“Zeke!” shrieks Yasmin.
“We get the picture,” I interrupt, holding up a hand before they spiral out of control again with this nauseatingly cute bickering. “You’ve been busy. I assure you that I do not need the details.”
Zeke shrugs and goes back to chopping. “Suit yourself. That’s the fun stuff, though.”
I pinch Yasmin in the ribs. “I can’t believe you kept me in the dark, you little skank.”
She laughs and knocks my hand aside. “I really am sorry. I was gonna tell you, I swear. I just needed to get a handle on things first.”
We both pretend not to hear Zeke muttering, “Oh, you got a handle on it alright.Severalhandles.”
Fixing her hair, Yas looks at me. “What’s up with you, though? You’re not usually the type to jump straight to the worst-case scenario. Is something wrong?”
I consider not telling her, but since we’ve already opened this can of worms, I figure a little SparkNotes version can’t hurt. I give her a brief rundown on the fiasco at Olympus and the strange lack of a response at Frank’s trailer.
“Okay, so just work stuff,” she summarizes.
“Well, yes and no,” I hedge.
“Uh-oh. What’s that mean?”
Zeke turns to face us again as the aroma of garlic fills the air. “It means Bastian probably has his panties in the most extreme of twists.”
“I mean, it’s construction,” Yasmin objects. “Delays happen all the time, right?”
Zeke’s grin stays firmly in place, though, and the more Yasmin looks between it and my reddening face, the more she starts to understand. “Oh.Oh.You mean… It’s notjustwork stuff, is it?”
I look down at my lap, though that doesn’t do much to hide my cheeks, which are roughly the temperature of the surface of the sun. “It might be a teensy bit more than work stuff.”
“Teensy bit?” Yasmin’s eyebrows fly off her face. “El… Time to spill.”
“We kissed,” I say. “That’s it.”
“That’sit?”
“Okay, fine. He also… may have…” I gesture downward toward my lap. “What’d Zeke call it?”
Zeke’s eyes go wide. “No fucking way. Hand stuff?!”
“But like, barely!” I cry out. “The whole thing was bizarre. He just, like, showed up at my house, and we went to the lake to watch the sunrise, because it was on my bucket list, which he stole off my desk, because personal boundaries are not a thing for him, and then there was coffee, and blankets, and I don’t even know how it happened but all the sudden we were kissing, and the sun was so pretty, and then his hand was in my pants, and?—
“Stop.” Yasmin holds up both hands, laughing hard enough for tears to roll down her cheeks. “Oh my God, El. You totally buried the lede!”
“When did this happen?” Zeke asks. He couldn’t possibly look more delighted.
“Tuesday morning. Like, crack-of-dawn Tuesday morning.”
Yasmin says, “So who was keeping who in the dark, missy?!”
“You were busy getting your own hand stuff!”
“True,” Zeke acknowledges. “In an Uber, no less. The depravity.”
“Okay, okay, enough,” I say, waving my hands to bring this whole dog-and-pony show to a screeching halt. “Can we pleasestop talking about my sex life—or lack thereof—and focus on literally anything else? Please?Please?”
But my voice cracks on the last word. Both of them go quiet.
Yasmin reaches over and pulls my hand into her lap. “El… are you okay?”
