“You kissed her?” he said.

I groaned. “I fucking told you. She doesn’t play fair.”

“I need details,” Dane said, and Ellis said, darker, “So do I.”

“Nope.” I banged my glass on the table. “And if you two ever talk about it, I’m disowning you both. You’re up, Dane.”

He looked at me, then her, his eyes glittering. “Never have I ever fucked anyone at this table.”

Nobody moved. Then Ellis and I reached for shots at the same time.

Dane crowed with glee.

“You are such a guy,” I said, and slammed mine.

Ellis wrinkled her nose and downed hers. She looked poisoned. I was two deep, plus the other drinks, and getting giddy. I brushed my fingertips over her throat, tickling.

“You just drank thirty bucks like it was toilet water.”

“Oh my god. Could you please not.”

Dane watched us avidly, his hands steepled.

“I’ll admit it, Dane. You’re a natural. But I’ve got your number.” I smiled. “Never have I ever received anal sex.”

His eyebrows rose.

He picked up a glass.

“Who was he?” I said, intrigued. “Older, younger? Was he good?”

Dane did the shot and set the glass down. “Which time?”

I giggled. Ellis studied us, her game face on.

“She’s so cute when she’s all thinky.” I traced a finger around her ear, along her jaw. “My pretty little prince.”

“If you’re that drunk, I will graciously accept your surrender.”

“Never.” I slapped the table, rattling the glasses. “To the death.”

Ellis looked regretfully at Dane. “I’m sorry, but: never have I ever jerked off to everyone at this table.”

“Aw, come on.”

We both laughed at him.

“Payback’s a bitch,” I said.

Dane did another shot.

“But the question is,” I said, “did you fantasize about us separately, or together?”

“Let’s head to your hotel and I’ll reenact it for you.”

Ellis turned bright red. I wadded up a napkin and threw it at Dane.

We all laughed, drunk and careless and happy, and I realized with a pang that I hadn’t thought of Blue for a while. The splintery, cracked place in my sternum felt blunted. It was mainly the alcohol but for a second I wanted to hug them both, hard. I slipped my foot behind Ellis’s, linked my ankle with hers. She gave me a private smile.

Dane watched us, not salacious now but thoughtful.

“Your turn, ol’ blue eyes,” I said.

“Never have I ever been in love with someone at this table.”

I stalled. “Not even a little?”

“Sorry, baby. Infatuation doesn’t count.”

Ellis reached for a shot. I took the one next to hers. We glanced at each other.

“I lose,” I said.

We threw our shots back simultaneously. When I lowered my face, she leaned in and kissed me. Once, sweetly, on the lips. It burned through me in a flash of wildfire. Dane didn’t comment—he didn’t even look aroused. He just smiled at us.

What the hell am I doing here? I thought. Why did I come a hundred miles for some stranger when she made me feel like this?

I leaned in and kissed her back, not sweet. Fierce.

When I stopped for breath, dizzy, Dane was gone.

“He went to the bathroom,” Ellis said. Shy-eyed and flustered, adorable.

“Want to get out of here?” I said.

“Shouldn’t we wait for him?”

“He’ll understand.”

In the taxi I sent him a text.

MORGAN: taking a cab to the hotel

MORGAN: meet up tomorrow?

DANE: u bet

DANE: but who won the game??

MORGAN: you did

DANE: hmmm u sure?

DANE: ur taking the hottie to your room

DANE: in my book thats a win

I laughed, and held my phone away from Ellis when she tried to see.

DANE: let me know if u need backup

DANE: I can show u that fantasy red asked about

MORGAN: you’re a pig

MORGAN: I’m blocking your number

DANE: ;)

DANE: have a nice night baby

Ellis wrestled for my phone, convinced Dane was mocking her. We sprawled across the backseat and I tickled her elbows and knees till she pulled my hair and we collapsed together, laughing, then falling quiet. Streetlights swept over us, amber into violet into amber.

The things I want to do to you, my prince.

Sixteen floors up, Boston was a diorama of tiny toy cars and boats, miniature lights, electric filigree. I’d paid a mint for a suite overlooking the harbor, with its own private terrace. In the twilight the gilt and porcelain looked palatial.

“This is like some fairy tale.” I stepped outside. Cold, the wind tangy with brine. “None of this seems real.”

Ellis leaned on the railing, gazing at the water. “I know.”

“You seem real. Are you?”

She didn’t answer.

I moved behind her, slid my arms around her waist. Kissed the bare nape of her neck, hot lips on cool skin. Exhaled into her short hair. There was something both masculine and feminine about her, or neither. The androgynous beauty of youths in myth, the type gods would chase and try to defile, until some other god took pity and turned them into a flower, or a tree.

“What are you doing?” she whispered.

“Mythologizing you.” My mouth moved against her skin. “You’re my favorite subject, Ellis. Your body. Your mind.” I laid a finger at the center of her chest. “Your heart. I miss drawing you. Sometimes my hand moves on its own, a muscle memory. I dream of it. I dream of you in colors that don’t exist.”

Her back arched, her body molding against mine. My palms scaled her ribs till she pressed them still.

“You’re drunk, Vada.”

“Don’t think I mean it?”

“We came here to meet your Internet boyfriend.”

Instantly my mouth went sour. I released her, walked to the other end of the terrace.

“I’m glad he didn’t show,” I said.

My own words startled me. I repeated them.

“I am glad. Fuck him.” I wrapped my fists around the railing as tight as I could. The left was strong, the right watery, ghostly. I’d kill to crack my knuckles. My bad hand always felt like this, one good crack away from being fixed. “We never should’ve come here. This whole time, I’ve been chasing a mirage. A phantom. Because I’m—” Can I actually say this to her? Right now I think I can. “I’m afraid.”

“Of what?”

“You. This. Us.”

She came up beside me, guarded. “You’ve said that before. What do you really mean?”

Salt air in my throat. Blue ocean beyond, licked by the gold flames of harbor lights.

“I mean it terrifies me that the love of my life is a fucking girl.” I didn’t look at her. I spoke to the dusk sky. “You want honesty, right? Well, here you go. I have stupid irrational hang-ups about you. About how people look at us. About how they’ll see me as this, a girl with another girl, without caring who I really am. That there’s more to me. They’ll see a label, not a person.”

“There’s more to me, too. Sometimes you don’t even see it. You see the labels you’ve put on me, instead of what’s really here.”

“You’re right. I—” God, time to cop to how shitty I am. “Ellis, I liked Blue because he’s like you, but a guy, okay? Because that’s how fucking deep it goes for me. I wanted someone easy. Someone who wouldn’t make me question so much about myself, about what’s really inside me. In my head you’ve always been the exception to the rule.”

“What rule?”

“That I’ll turn out normal someday.” I gripped the railing with all my might. “I’m sorry if that makes me a shitty person. It scares me, that I might never love anyone else like this. Makes me wonder if I’ve been lying to myself about who I really am.”

“Maybe I’m lying to myself, too.”

I glanced at her. “How?”

“Sometimes it feels like something inside me is waiting to explode.”

Ryan’s words.

“Who am I, Vada? Who do you see?”

“Ellis Carraway. My best friend.”

“Just your friend.”