She shut her eyes, hoping to get at least another half hour of rest before she had to drive again, but the Star formerly known as Ladybug had other plans. A wave of queasiness rocked Zadie. Without a bathroom to escape to, she had only one option. She leaped from her bed and sprinted out the front door, clamping her hand over her mouth. The trash bin of a housekeeping cart was the lucky recipient of her morning sickness. The bin took it admirably, Zadie less so. As she wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, she spotted a man in an orange polo and cargo shorts walking out of the room next to hers with a caddy of miniature soaps and shampoos. He had a thick brown beard and was wearing an olive bucket hat with decorative patches sewn onto it. Only one person Zadie knew wore a hat like that. “Joel?” she gasped.

The man turned toward the sound of his name. Stunned, he lost his grip on the caddy. It crashed to the ground, sending an avalanche of lavender hand soaps tumbling in every direction. Joel clumsily got on his hands and knees and began picking them up.

“Shit. Sorry!” Zadie rushed over to him. “Let me help.”

“It’s cool. I got it,” Joel said with forced nonchalance, but Zadie bent down to help him anyway, scooping up a handful of soaps and placing them back in the caddy.

Joel stole a glance at Zadie and ventured a smile. “It’s really you, huh?”

“More or less,” she replied. “You look the same.” It wasn’t really a compliment, but it wasn’t intended as an insult, either. Joel also seemed unsure of which one it was, but thanked her anyway. “How long has it been?”

Zadie wasn’t surprised he didn’t remember when they had broken up. In the fourteen months they’d dated, Joel had forgotten almost every plan he’d ever made, including his own birthday. “How could you forget your own birthday party?” Zadie had shouted while stabbing a balloon with a needle. It had exploded into fleshy shreds with a loud bang, causing Joel to flinch. What had he done to incur Zadie’s wrath? He had wandered into her apartment only minutes after she’d sent the last of their friends home with a slice of uneaten cake. Confused, Joel had asked earnestly, “Wait. It’s my birthday?” That had made Zadie even angrier, and she popped another ten balloons like she was auditioning for the part of the cannon in the 1812 Overture.

That was the beginning of the end. They broke up eight weeks later, citing irreconcilable differences.

And now here they were, three years older and marveling at how little either of them had changed. “Three years,” Zadie answered. “It’s been three years.”

Joel nodded awkwardly. “Wow. That’s older than Jackson.”

“Who’s Jackson?”