An odd feeling tightened my chest. Something between embarrassment and pleasure. “You did?”

“Uh-huh.” He didn’t offer anything more, so I didn’t pry. “She asked me what I wanted for my birthday yesterday.”

He was totally fishing, but I took the bait. “When’s your birthday?”

“Next month. Halloween.”

“That’s pretty cool.”

He gave me a smug look. “I know, right? When’s yours?”

“Febru …” I paused. No, that was the actual Arcadia Bell’s birthday—the one I was used to spouting off on cue. I struggled for a moment to remember the real date. I hadn’t celebrated it in years. “Wow, I guess it’s tomorrow.”

“What? Tomorrow? Happy birthday! The big twenty-six, huh?”

“Twenty-five,” I corrected without thinking.

“I thought you were already twenty-five? That’s what my dad told me when I asked him.”

According to my fake driver’s license, I was. “Nope. Tomorrow.”

He cocked an eyebrow at me like he’d just discovered some salacious secret, then mumbled, “Talk about cradle robbing …”

I gave him a soft punch on his shoulder, then glanced back at the photos on the wall again. The last one was a shot of Adella and Jupe pretending to balance on a surfboard, their arms held out. They were both grinning.

“Those are the first photos I’ve seen of your dad’s—well, in person, anyway. At first I thought he only shot women in bikinis, but then I found his website and saw the other stuff, National Geographic covers and the local photos of the coast.”

“Yeah, he sells a ton of those in a shop down in the Village. You know how much people pay for some of them? The signed prints? Guess.”

“Uh …”

“A thousand dollars! Can you believe that? Who would pay that much for a photo of the stupid beach? All they have to do is walk outside and see it for free. Man, people are dumb.” Jupe shook his head and kicked several open video game cases off the side of the bed. God only knew where the games were or what shape they were in. “Wait a minute, why are you here so early?” He looked askance at me.

Busted. I had no idea what to say. On one hand, he might be angry or uncomfortable. Then again, he probably deserved honesty, and he wasn’t a child. But maybe it wasn’t my place to say anything at all. “Uh …” I hedged, trying to make up my mind.

Jupe’s pale green eyes widened. He looked away for a second, forehead wrinkled, then asked me straight up, “Did you stay here last night?”

“Kinda.”

“In the guest room?”

“Yes,” I answered quickly. I think it was the forcefulness of it that gave it away. All my well-cultivated lying skills seemed to be just out of reach.

“You stayed … with my dad?” He sounded like a gossip columnist uncovering the scandal of the year, shocked but titillated.

I squeezed my eyelids shut. “Maybe,” I said, then warily cracked one eye back open.

“Huh.” He sat back, wheels turning. “No one’s ever stayed over here before. Well, there was one lady, but my dad tried to sneak her out in the morning before I woke up. That was a couple of years ago. I guess he thought I was too young to see that. She never came back.”

“Hmm, well, you’re not weirded out about me staying here, are you?”

He contemplated this, then asked, “Do you like him?”

I nodded.

“I mean, do you like-like him?”

Lon’s whispered morning words still swirled in my head like a drug. Goose bumps blossomed over my arms and my neck became warm. I sighed, utterly defeated. “Yeah, Jupe. I like-like him. A lot, I think.”

A long pause stretched between us.

“Cool,” he finally said, grinning.

Whew.

“I’m just glad you gave him a second chance. He can be really dumb sometimes. I told him that if he didn’t apologize for acting like a dick that night at my school, he was the stupidest person in the world.”

“He kinda was a dick, wasn’t he?”

Jupe laughed, then gave me a confident look. “I set him straight. Don’t worry.”

I held up my hand. “Thanks for looking out for me.”

He smacked it with more force than I expected. “Anytime. Hey, wanna sign my cast?”

“Sure. Where’s a pen?”

He scrambled to snatch up a Sharpie that was sticking out from beneath his pillow and slapped it into my hand. I squirmed around to get into a better position and nearly knocked over a half-eaten bowl of Cheerios, wobbling in the covers at the foot of the bed. He was even more of a pig than I was.

On his cast were Mr. and Mrs. Holiday’s signatures, JACK in big, bold letters with a deformed Godzilla head drawing, and then in small, tidy print, a string of sentences that wound around the plaster near his wrist. “What’s all this?” I asked.

“Pfft. My dad thinks he’s funny.”

I leaned in and read it aloud. “IMPORTANT REMINDERS. One: I will not jump on the bed pretending to be a rock star and break my other arm. Sound advice,” I agreed with a smile. “Two: I will not leave dirty dishes in my room.” I looked at the cereal bowl. “Well, that one sure didn’t stick, did it?”

“That bowl’s only been in here a few minutes. It doesn’t count,” he argued with a grin. “Especially if I get it back down to the kitchen before he sees it.”