It means he’s utterly smitten by Imogen Lovelace.

I knew it.

“Ethan!” I call. The door to the bathroom is closed, and there isn’t a single sound coming from behind it, but I know he’s in there. He has already stress-ironed all of his shirts, hung up all of my dresses—oh brother, what did Imogen do to him? “I’ll keep screaming until you come out of there! I’ll tell everyone that you wear Superman boxers and—”

There’s a clatter on the other side of the bathroom door, and he wrenches it open in nothing but his jeans and a towel around his shoulders, his face half shaved and shaving cream still sticking to one side.

“Shush!” he pleads. “And they’re Batman boxers, thank you very much.” But then he blinks and takes me in—me, Jess, his friend, is standing in her own hotel room again. His eyes go wide. “Oh no, did something else happen? Did that monster of a girl—” I hold up a hand and he quiets down. “I think you need to apologize to her.”

“Me? To her?”

“I know you, you dolt,” I remind him. “You like her.”

“Her? Why on earth would I like that—”

“Ethan.”

His shoulders sag. There are plenty of things Ethan Tanaka can do. But the one thing he can’t do is lie to me, his best friend. And I can’t lie to him. “Come here,” I mutter, and I pull him into a hug even though I only reach up to his chest. I tell him about the plan Imogen and I have come up with to get my script back—or at least to expose Vance for the thief he is—and Ethan nods quietly as I explain what he has to do, which is also very important.

“You need me to…work the lights,” he clarifies.

“Elle will distract the tech guy and you, wearing a black shirt, will just squeeze into the booth and hijack the lights.”

“But I don’t have a black shirt,” he says helplessly. He begins to scratch at the side of his face still covered with shaving cream and then stops himself.

I hurry over to my suitcase, pull out a black shirt, and hold it up to his torso. It’s a women’s medium, so it should easily fit over his scrawny shoulders. “It might be a little short, but it’ll have to do.”

“Is this punishment for being mean to Imogen?”

“Yes,” I reply happily, shoving the shirt into his chest, “it is. Now finish shaving and go change.”

Imogen