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“Why?”

She huffed. “Don’t you have somewhere else to be?”

Of course I did. The ball field. The farm. Hell, I’d take Saturday detentions with Mr. Lederman again over this, and yet…irritating her was second nature. “Nope. My whole night is free just to bother you.”

She kept her eyes down. “If I leave Lauryn alone at a party, she goes full on Lin-Manuel. Turns the party into her own performance.”

Lauryn.

I thought Bunny-Cat Girl looked familiar.

“Isn’t that more your angle?” I asked. A Crowley would never pass up the opportunity to take center stage.

“No. I don’t like the spotlight,” she said almost too softly for me to hear.

Ha. Sure. “I seem to remember you twirling your way up and down Main Street in a tutu. You used to say you’d be a principal in Swan Lake someday.”

“I was seven.”

“And?”

“That was also the year I said I wanted to be a professional ice cream scooper.”

The same year I wanted to be Batman. Still mourning that one. “I heard someone say something about Rocky Road in the freezer a few minutes ago.” I waved her on toward the house. “Don’t let someone like me get in the way of your dreams, Crowley.”

She started to laugh and then turned it into a cough. “News flash: I’m allowed to change my mind about what I want. Anyone is.”

Fair enough. “I figured it was wired into your Crowley DNA or something. Craving attention—”

“Just because I’m a Crowley…ugh. Never mind.” She twisted her swing away from me.

I could’ve gone inside then. Could’ve kept arguing with some dude dressed as Frodo about how much the Red Sox sucked, but annoying Eliza Crowley when I was in town was tradition.

Who was I to break with tradition?

Plus, this was a different side than I had seen before. Ms. Goody-Goody was now a puzzle. And I hated puzzles with missing pieces.

“What game are you playing on your phone that’s so interesting?” I stood and leaned over her, but she pressed her phone against her chest.

“I’m reading a lighting manual.”

“A lighting manual?” I dropped back into my swing.

Who was this girl?

She pinched her lips together before saying quickly, “For Romeo and Juliet at the Lyric.”

“Seriously?” I laughed. “Of all the plays to pick, they picked that one? For this summer?”

“Meaning?” She twisted her swing to face me.

“It’s pretty ironic. Our families facing off…‘Two households, both alike,’ blah blah blah.”

She rolled her eyes and went back to reading on her phone.

I dug my feet into the freshly cut grass. A few fireflies blinked nearby. “So…you’re really in the booth and not on the stage?”

She kept her head down. “Is it really that surprising?”