive he is!” Kori gushes. “Most people would have asked if I was a drag queen. All they tend to see is a boy in a dress. You’re a lovely man, Dominic. But no. Not transgender. Bigender.”

I expect Dominic to ask what that means (most people do), so I’m surprised when he nods in understanding. “I’ve met a couple of bigender kids,” he says. “Down at the shelter. They were having a hard go of it, but they were getting the counseling they needed.”