‘You look so pretty tonight,’ said Finn, touching my cheek.
His gaze was mesmerizing, and I had the sudden urge to throw myself at him. He was so handsome, so enchanting. Sofun.
But what if this was just a magic trick, too? What if that wasn’t at all what I wanted, and I was just going along with whatever was easy? Because that’s what a life with Finn would be like. Easy … but easy to a fault.
Then again, would that be so bad?
I thought about Mom and Dad’s bickering over the agency, about the challenges that Tiff was having with Damien. Easy sounded nice right now.
But it wouldn’t be easy, would it? Because choosing Finn meant not choosing Noah, and that meant hurting the Tucker brother who felt everything so deeply. And whatever happened, I didn’t want to hurt either of them.
My thoughts were interrupted by Rosie’s voice, which came in through the still-open door.
‘Finn! We’ve hit the point of the night where we do ill-advised acoustic karaoke! Bring your guitar!’
‘No,’ moaned Finn quietly. ‘But I’m engaged in questionable behaviour with a beautiful young lady.’
‘You are not,’ I said, giving him a shove. ‘And you know better than to say anything that might end up on a whisperwind.’
He propped himself up on his elbow. ‘Are you up for some singing? Because we could do a duet.’
‘Never,’ I said firmly. ‘Actually … I think I have a bit of a headache coming on. I’ll meet you back out there later?’
All right, so the headache had been a lie, and one I’d shamelessly stolen from Noah. But itwasa good way of removing myself from an awkward social situation. I just needed a fewminutes to sort myself out. Once the others had stumbled through a few karaoke songs and a few more drinks, everything would be back to normal.
Back in my bedroom, I pulled out Josephine’s diary, flipping through the pages until I landed on the now-familiar line:You only get so many chances to tell someone how you feel.
‘C’mon, Josephine,’ I muttered. ‘Give me some diary wisdom.’
She did, but not until after I’d shed a literal tear on the pages. And a smudge of eyeliner.
The book crackled with magic, and I frowned as the page darkened to reveal a few letters, and then words:
It’s better to choose wrongthan not at all.
‘You’re not helping, Josephine,’ I muttered. ‘Can you tell mewhoto choose at least?’
The diary was silent, even when I flipped the pages back and forth and gave the volume a shake.
I set the diary aside and moped some more before pulling out my phone to text my dad some memes of ducks with stick-figure arms and legs drawn on them. Dad always appreciated lo-fi art. And he never failed to make me laugh.
Give me terrible Photoshop over AI slop any day,he texted in response to a bear I’d sent him with cartoonishly large human eyes and teeth photoshopped on.
Don’t tell that new client of yours, I replied.They do AI stuff, right?
He sent me a vomiting face and a gif of Burn-it-Down Elmo.Can you believe they’re called AI-land, pronounced ‘island’? No wonder they need a creative team.
I was chuckling at that when my door cracked open.
‘Ah, there you are,’ said Lara, flopping down into the fuzzy white armchair in the corner. Cleo tiptoed in after her. ‘You did a Rory Gilmore and went running off. I figured I’d give you ten minutes and then come see what the drama was about.’
‘The drama is boys,’ I groaned.
‘Let me guess: you can’t choose between Dean and Jess?’
I huffed. ‘The choice between Dean and Jess waseasy. This is on another level. Plus, I’m no Rory. She knew what she wanted.’
Lara chuckled. ‘I think we need to rewatchGilmore Girls, because that is a wilful misreading of the text. Also, justice for Lane Kim.’
