Page 165 of Instant Karma

I grumble, even though… I can’t deny it.

He reaches over and closes the email. The screen switches to his home screen. The wallpaper beneath his apps is a picture of me—the photo he took on the beach during the Freedom Festival. When he showed it to me, he said it might be his favorite picture he’s ever taken. In part because the lighting was just so good that day, but mostly because my dimples are on full display.

I told him that would be really flattering if I wasn’t mostly competing with injured, malnourished pinnipeds.

“You two are making me uncomfortable,” says Jude, sandwiched between me and Ari. He has his sketchbook in his lap, trying to come up with a fearsome new creature to use in his D&D campaign. The only part of it he seems happy with is a pair of vicious-looking horns on the creature’s head. Everything else has already been erased and redrawn a hundred times.

I reach out and smack him on the shoulder. “Admit it. You think we’re super cute.”

Jude raises an eyebrow at me. “I think Ewoks are super cute. I think you two are a made-for-TV movie.”

“Ithink made-for-TV movies are super cute,” Ari points out.

“Got it!” yells Ezra, jamming his finger down on the songbook. “‘Too Sexy.’ That’s my song. All the way.”

“As in, ‘I’m Too Sexy’?” asks Morgan.

“No,” says Ezra. “As in,I’mtoo sexy.” He taps his chest. “Though you’re not half-bad.”

Morgan looks briefly disgusted, but then she gets a wicked look in her eye and leans toward him. “Do you know what’sreallyhot?”

He leans toward her.

“Maturity.”

A devious grin spreads over Ezra’s lips. “Oh my god, you are so right. For example, Quint’s mom is a total babe.”

Quint groans and hides his face behind one hand.

Ari casts me a look, but I can only shrug. I’m not entirely sure what to do with EZ, either, but he and Quint have been best friends since elementary school, so I think it’s a package deal.

“Hand me one of those slips, would you, Jude? Jude the Dude?” asks Ezra.

Jude looks up from his sketchbook, but Ari has already beat him to it. Shehands Ezra a karaoke slip with a look of resignation, before taking the songbook for herself. “I have an idea for you and me, Pru,” she says, flipping through the pages. “Here. What do you think?” She holds the book up. “Of Monsters and Men duet?”

I shrug. “I don’t know who that is.”

“Prudence!” She throws her head back. “I don’t know how much longer I can be friends with you if you don’t start expanding your musical knowledge.”

Jude nods. “Even I know Of Monsters and Men.”

I look at Quint. He shrugs. “Yep. They’re pretty good.”

Morgan and Ezra nod at me, too.

I turn back to Ari. “Sorry?”

She sighs and starts flipping through the book again. “I’m going to find something you can’t say no to. AndnotJohn Lennon and Yoko Ono. There has to be something else in here.”

“Hey,” I say, turning my attention back to Quint, “did you get your class schedule yet?”

“Not yet. Why?”

“Just wondering whether we’re going to be in the same chemistry class. I thought maybe we could be lab partners, if they aren’t preassigned.”

He raises an eyebrow. “Only a masochist would volunteer to beyourlab partner.”

“I’ll be your lab partner,” says Ezra.

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