Isla smiled slyly at me. “I have embarrassed my son.” She put a hand to her heart and sighed dramatically. “My only child. The fruit of my loins. How he will ever forgive me for this grave sin, I do not know. I only hope—”

“Mom, okay, okay.” Jude groaned. Isla raised her eyebrows at him, like You deserved it. Then she winked at me.

“Okay, go away now, shoo!” Isla put her hands on Jude’s shoulders and spun him toward the stairs. “Ella and I have a neighborhood yard sale to organize.”

As I walked to the stairs with Jude, I looked over to catch Mom’s eye. I’d never had a boy in my room before, and I didn’t know if it was allowed. But she was staring at the tea she was whisking like it was the most fascinating thing in the world, not even trying to hide the grin that was taking over her whole face.

When we got to my room, Jude turned to me but kept his eyes on the floor. “Sorry for that. I mentioned I was coming over here, and she was like, ‘Great, I need to talk to Ella about the yard sale. I’ll come with you.’ I wanted to explain it wasn’t a good time, but—”

“It’s fine.” I gestured to my pajama pants. “I was clearly in the middle of something important.”

He smiled. God, I’d missed his smile. It was more strained than usual, but still.

In the silence that followed, Jude glanced around my room, taking in the bare walls, the yoga mat, the picture on my nightstand. He picked it up, studying it with an unreadable expression on his face. I sat on the edge of my bed. “You can sit down. If you want.”

He carefully put the picture back in its place and sat beside me. His leg bounced up and down, his breathing was shallow.

“I… I’ve been wanting to tell you how sorry I am,” I started. “For saying that thing about Diya at the rink.”

“Mm-hmm,” he said, distracted. Silence filled my room again until Jude let out a frustrated sigh. “Sorry, you probably don’t want to talk about it, but I can’t, I can’t not.” He fidgeted, rubbing his palms against his thighs, turning to face me, then turning away again. “God, I’m so angry I feel like I’m going to explode or implode or…” He trailed off, shaking his head.

I’d never seen Jude angry before. Happy and serious and sad and a little cocky and whatever emotion one feels on a trampoline—I’d seen all those. But I understood why he was angry. I’d kissed him, and then told him I would have rejected him like his ex-girlfriend did. And then I’d become friends with her.

“Paul fucking Manley,” Jude spat out.

“Wh-what?”