“Shit,” he said. “My friend is outside. I totally forgot. I asked him to meet me here.”

And Zoe said, “Dude, I think you have a codependence problem.”

And Ezra said, “What? No.” Then he scanned the photos until he found Gregory with Alec Barstow, hockey star and internet-ordained officiant.

“Look, I have to go to my post,” Zoe said.

Ezra took stock of the blackboard. Each team had evidently taken a series of photos around campus. But his and Frankie’s petered out after only two. There was the one of them at the start, the uncomfortable one. Then there was one that he must have taken of the two of them. Inexplicably, Frankie kissing him. Or him kissing her. Kissing her! His eyes were closed, the angle suggesting that his arm was extended, and the whole thing was a little blurry, but even still, he could see her staring at the camera—at the lens—as if to say, Just because I’m doing this doesn’t mean anything. Then Ezra remembered the mistletoe, which not even a few minutes ago he was certain he wouldn’t have gone along with. He peered more closely at the photo: What if Zoe were right? What if he was a cheater? What if all it took was some Portland booze, a miscalculation with an antianxiety pill, and the unfortunate luck to be paired with Frankie for him to forget Mimi altogether?

Ezra felt his breath leave his body for the third time today.

The other teams had seemingly returned to Burton with a stack of photos—evidence, he assumed, that they’d completed the hunt, that they were still in it to win it.

Beside him, he saw Zoe, still not having yet ditched him, inch her nose toward the incriminating photo, then peer toward the doorframe. Then she pointed: “Ah. I was wondering who hung that all over the building. Because it sure as shit wasn’t me.” She shook her head. “This notion of romance on New Year’s Eve, that we can’t be alone for the holiday or for, like, the turn of the century, is so outdated. Kissing at midnight. Preposterous.” She flopped her shoulders and headed toward the exit. “Anyway, my dude, best of luck with this triangle you have going on, for which you have no responsibility.”

Ezra tried to refute her, but only a strangled sort of moan left his mouth.

“Listen,” she added, “it’s New Year’s Eve. Cliché as this may be, it might be time for a reckoning.”

He started to protest; he held up a flaccid hand then let it drop. Zoe met his eyes, and something passed between them, a challenge. He dropped his gaze to the floor, and she clucked as if to say, Exactly what I thought, and then disappeared around the corner. Gone.

TWENTY-THREE

Frankie

Frankie had sat with the stillness of the pool for as long as she could stand it, and then a little longer because she knew that the quiet was important, was necessary, and too often, she was running from that serenity. She pulled her toes out, wrinkled and pruned by now, and discovered that within the solitude, she had been able to piece together more about the evening than she’d known when she started.