Pretty soon, I’m drawn into the pink fizz that is Tai’s glee, and we’re in fits of giggles ordering a second round, and I feel my face burning, but not in an unpleasant way, and I see two men—boys? strapping Viloki youths?—staring at Tai from all the way down the bar. It’s so dark, and my head’s swimming, so they just look like boy shapes, but then she’s waving, and they’re sliding down to sit by us just as she cackles and fidgets with the lace bra (A crop top, dahling) under her coat, and her nipples may or may not be visible, and the boys (men?) are greeting us in English.

“Hello, gentlemen,” Tai replies in a Vilosh purr. Both are comically handsome—attracting long looks from the entire bar—but in different ways. The familiar one who initiated the move over has movie-star looks but also a certain cockiness to him that I find unappealing (he’s too pretty and knows it), but I guarantee Tai likes it. The other hasn’t looked at either of us once and seems to be skeptical about—if not displeased by—his friend’s choice to move near us, and he has superlong eyelashes that I can’t see his eyes through since he’s looking down and the bar light has suddenly dimmed enough to just barely melt over his cheekbones. He’s got some freckles, and I can smell something like … I don’t know, clean skin and grass, plus something sweeter and milkier, and even though I’m disturbed by myself as I do it, I find myself breathing in deep and—

“Linos,” I hear whispered. Behind me. I twirl hard and see a girl pointing toward me, toward Tai, toward the cocky guy, who is, of course—

Linos. Oh. It’s disorienting to see him in person—I only ever see him on the page, really, and on the screen. I’d never admit it to Tai, but I secretly follow one of his fan accounts, just to see if I’ll glimpse her, to gain some insight into her sparkling life while I eat Aunt Marion’s no-bean chili under a stained bedspread in my cave-like bedroom at home.

“Did we come here for him?” I mutter to Tai.

“I’m Natasha,” Tai says in lightly Russian-accented English, “and this is my twin sister, Dazdrasmygda.”

“What—” I start to ask, bemused, just as Tai grips my knee so hard under the table that I yelp.

Role-playing, she said at the apartment. I reach up and tug on one strand of my blue wig. Is this some weird sexual game she and Linos play? Or—

“Nice wig,” Linos says—with a tinge of haughty criticism—just as some live jazz swells in a far corner of the room.

Tai bats her lashes. “But you love a wholesome Russian girl, don’t you?”