“Are you studying or trying to join Jubi in the music program?” Nikki asks a little too loud, which makes the librarian shush us. It also makes Ty Williams look up from the table next to us. She glances over to make sure he’s looking and then pulls out her ponytail, letting her dark brown hair fall perfectly against her tan skin.

“Hey, Nikki,” he says, sliding his chair back so he’s closer to our table.

“Hey, Ty,” she says, trying not to grin.

Jayla says Ty has been in not-so-secret love with Nikki since the fourth grade and she’s been in not-so-secret love with him right back, but since they both vaguely pretend otherwise, we just go along with it. Nikki flicks his hat off, and he makes a big show of scooping it up and dusting it off before shoving it back on his head.

“You’re lucky you’re cute, Hartley.” And Nikki seems to swoon a little at the sound of her last name coming from his lips.

Jayla groans, ruining the moment. “This test is a third of our grade. How are you guys not freaking out?”

“It’ll be fine.” I sneak a peanut butter cup out of my bag and shove it into my mouth. “Relax.”

“Easy for you to say—we can’t all be musical prodigies destined to tour the world until we settle down to inherit publishing lines,” Nikki says.

I shake my head. “If you think there’s money in cellos or comics, you’re nuts.”

“Uh-huh, tell that to Marvel,” Jayla says, casually holding up her Captain America folder and fanning herself with it.

I laugh as I flip to the next page of the study guide. “Verona Comics is hardly Marvel.”

Sure, between Vera’s freelance art jobs, the comic line she puts out, and the store, she does okay. Plus, my mom’s real estate job has finally been picking up. But we’re not Marvel level. We’re not even Jayla level, where her parents can keep twenty dollars in a drawer for her at all times, replacing it whenever she takes it. We’re just . . . okay. There’s not really anything left over, but the bills are paid. Before Vera came along, though, we weren’t on half as solid footing as we’re starting to be on now. Like, there were a lot of postdated checks to my music teachers, and we pretty much lived off pasta and pancakes.

Nikki pulls out her notebook and starts studying too, and other than Ty asking to borrow a pencil—despite the fact that I saw him with one right before Nikki walked in—we settle into a comfortable silence while we read.