"He's such an ass. He can't just say 'I love you, Valerie, I'll wait forever' when he fucked my best friend and took a mega-hot mega-rich giant on a date at my work. And then accuse me of kissing you because he kissed Sydney, which like, was maybe true, but how does he have the fucking audacity to say so. How does anyone have balls that fucking big to think that is even in the realm of acceptable behaviour? I'm not saying I'm the epitome of the moral high ground, but he isn't even at sea level for high ground. He's in hell. That is where he sits in terms of morality. Maybe not the lowest circle of hell, because that is reserved for murderers and pedophiles and anyone who still wears crocs, but still pretty firmly somewhere that means he has no fucking right to lecture me about anything, ever. He basically told me to grow up, which is funny, because he is an ass who should know he doesn't deserve a fucking opinion!"

So, at the restaurant, I may have been zen. Well-adjusted. Slightly sad, but not really angry. I thought anger had deserted me. I thought I was some higher enlightened being who could teach classes on how to master in peace. Maybe open a yoga studio.

With the way Will and Kai are staring at me, after I burst through Kai's bedroom door without a greeting, like I grew a second head and announced I'd had a quick tumble with Shrek, I clearly was not exuding chill and calming vibes anymore.

"Good evening, Valerie," said Will politely, his legs thrown across the top of Kai's duvet, a remote control in hand. "And how was your day? I had a really nice burrito for lunch, personally."

Kai grinned at his friend. He was sitting on the bed beside him, his legs folded and his knee against Will's hip. "Hi, Little Valerie. You look cute in your waitressing outfit." Will rolled his eyes. Kai patted the sliver of space next to him. "Come sit, tell us about your troubles."

My troubles? After Lena had left the restaurant, her words mingling with Tommy's, I realised I couldn't be sad. Tommy had basically accused me of copying him, doing exactly what he had done to me in return. Kai and I had a plan; a kiss at a party, a little public, flirting at school, and then a very public date. That would look like copying; that was so clearly copying that Tommy would lose all respect for the legitimacy of my relationship with Kai.

I had to talk to Kai; we had to change the plan. I had wreak emotional destruction on my ex-boyfriend. Because fuck him.

I obligingly took the tiny space beside Kai, kicking off my shoes and tangling my legs with his, so that I didn't fall off the bed. I liked the feeling of his body against me. He was warm, and lean, and even though Will was here, and there was no reason for it, because Tommy and Sydney would never know, I kind of wanted to nibble on the juncture between his neck and the slope of his shoulder.

Kai stroked my leg absently. It made me shiver through the black pants of my work uniform. "What happened?"

"Are you guys playing Wii Sports?"

On the screen, two Mii's were shifting their weight from foot to foot with tennis racquets in hand.

Will held up his controller. "Yep. Seb is convinced he is the greatest player of all time, so we're training to beat him." He looked mournfully at the controller. "Unfortunately, I suck."

"I'm the best of all time, so I can smoke Seb if you need," Isabelle called through the wall near Will. I looked at the peeling plaster dividing Kai's bedroom from Isabelle's. Her voice rang through, clear and distinct.

"Thin walls," Kai explained.

"Which wouldn't be a problem," said Will. "If Izzy wasn't such a shameless eavesdropper." He banged on the wall next to him, and I could hear Izzy laugh.

She didn't refute the claims. "Hi, Valerie!" she called.

"Hey, Iz!"

"Tommy is an ass! But I thought your rant was very fun!"

"Thanks, Iz!" I looked back to Kai and Will, both of whom seemed equal parts terrified and entertained. "Speaking of, hey, what the fuck, right? Like, I consider myself to be an understanding person, on the whole. But I would say that fucking your girlfriend's best friend and then going on a date two weeks later at her place of employment is objectively an asshole move, right? Like he doesn't get to make me feel bad about anything in that situation? Right?" Kai is just staring at me, a small lift to the corner of his lips that I thought about kissing, just momentarily. "Right?"

A dimple appeared in Kai's cheek, playing peekaboo. I hadn't realised until that moment that he had dimples. He threw the Wii remote onto the cover beside him and used his free hand to rest one finger beneath my chin, tilting it upward so that I was looking him directly in the eyes. My breath hitched. His face was all elegant bones and sharp features, handsome in an almost delicate way, and his eyes were joyful and his smile was quick to form. He was looking at me now with something almost like surprise. Wonder, maybe. Like he had never seen me before in his life.

"Right?" I whispered.

"Right," Will said drily. He chucked his remote next to Kai's and shifted his weight off the bed, getting off the bed as if it were on fire. "I'm going to uh, go annoy Isabelle."

"Sounds fun!" Izzy called. "I'm watching Love Island!"

Will looked skyward as if praying. "Stop eavesdropping, Isabelle!" he said.

"I would never," she yelled back. "Anyway, hurry up. Michael and Becky are about to make out in front of Sharon."

Will looked at Kai. "Couldn't miss that."

As he sauntered from the room, he grabbed the doorframe, in the way that tall boys seemed to do reflexively. He looked back briefly, winking at us, before disappearing into the hall. Kai and I were silent for long enough to hear Isabelle's cheerful greeting and Will's answer that was equal parts fondness and exasperation.

Then he turned back to me. "Keep going," he said.

"What?"

Kai leaned back against the pillows. "Complain about Aster. I don't mind."

I blinked. "Well, okay."

He folded his hands behind his head. It made his shirt ride up, exposing a strip of skin beneath, and I wanted to lick it, but that seemed like a bad idea. Clearly, being used to frequent sex over the past two years and going cold turkey had left me unbelievably horny. Fun. Although I can't ever remember the sight of Tommy's stomach making my own flutter. I tore my eyes away, and valiantly tried not to think about skin or tongues in any context other than flaying or ripping them out, specifically in relation to Tommy.

"So, I couldn't even say everything before because Will was here, but like, accusing me of only kissing you for revenge? What the fuck?"

Kai grinned. "An unreasonable assumption. You would never."

I dismissed him with a flick of my hand. "Okay, but like, how dare he fucking think that? It's like he thinks he deserves an opinion. He had sex with Sydney, which is every league of messed up, and then took the hottest girl I've ever seen in person on a date—and seriously, Lena Montez, the girl Tommy took out, is seventeen years old. I don't know if there's unicorn shit in her skincare, but no teenager deserves to have skin that smooth. It's not character building—but also, Tommy went on a date with her, and he kept looking at me forlornly, and then Madi dumped a pitcher of water on his head, and Lena left him immediately, and it was the best thing I've ever seen in my life, except that he ruined it by coming up to me all self-righteous and soaking wet and it was 'immature' this and 'I love you' that and how dare he."

Kai seemed to be at a loss for words. He was laughing, and the force of his laughter had pitched him forward, so I could feel his breath on my collarbone. It was hot against my skin and yet, it still made me shiver. And I was warm, buoyant with his laughter, as if the sound could send me soaring. He was shaking with his laughter.

I shoved him off me. "It's not funny." But I'm smiling and it's a little sheepish.

"I really fucking like you, Valerie Williams," said Kai, still laughing. "I can't believe I ever didn't know you."

I couldn't believe I ever didn't know him. This boy who laughed when I rambled, who smiled at everything I said, who was so unfailingly optimistic and happy even though everyone pegged him as the kind of guy who was dangerous and edgy because he lived in a small house with walls so thin he could chat to his sister easily through them. I really fucking like you, too, Kai Delaney.

"Now, tell me what you're thinking," he said, tapping my temple. "I can see the cogs working."

"How can you tell?"

"I don't know. I just can."

I lowered my voice. Without the sound of Kai's laugh or my animated ranting, I could hear the faint noise of the TV through the wall—ditzy British accents and over enthusiastic squealing—and snippets of Will's sarcastic tone trading space with Isabelle's cheerful one. Izzy had clearly moved on from eavesdropping.

I met Kai's eyes. They weren't as laughing now, just curious. Everything that Kai felt was always splayed across his face; he was completely honest, completely open. A little bit like Cora, and I wondered if she learned it from him, or if he learned it from her, or if growing up together had twined elements of their personality, just a little bit.

"We have to change the plan," I said in a low voice.

"Why?"

I bit my lip, and I watched Kai track the movement. "Because. If Tommy accused me of kissing you after he kissed Sydney, what would he say if we went on a date together in public right after he took a girl out on a date in public?"

"I see your point."

It was interesting. Even though Will had departed, the other side of the bed was empty. I didn't have enough space, not really. Kai was leaning against the pillows again, his legs stretched out and his hand on my hip, holding me in place. My legs were tucked beneath his, and I was twisted to face him, which pressed half of my side against him. It wasn't comfortable, not really; it had been a position designed to get me on the bed, so that I could fit, not one for relaxing. And yet I didn't dare to shift, in case he decided to move over to give me space. I didn't dare to think about why the thought was so abhorrent to me.

All I knew was that I liked his hand on my hip.

"We could make out again?" Kai offered.

Yes, please. "Is that your solution to every problem?"

Kai considered this. "Well, not when Will asks me to change his tire—" At my unamused look, he looked bashful. "Most things to do with you, maybe."

Kai was a flirt. I knew this. He'd practically told me from the outset that he was a flirt, but he would flirt with no one but me while this arrangement was ongoing. But I had to remember that it didn't mean anything more than it did when he'd once flirted with Sydney. Or the girl from the park. Or all the other girls who were a little bit in love with Kai Delaney.

So I surprised myself when I said, "Okay."

Kai looked taken aback. "What?"

"It seems as good a plan as any," I said, thoughtfully. "I mean, not making out at a party or at school or anything. We kind of already did that, and it made him jealous, but it didn't make him believe. The moment that he was the most mad; the time he really believed it? It was when Jamie told him we'd been sharing a bed at his house. Because it sounded like we were trying to hide it, and Jameson had spilled the beans because he just can't help it. We have to try to hide it."

Kai raised a hand, like he was a pupil in class. "Small problem. Uh, if we hide it, that kind of defeats the purpose of making them jealous." Them. I often forgot that this charade was for Sydney as well. "What's your plan? Make out and leak everything through Jamie like he's the E!News to our Kardashian? Or just make out in a bunch of different locations and hope it gets back to him via osmosis? Because I—" he made a face that was very serious and noble "—would just like to say that I am willing to do that."

I shoved him and he laughed. "No, you ass. I was thinking the Horny Corny?"

The Horny Corny was equally not as bad as it sounded and also kind of exactly as bad as it sounded. At the back of the school, there was a car park partially hidden by an outcropping of trees and boxed in by an old steel gazebo. There was also the added benefit of a vent that released cold air; no one had ever been able to adequately guess what it was for or where the air was coming from. The combination of the gazebo trapping the air in and the vent blasting the A/C meant that the car park was always freezing cold. And when two people were in a car, making sweet, sweet warmth with their bodies and tongues and flaming, steaming hook ups, it fogged up the car windows enough to render the couple nothing but silhouettes, hidden from view. Between trees and foggy windows, it was the ideal school make out spot.

Kai raised his eyebrows. "Valerie, are you suggesting that I have my first time in the back of a car at the Horny Corny? You clearly place no price on my virtue."

I rolled my eyes. "Oh, shut up, it would not be your first time, and we're not banging in the Horny Corny."

He just grinned. "Okay."

"Well, I was just thinking, if we made out a little bit... you have a very distinctive vehicle." By distinctive, I meant that it was a truck, and not a Mercedes or a Porsche. "And I know for a fact that a few kids cut past that car space in the morning. It will look like we're trying to be private—I mean, usually the Horny Corny is private, no one would usually comment on it or know anyone's car well enough to even guess who was in there—but I think with our current drama, people would be interested enough to note Kai Delaney making out with someone in his truck, and they might assume it was me. And then it doesn't look like we're only making out to flaunt it; it looks a little more genuine, like it's happening behind closed doors and not just out in the open for Tommy's benefit..." I hesitated. "What do you think?"

Kai's voice sounded a little distant. "It's a good plan."

"As long as that's, you know, okay with you. You can say no. I don't want you to feel like I'm... pimping you out, or whatever, to, well, to myself, but still. If you don't want to make out with me in a super cold car park, I promise I won't be offended. We can hold hands and walk down a promenade or whatever. I love walking down promenades! I don't really know how it would fit into the plan, but I can totally make the promenade thing work."

Kai grabbed my wrist. "Valerie, I love to be pimped out," he said seriously. His eyes were focussed, piercing. "Especially to you."

He was joking, but there was still something stripped back in his eyes that I couldn't name what it was.

I bumped him with my shoulder. "Thanks, hussy."

He wound a lock of my hair around his finger. "Anytime." He was silent for a moment. "Wanna practise now?"

I shoved him off the bed, and he tipped with a startled laugh and a yelp. I was glad he was on the floor, because it meant he couldn't see my blush, or feel the pattering of my heart, which pulsed in a rhythm that sounded to my ears a little bit like yes.