“Yeah? Sure?” He scoffed as he put the car in drive. “Just recklessly breaking my heart, as always.”

She laughed, shaking her head at him. “Your heart or your ego?”

“Same difference with me.” He gave her the sly smile that could brighten the most terrible of days.

Alex claimed the honor of being the third person Luna had met after moving in with Tasha—her half sister from their dad’s first marriage. He attended an elite private school on scholarship—sports and academic because he was amazing—but they lived in the same apartment complex. His mom, Cynthia, had volunteered him to be Luna’s school chauffeur. If it bothered him, he never showed it.

“Did you skip school to get that done?” she asked.

“Hmmm?”

“You didn’t have them this morning?”

“What?”

“Uh-huh. Your mom’s going to kick you out.” She grinned at him before looking at her phone again. Her smile didn’t last, fading as she watched the number of her notifications continue to climb. Luna’s mentions were in absolute shambles—inbox bursting with messages asking her thoughts, and she’d been tagged in literally hundreds of posts. The other Goldspiracy Founders were no different, speculating in their private chat and yelling for her to respond in all caps.

“Threaten to kick me out,” he said. “There’s a very loving difference in there.”

They didn’t live far from her school—about a twenty-minute drive. Alex pulled into their parking lot, finding a space in between their respective apartments. Painted a drab cream color with mellow brown accents, they weren’t much to look at it. The interior of her apartment was even plainer—a tiny two-bedroom, one-bathroom apartment that cost more than it was worth, and yet the price went up every year.

Tasha had done her best to decorate with what she could find at thrift stores. The result was a mishmash of colors and styles that clashed horribly but still felt cozy. She loved pictures, filling the walls with a growing collage of prints of her friends, their family, and most important, her and Luna together. Selfies, stills from videos, the experimental portraits shot for fun at a park one day—almost every photo they had ever taken together eventually ended up on the wall.

When Luna’s mom had decided she didn’t want to be a mom anymore, Tasha had said, “Look, I don’t know how to be anybody’s parent, but I think I can be a guardian. I can do that.” Two weeks later, twelve-year-old Luna had moved in with her half sister, who was a whole ten years older.

And it had changed Luna’s whole life.

As usual, Tasha was at work or school or both and had left a note on the fridge.

Warm up one of the frozen lasagnas for dinner.

It’ll take about an hour to cook. Home by eleven ♥