Jasmine honest-to-goodness blushes. She is so damn cute. “I hope so,” she says, cutting a look to me.
I wink and force myself toward the line.
When I’m done taking names and sticking them into books, I rejoin Jasmine by the counter and pull her to the side for a little more privacy. “So, to be clear, we’re doing this thing. Right?”
She smirks. “Yes, Tinkerbell. We’re doing this thing.”
“You know your parents know.”
“Oh, I know.”
“Am I ever gonna be invited to sleep over again?”
“If you think I asked either of my parents that, you are out of your damn mind.”
“I am out of my damn mind,” I say, fiddling with her bracelets. “I dumped the most popular guy in school and tomorrow everyone’s gonna know it’s because I’m—I don’t know what I am.” I look at her. “Is that okay? That I don’t know? It’s just—there hasn’t been another girl, ever. I don’t know if I’m bi or if it’s just you or if there’s even a difference, but I don’t really want to own a label until I know.”
“No labels at all?” she asks, arching one of her thick, perfect brows. “How about ‘girlfriend’?”
Girlfriend. It feels so different in Jasmine’s voice than in Chase’s, and it ripples down to my toes. “I can work with ‘girlfriend.’”
“Good.” She cups my face in her hands and kisses me. “Now take me to that graphic novel section you so carefully crafted and tell me more about this hot roommate character.”
“You sure you want me to spoil the ending?” I ask as I lead her to a more private spot to, uh, definitely look at books and nothing else.
Her palm is exquisitely warm as it squeezes mine. “I think we’ve both waited long enough to turn the page in this story, don’t you?”
Acknowledgments
All books are a challenge in their own way, but if I’m being honest, this one was the closest thing to an easy ride I’ve ever had, and that’s unquestionably due to all the people I had in my corner for it.
To my editor, Vicki Lame, thank you for your keen editorial eye and every minute of seeing this book through. Big thanks also to Jennie Conway for your incredible work, kindness, and enthusiasm; Angelica Chong for your greatly appreciated assistance; my dream of a publicist, Meghan Harrington; designer Kerri Resnick and illustrator Claire Allison for an absolutely killer biconic cover; production pros Lauren Hougen, Cathy Turiano, and Anna Gorovoy for getting this book into tip-top shape; the fabulous marketing team of Alexis Neuville, DJ DeSmyter, and Brant Janeway, and everyone involved in Creative Services, Sales, and the School & Library teams for all your magic in spreading the word. It’s no small task to get this all done during a global pandemic, and I couldn’t have asked for a better place to do it.
To DongWon Song, thank you for loving this book the way it was and still pushing me to make it better in the best ways before finding it the perfect home.
To my agent, Patricia Nelson, thank you for holding my hand all the way down.
To the brilliant author friends I’m so lucky to have had as my earliest readers from first book to ninth, Marieke Nijkamp and Maggie Hall—I don’t know how I would function in this world without you. You are both so brilliant and talented and make everything I do better and I love you gross amounts. And to Katherine Locke, thank you for walking me through every step of every dramatic turn of my life and career; if only you would alphabetize your bookcases you would be perfect.
Thank you to Anna-Marie McLemore for your early read and for your friendship in general—we’ll always have Kalinda. Immeasurable thanks, too, to everyone who gave notes that helped make this book the best version of itself, including Katelyn Detweiler, Allie Levick, and especially Sari Fallas Linder, who let this very Ashkenazi author pick her beautiful Syrian brain.
I’m grateful to Jenn Marie Thorne, AK Furukawa, and Cam Montgomery for letting me throw my manuscript at them before I was ready to let it out into the world. Thank you to Becky Albertalli for all your support, always, and texts that keep me sane. I’m so grateful to her, Aminah Mae Safi, Jennifer Dugan, and Jen Wilde for the kind words on this book in particular and for dazzling my bookshelves in general.
Much love to all the friends who are there for me ad nauseum whether about publishing, parenting, or life in general, including but not limited to Emery Lord, Rick Lipman, Becca Podos, Eric Smith, Patrice Caldwell, Lev Rosen, Sona Charaipotra, Tess Sharpe, Jess Capelle, Sharon Morse, and the best digital quarantine-group buddies I could’ve asked for, Kind of a Big Deal [eggplant emoji] and “BFFs” Barrie, Liz, and Sasha.
Love to all my fellow book bloggers/media out there, especially those like Danika Leigh Ellis, YA Pride, the Lesbrary, and Tirzah Price, who do the work to help queer readers find the books that might fall through the cracks. Special shoutout to both Buzzfeed’s YA team of Zoraida Córdova, Rachel Strolle, and our leader, Farrah Penn, and the people who’ve helped me keep LGBTQ Reads together this past year, including Rachel, Mark O’Brien, Shauna Morgan, and all the generous donors and patrons.
Deep gratitude to various other contributors to the writing of this book, especially the makers of Evernote, the Foo Fighters for “The Sky Is a Neighborhood,” the Hilton Garden Inn Outer
