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She walks out from behind the counter and heads down one of the crowded aisles. When I don’t immediately follow, she turns and beckons me with the wave of her hand.

“Good date?” I ask, remembering her plans with Zee as she heads for the tiny office.

She flings open the door, revealing the desk that occupies three-quarters of the space. I have no idea how she managed to get it in there in the first place.

“Zee is an interesting guy. We don’t have a lot in common. I can’t see this lasting all that much longer, but my god, the sex. I swear we were at it for like six hours last night. I was fully convinced that I was going to be walking funny this morning, but you didn’t notice, did you?” She pulls a gym bag from one of the drawers, sets it on the desk, and looks up. “Sorry, was that too much?”

She pauses a moment but doesn’t wait for my answer. “I know I have this problem where I say exactly what I’m thinking without actually thinking it all the way through. I can usually tell I’ve done it after the fact when people give me…” She points at me. “Well, the same look you’re giving me right now.” She pulls out a stick of deodorant, removes the lid, and applies it under her shirt.

“It’s fine,” I answer, and she smiles.

“Good.” She removes her shirt and exchanges it for one from the bag. “But I don’t think you’re here to talk about me.”

She shuffles past me, now fully dressed and holding a toothbrush. She opens a tiny door, which I never noticed before, to reveal a very small bathroom with a toilet and sink.

As she squeezes paste onto her brush, I consider the best way to sum up the last twenty-four hours. “I think you were right, and I might be developing feelings for Mackenzie that aren’t strictly platonic.”

She spits a mouthful of toothpaste into the sink and looks up, her eyes meeting mine in the mirror. “I don’t think that’s the shocker you think it is, Lise.”

She rinses her mouth and wipes it with a towel, then turns and gives me her full attention. “So, what exactly has happened between you two?”

I think about last night. The roof. The couch. The cake. How I went from perfectly functional to practically feral in the bathroom this morning.

“I don’t know. We hung out yesterday and had a really fun time, but I can’t tell if it was just a normal fun time or something else. Then this morning, he was wet, and I was wet, and I thought there might be something happening between us, but, well…you saw. I am not sure if I’m sending the wrong signals or the right ones or if I even want to be sending signals at all.”

She cocks her head to the side. “Okay, but you like him, right?”

I nod. “I think so? I don’t know. Yes?”

She steps past me out of the bathroom into the store. “And do you think he likes you?”

I shrug, having asked myself the same thing with no conclusive answer. “When we talk…it feels like he’s really listening, you know? And he smiles all the time, but I think he does that with pretty much everyone. You should see how he charms that redheaded barista at Nana’s.”

Koko raises a brow. “The little angry one?”

“Yes.” I let out a long groan.

“I get where you’re coming from. The man is charming.” Koko leads us back to the counter and picks up her coffee.

“But how does it feel when you’re around him? Do you ever pick up on some…I don’t know…vibe that says…yup, something is happening between us?”

On the couch, when he was looking at my lips. This morning, on the bathroom floor.

I shake my head. “If I picked up on anything, it would be my confirmation bias—seeing what I want to see.”

Koko shakes her head. “Do me a favor and shut the science brain off for a few minutes.”

I nod, even though what she’s asking is impossible.

“You like him,” Koko says as if confirming. “What is the worst that can happen if you tell him how you feel?”

My mind filters through a dozen terrible outcomes. “He laughs in my face.”

Koko rolls her eyes. “I literally watched the guy help an old lady cross the street yesterday. You know that’s not going to happen. Realistic worst case?”

I know what it is. I’ve pictured it. “He avoids me for weeks because I get the sense that he hates any sort of confrontation, and therefore we live in awkward silence until I leave for school in January, or worse, it gets so weird that he breaks the lease and leaves me without a subletter.”

Koko tilts her head. “I know what he’s paying in rent for that room. He’s not going to leave. But you’re right. The worst case is probably a couple of weeks of awkward kitchen encounters, and then you’ll both move on.”