She sighs dreamily. Then, “If you tell anyone I just did that, I will kick your shins.”

“Noted. But Otter, being Otter—and also me being essentially illegal since I was sixteen—decided that instead of owning up to his feelings for me, he ran far, far away to the mythical land known as California.”

“Wow,” she says. “What a wuss.”

“Right? But to be fair, I was dating Anna at the time, and—”

“You what?”

“Yeah, we were together for, like, three years. Maybe four.”

“And now she’s married to your best friend.”

“Right.”

“And you’re married to your best friend’s older brother.”

“This is true.”

She gapes at me. “What kind of messed-up drama is this?”

I grin at her. “Oh, you have no idea. It got a lot worse before it got better. There was… well. Otter and I kissed before he left—”

“You were jailbait,” she says, sounding scandalized.

“He just couldn’t resist, I guess. And it got weird, and then—well. Mom left and Otter left, and it was just… it wasn’t good. For a long time, it wasn’t good. It felt like part of me was missing. And it wasn’t because of her.”

“It was because of him,” she whispers.

I nod. “I didn’t know it. Not at the time. But yeah. It was him.” I smile weakly. “But then he came back, and things got… strange. But it worked out, in the end. And you know what I found out about him?”

“What?”