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“That’s enough.”

"How are things? With Adam. Since the store?"

"Good." I pulled a weed that had no business being in the bed and set it aside. "We had lunch. Just us, no James, day before yesterday."

She looked up at that. "Where?"

"He picked me up and we drove out toward the Foothills Parkway. There's a little place out there, nothing fancy, good sandwiches, the kind of view that does half the work for you."

"And?"

"And it was easy," I said. "That's the thing about it, Chloe. It's just…easy. Like we've been doing this for a while." My twin absorbed this the way she absorbed most things that mattered between us.

“And?”

“We’re going out tomorrow night.” I kept my eyes on the flowerbed. "Renzo and Millie are taking him."

The pause that followed was perfectly calibrated.

"So it's a real date," Chloe said.

"It's a real date."

She set her trowel down and turned to look at me fully, with the expression that meant she was done being oblique. "Zoe."

"Don't."

"I'm not doing anything."

"You're about to do something."

"I'm simply asking," Chloe said, with great patience, "whether you've thought about what happens at the end of a real date. When Renzo and Millie have James. When there's no reason for anyone to be anywhere in particular."

I opened my mouth.

The back door opened and Angelica came out with a tray, three glasses, a pitcher of lemonade with actual mint in it because Angelica did not do anything halfway, and an expression that said she knew she’d been in the kitchen for exactly long enough to miss something.

"What did I miss?"

"Nothing," I said.

"She was about to tell me something," Chloe said.

Angelica set the tray down on the garden table and poured with great efficiency. "Tell me everything."

I looked between the two of them. Chloe, who had known me since before either of us knew what knowing someone meant. Angelica, who could read a room the way other people read large-print books.

"I was not about to tell you anything," I said.

"She has a big date tomorrow," Chloe offered.

"Oh, I know," Angelica said. " Millie texted me. James is very excited about staying over. Apparently, he's been told there will be ice cream after dinner, which Renzo is going to regret at approximately nine o'clock. I’ve been thrown over." She settled into her chair, picked up her lemonade, and leveled me with a look of exquisite patience. "So. Are you going to sleep with him?"

"Angelica—"

"Because if you are," she continued, as though I hadn't spoken, "I have opinions about the boots."

"There are no boots involved."