I NOTICED A little too early that Takoda's smell stuck to everything. I didn't know what it was about it, but if you were familiar with it and he walked into a room, you'd know before even seeing him. If he touched something, you'd know. If he sat somewhere, you'd know.

I found myself gravitating towards it—towards him—and at an alarmingly fast pace, too. It was all very dizzying. It was that kind of movement you're barely aware of, where the momentum is terrifying enough for it to be near impossible for you to stop at will. Like an out-of-body experience. It was why when he waved a hand in front of my face to pull me back from my daze, I asked, "What's the name of your cologne?"

He lifted a curious eyebrow at me, his Cupid's bow twitching like he was fighting a smile. He was lying on his side next to me, but between the time I'd responded to his last question and now, he'd pushed himself up onto his elbow, partially blocking my view of the distant night sky, tainted by the lights of the city.

I couldn't remember exactly how we'd ended up on the roof of the ultra-modern house of one of Coco's closest friends while everyone else was at the product launch party downstairs—it had been a hazy night, blurred by a little too much champagne—but I recalled that he'd been the one to initiate this little adventure. I convinced myself that the only reason I remained here was because I loved the view of the glowing pear-shaped pool from this height, even though it was long forgotten by now.

"That's a basic question," he said, softly, like he wanted his voice to be for my ears alone.

"Just give me an answer."

"Calebson. Number nine." I saw a vein in his hand pulse beneath his skin as he quietly shifted his weight. That was something else I'd noticed—his gentleness, not the attractive veins in his hands. "It's the last fragrance my dad released before he . . . I got it taken down from the website, so now I'm the only one with access to it. It's kinda selfish."

"Don't you find it weird that I keep asking questions that circle back to your dad?"

"I don't mind." He finally smiled, and I felt my heart flutter inside my chest. Immediately, I scolded my body for reacting that way. I knew I shouldn't have drunk as much as I did tonight—my mom would ground me until I was fifty-five if she found out—but over the past few months, I'd discovered that alcohol was my go-to whenever I was trying to distract myself. It helped me pass time. It blurred my senses.

And at the time, doing anything was better than trying to spot Takoda in the crowd and subsequently trying to get him to notice me.

"You're just saying that."

"I'm serious." He lay back down. "It feels nice to talk about him while knowing nothing I say is going to end up in some e-magazine or gossip blog by tomorrow morning."

"So that's the part you have a problem with?"

He took a moment to respond that time, and I almost thought he wasn't going to. "Basically, yeah."

"It must suck."

"It does."

"I'm sorry."

He surprised me by chuckling. "It's okay. I'm fine. It's just really invasive when people think they can ask you personal questions just because you let them in on the happenings in your life."

I released a short laugh. "Tell me about it."

He fell silent again, and I listened to the sound of his breathing for a moment. I never thought I'd like a sound as simple as that so much. "So, what's one thing about yourself that you don't talk about?"

The question caught me off guard, even though I should've been pretty used to his ways by now. Takoda didn't talk much—observation number three—but when he did, he spoke with a confidence that told you he knew a lot more than he was saying. There was a strange kind of expertise in the way he composed most of his sentences. In the way words rolled off his tongue. I found it hot, to be honest.

There were a handful of things I kept to myself, but I liked the lightness of the air right now, so I went for the safest option. "I play guitar."

"Lie," he said immediately, almost like he saw it coming.

I paused for a second, then turned to look at him. He'd turned his head to face me, his eyes glittering in the night. I couldn't see any stars in the sky, but they might as well have been in there, in his eyes. "Okay, I feel offended."

He laughed, his eyes creasing in the corners. "Sorry. No offense, but you don't look like you've picked up a musical instrument in your life. Not even that xylophone toy thing they make for kids."

"Ouch."

"No offense." He was laughing even harder now, and it was difficult to pretend to be mad. His laugh was infectious, like music, everything about him plain addictive to watch.

It wasn't every day I felt like this. Heck, I'd never felt like this. All these emotions were strange to me, like I was suddenly battling an evil I hadn't seen coming. There was something wonderful yet terrifying about them, like I was doing something bad that felt good and I knew it. Takoda was off limits. I knew that. He was like that gorgeous piece of art in a museum that was strictly for looking at, sectioned off from the rest of the building. Do not touch, I could almost see in neon blue, hovering over his head.

But my brain and heart were at war with that fact.

"I'm serious, though. I just haven't played in, like, four years. Since I was thirteen."

"You're serious."

"I'm many things, Calebs. Liar isn't one of them."

He looked at me like I just showed him the ocean for the first time. "What's the story behind that?"

"Just the normal childhood stuff. While Coco was sent off to art camp, I was enrolled in a music class. Funny turn of events, right?"

"Wow."

"I know."

He turned to his side again, shuffling closer, wrapping me in his Calebson smell, and I wondered, for a very brief second, if he felt like he was subconsciously gravitating towards me, too. "Now you have to play for me."

"In your dreams," I told him, my voice coming out softer than I intended. "We're not that type of friends yet."

He shuffled even closer, and I feared for a moment that if I made any sudden movements, my nose would brush against his. It wasn't a place I was willing to go right now, but I couldn't deny that the thought of it had a thrill rushing through me.

"We could be. What can I do to get that title?"

I studied his eyes, waiting to see some form of sarcasm or playfulness suddenly dart across them, but they just remained . . . steady. On mine. On me.

"The process is quite expensive," I heard myself say.

Yeah, I definitely shouldn't have had so much champagne.

"Last time I checked, I have a pretty decent source of income."

Takoda had three mediums through which he earned money—that I knew of—and there was nothing decent about his monthly income. I googled his net worth. My jaw touched the floor. Because he was just nineteen. "Stop being modest. You probably have, like, nine digits in your account or something."

He smiled but didn't say anything, and this time it was me that moved closer.

I didn't want to do it—somewhere in my mind, I was completely sure that it was a bad idea—but I found myself hesitantly reaching for his hand between us. "For starters, you could . . ." I touched his fingers. He didn't flinch, and I felt something travel through me at the contact. "You could . . ."

"I could?" he whispered.

I wasn't sure what I wanted to say, so I said nothing. We stayed that way in silence for minutes, our breaths intertwining like we were living off of each other. At one point, I reached up to gently push his hair out of his eyes, and he reached forward to push mine off. Then his fingers were lingering on my face, tracing an invisible line on the shell of my ear, along my jaw, across my cheeks, above my upper lip, below my lower one, following the dips and curves of my Cupid's bow. Then I was doing the same to him, my fingers trembling against his skin, a shiver rippling through me as my body caught on to the fact that we were doing something forbidden.

We explored each other's faces for a hot minute, stalling what I'd already gathered was inevitable. Then Takoda's hand was moving down, grazing my bare arm as it went, only stopping when it reached the curve of my waist. I realized now that my top had ridden up, and the sliver of exposed skin being hit by the cool night breeze seemed to throb with the need to be touched, to be explored, too.

But Takoda kept his hand where it was, looking at me like he was thinking the same thing that I was. The stars in his eyes were fiery now, and I barely had enough time to take in their beauty. The next thing I knew, we were kissing, slowly, semi-passionately, testing the waters. His soft, warm lips tasted like champagne. Like good things and right decisions. Like every shade of bliss. Like everything I didn't realize I was missing until now.

It took my dazed mind a second too long to realize that I was having my first kiss, and not only was it poetic, it was with Takoda freaking Calebs.

"Cleo!"

The voice in my ear jerked me out of a pretty wonderful sleep, and it wasn't until I was sitting up in my sister's bed that I became aware of the fact that there was a strange tightness in my core. It throbbed, almost as if—almost as if . . .

No.

"The hell, Coco," I snapped, half-asleep, with all the annoyance I could muster while in the state I was in. "I'm still hungover. What is wrong with you?"

It took me a second to notice that she wasn't alone—Takoda was standing just outside, Lulu in his arms—and a second longer to realize what I was putting on—the flimsy nightie Robin had lovingly gifted me. The fabric was so thin that I could feel my nipples poking through it.

"And what are you doing here?" The question was directed at him, but he didn't get the chance to speak before my sister was responding for him.

"He was just passing by." She threw my phone at me, and I instinctively, but clumsily, caught it. "Yikes, do you fight people in your sleep or something? Who speaks that loud immediately after waking up?"

"Well, maybe I don't like people screaming in my ear first thing in the morning. You ever thought of that?"

She rolled her eyes. "Whatever. Your phone has been buzzing like crazy for almost two hours. You should probably check it out."

For some reason, Takoda didn't walk away like I was expecting, and I was nearly forced to wonder if it showed on my face—this thing I was feeling. I couldn't believe I'd had that dream after so long. I thought I was over all of this. I'd done enough crying and dreaming and moping to move on. Now was the time to move forward, not relapse.

I hated myself for letting him do this to me.

But I didn't have it in me to tell him to leave.

He was putting on one of the tank tops from his dad's 2013 world tour—the prices on Chayton Calebs' merch store had done nothing but furiously climb up as the years went by, owing to the fact that he was a musical legend now, so I didn't even want to calculate how much a high-quality 2013 tour tank would cost in 2022—and I didn't know if it was because of Lulu's weight, but his bicep appeared more defined than I remembered, like he'd been working out more. The observation made me recall the day we got here, the sight of his bare back, and how I'd been suddenly hit with the memory of his warm skin against mine.

The ache in my core intensified.

This was absolutely ridiculous. I wanted to cry.

I averted my gaze to my phone, immediately distracted by the multiple text and missed call notifications on the lock screen. Most from Marisol. Two from Robin, inquiring about a maroon blazer I couldn't bring myself to care about in the moment.

Online meeting with b&c's brand manager in an hour and a half. She has to get on an emergency flight to Chicago by 10 and would be very busy once she gets there so this is very impromptu. She says she's sorry.

The text came in over an hour ago, which meant I had just twenty minutes to make myself look the least bit presentable for the representative of a highly sought after jewelry brand. I fell back into bed.

Before I retreated for the night yesterday, I'd told Marisol I was going to sign the contract. The moment I was done going through it in the limousine on Friday night, I knew what my answer was. I just hadn't planned on letting her know while I was still at my sister's. I wanted to get home, get comfortable, forget this nightmarish weekend, but after the weird moment—if it could even be called that—with Takoda, I'd done all sorts of things to distract myself.

So I might've had self-destructive behavior. Who would have guessed?

"What's wrong?" my sister asked me, wrapping her silver-colored robe tighter around herself as she took a seat on the edge of the bed. The house was quieter now with only the three of us and the camera crew present. Everyone else left yesterday, Robin included—apparently, she had to get really good rest so she could be on her game for a nine o'clock interview tomorrow that could bag her a competitive summer internship—and I almost missed the noise. Almost being the keyword.

I scratched a spot above my eyebrow as I took my sister in, and it hit me then how distant I felt. Over the past few months, I'd pulled away from everyone, but mostly her. Before Robin and I became close, Coco was my best friend. She was the one I told everything to, the one I cried about my problems to, the one I went to when I needed something.

She was always willing to bend beyond the angles her body would allow her to for me, but lately it was as if I was looking at her through a window. Like I was one of her many fans, thinking I knew her when I didn't just because I'd read and memorized a handful of stray articles on Wikipedia and several fan sites. Now, instead of feeling like she was supporting me, it felt like I was being suffocated, being bothered.

The last time I'd had a meaningful conversation with anyone, it had been with the guy standing by her door, two days before he looked into my eyes—these same eyes that I felt once lit up every time he walked into the same room as me—and called me a mistake.

My eyes slid to his steady frame, the events of yesterday coming back to me like a nightmare, and I felt mad at myself for being so weak. Before him, I didn't know what it was like to feel wanted. He'd taught me every intimate thing I knew about myself, revealed all my sensitive spots, and I was high on that—the attention, the desire, the way he looked at me when we were wrapped in lust, the eye contact, every time—that now I felt like laundry left too long in the washing machine. I was aching, emotionally and physically, and most nights, I stared at my ceiling and tried to retrace my steps, tried to find a source of happiness that wasn't tied to him, but I always came up short.

I was mad because I'd given so much of myself to him that I didn't feel complete anymore. And he could just stand around and look the way he did, smile the way he did, talk the way he did.

I was mad because he put this space between me and everyone I cared about, because he made me a liar just like him.

"You want something, Calebs?" I asked, and Lulu's ears twitched in response.

Coco looked over her shoulder at him. "What are you doing still standing there?"

"Can we talk?" The question was for me, straightforward and confident, and before he added the last part, I knew he was doing this while my sister was around so I wouldn't say no. The imp. "Later, I mean."

I watched him for a moment, wondering what he wanted to talk about, remembering yesterday again and how I'd almost let him kiss me, recalling the dream, becoming aware of the tension in my lower abdomen that was only just starting to ebb away. Then I said, "Sure. Later," with no intention of actually following through with my promise. I just wanted him to leave.

When the entrance to her room was empty, my sister looked back at me with one eyebrow raised. Her eyes brimmed with curiosity.

"What?" I asked, feigning ignorance. I knew exactly what she was thinking.

Just three days ago, I was admitting to him not talking to me for six entire months, acting mad and a bit rude, and today, he just happened to pop by the room I was staying in and ask if he could talk, and the only thing I said was, Sure. Later. She'd also witnessed part of what happened yesterday.

If I were her, I'd have a lot of questions.

"I don't know. I just sort of remembered what Robin said yesterday."

"What did she say yesterday?" I asked, playing dumb.

She stared at me like I'd stared at Takoda a minute ago. Then she said, "Nothing. What were you going to say earlier?"

And I felt nothing but relief as I told her about the meeting I had with Bee & Co.'s brand manager.

Wednesday Evans from B&C was a dark-haired version of Taylor Swift, and for the duration of our highly professional meeting—complete with business and marketing jargon that made my head ache—that was the only thing I could truly focus on.

Well, there was also the sound of Takoda playing an atmospheric song I didn't recognize on my sister's piano from her music room down the hall and missing a few notes. He'd learned to play the instrument when he was six, but figured out not too long after that he was more into guitars. Takoda had started breaking hearts from a very young age. Even those of musical instruments.

I didn't know why, but it felt like he was constantly trying to remind me of his presence, whether it was intentional or not. I would be sure I'd gotten my mind off him when he'd suddenly show up or someone would decide to talk about him.

Long story short, I was more than ready for this weekend to be over, for all this tension to come to an abrupt end.

On the top right side of the screen of Coco's MacBook, Marisol was nodding at something Wednesday said, and I wondered if it would be rude to admit that I wasn't listening. The brand manager seemed nice enough, with a voice that rivaled the sweetness of sugar, her navy blue chiffon top buttoned up to her neck, and even though she'd admitted that my honest voice was what drew the company to me, I didn't want to make a bad first impression. It was a good thing Marisol was here. The mediator.

She hadn't quite gotten out of bed, her dark hair in a complicated twist at the top of her head, a pen holding it all together. Coco once joked that