I told her that Holden said this was “the beginning of a beautiful friendship.”

All the while, Wynezra’s face was a panorama of overacted expressions—from bliss, to outrage, to horror—all the way to Holden’s “beautiful friendship” comment, which seemed to defuse the nerve endings in her face.

“Casablanca?” she said. “He quoted Casablanca?”

I was kind of impressed she even knew what Casablanca was.

“Yeah?” I said. “I guess? Is that bad?”

“Well, it wouldn’t be bad if he said, ‘Here’s looking at you, kid.’ But he said, ‘This is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.’ That’s what Humphrey Bogart says to the cop. I don’t wanna be the cop! I wanna be Ingrid Bergman!”

“I think you’re reading too much into Holden’s pop culture references. Honestly, I don’t think he’s even seen Casablanca. He probably saw it referenced in an episode of Family Guy.”

“Oh,” said Wynezra. She nodded hopefully. Enthusiastically. “Yeah. Okay.”

“So are we on the same page with this story?”

Wynezra nodded. Again, enthusiastically.

“Are you going to freak out on Holden and run off like a crazy person the next time he tries to talk to you?”

Wynezra blushed. I’d never seen her blush before, but she wasn’t her anymore, she was me. The pasty complexion of Ezra Slevin was the perfect palette for my cardiovascular system to turn my face into a fucking billboard for my embarrassment. It was bizarre witnessing it in the third person.

“Are you?” I persisted.

“I had a boner,” she blurted out.

“What?”

“Multiple boners. Like, every single time he tried to talk to me—boing! There it was, pitching a tent in my pants. I had no choice. I had to run.”

I felt it in my gut. Pulling at the corners of my face. It took every fiber of willpower in my entire being not to…

… not to…

Nope. The willpower was gone.

I started giggling.

“Hey!” said Wynezra. “It’s not funny!”

I started full-on laughing. And apparently, a facet of Wynonna’s laughter was snorting. I snorted.

“You suck,” said Wynezra. “I hate you.”

I started crying.

I didn’t leave Wynezra completely high and dry. The dick-owning gender had had millennia to adapt to the great wonders and inconveniences of the dick. And as a dick-owner—well, time-share-owner these days—I had picked up a few tricks.

“You tuck it under your waistband,” I said.

“You what?” said Wynezra. “How?”

“Very sneakily. Like a ninja. You just slip your hand in, grab the rod, and slide it under your belt.”

Wynezra looked astronomically skeptical. “That sounds complicated.”

“Not as complicated as explaining to your crush why you have the Tower of Pisa in your pants.”

Wynezra considered this. Nodded thoughtfully. “Duly noted.”

“But there are also preventative measures.”

“Preventative measures? Why didn’t you start with that?”

“Well, these measures are often frowned upon.”

“Jesus Christ. Frowned upon by who?”