“I don’t know,” I say, slouching in my favorite booth at the fro-yo shop. Jayla is supposed to be behind the counter, but she’s commandeered the seat across from me to tackle her homework.

“Well, I can’t answer you if I don’t know all the variables!”

“Oh my god, fine, yes, they can get multiple flavors of yogurt and as many toppings as they want. Happy now?”

“Okay.” Jayla sighs and flips the page over in her notebook. “Okay, this I can work with.”

I laugh and slide out of my seat, going back behind the counter. Ten minutes to close means it’s time to start wiping down the counters and pulling the toppings, and if she’s too busy doing math homework, then I’m going to have to be the one to do it.

If the owner ever discovers that I help Jayla out sometimes, they will possibly kill me and definitely fire her. But it’s March and it’s dead here, which generally means that anybody wandering into this sad little fro-yo shop doesn’t care who’s doing the serving as long as the lights are on and the topping bar’s filled.

There are fourteen flavors of frozen yogurt and seventeen toppings, and I suck at factorials, but Mr. Lucas is apparently giving extra credit to whoever can come up with the most complicated real-world math problem in his class. I guess figuring out how many combinations of yogurt and toppings exist counts as a “real-world” problem. I could be wrong, though; she’s in a different math class than me.

I wipe down all the counters and hope Jayla doesn’t go back to asking what I know she’s dying to. I scrub the counter a little harder, frowning as I rub at a spot of hot fudge that probably dried on hours ago.

“So, real talk, what’s the deal with you and the new kid?” she asks, glancing up from her notebook like she could hear my thoughts.

“No deal,” I say, taking the tray of hot fudge and carrying it back to the fridge now that the lip is clean.

“Jubilee, come on. You’re practically living at the shop now. And every time I walk in, you guys are making eyes at each other from across the store.”

“We are not.”

“You are! You’re my best friend, and it’s like you’ve fallen off the face of the earth.”

“I’m not intentionally blowing you off, I swear.” I wipe a few stray sprinkles off the counter and toss them in the garbage.

Jayla sighs. “You got like this with Dakota too. You crawl inside your little relationship bubble with your boyfriend, and it’s like no one else matters.”

“Ridley isn’t my boyfriend.”

“Are you sure? Because from the outside, it really seems like you both want him to be.”