After his first bite, Marley wrapped her braid around her pinkie. “Go on, Nicky. Tell us what Ollie’s hate tastes like. Is it…” She paused to raise her eyebrows. “Sweet?” Only Marley could make an awkward situation unbearable and enjoyable all at once.

Nick didn’t give an answer.

Marley sauntered out of the kitchen with a laugh, leaving us to chew our Pop-Tarts in silence. I finished my half. Nick finished his. He used his hands to dust up the crumbs we’d shed, then crumpled up the pouch and threw it away.

“I still liked it,” he told me when he came back to his seat.

It took me a full thirty-six ticks of the birdhouse clock to decide what I thought that meant. What Ruby told me about feelings became more than an idea. They didn’t lasso my throat, though. Instead, my heart outgrew my chest, but it couldn’t break through, so it pounded against my rib cage, furious and unruly, demanding some kind of action I was nowhere near ready to take.

“Quick,” he said. “Be a chair!”

We played this game every so often. Usually when we didn’t know what else to do. I stepped down from my actual chair and then bent at my knees and hips, extending my arms forward to be a human chair. After a few seconds, I came back with, “Quick! Be a lamp!”

Nick stepped away from his seat and stood stock straight with his arms pinned to his sides. “Quick! Be a paper towel!” he told me.

The goal was always to start easy and keep going until the objects got more and more obscure. He’d taken a major leap between lamp and paper towel, but I gave it my best effort. There wasn’t really a way to lose, anyway. I lay down on the kitchen floor face-first, spreading myself out as much as possible.

“I see it, I see it,” he assured.

“Quick! Be a pen cap!” I called out.

Marley returned, right as Nick began folding himself in half, his fingers reaching for his toes. “You guys are so weird,” she said. She’d taken down her braid and put on her bikini, cherry red like her nails. Fire against her icy skin. “Go get dressed. We’ve got stuff to do.”

I stood. Dusted off the Pop-Tart crumbs on my chest.

“I can’t believe you were face-first on this gross floor,” Marley said as Nick and I headed toward her bedroom.

“She doesn’t know what it takes to be a paper towel,” Nick whispered, saving me from all-consuming embarrassment.