“You should have seen the shit people were saying—”

“I did. I did see it. And then I logged off.”

I pull up the Weazel app, wondering if it’s something from the Hallway Chat. But the only recent message in there of note is someone roasting the grammatical correctness of the graffiti someone recently scrawled in one of the stalls of the girls’ bathrooms. No pictures that look like they’d set the Campbell twins at each other’s throats, which is a weird enough occurrence in and of itself—I’ve never once seen them fight.

“Just forget it,” Jack mutters. And then he’s sitting himself right down in the seat next to mine, the same way we were yesterday.

I don’t know if I’m supposed to say anything or not. There’s no way to pretend I didn’t hear their conversation because the three of us are practically the only people in the room. That is, until Ethan says something under his breath to excuse himself and then ducks out.

It’s quiet for a moment, then, but knowing Jack, it won’t be for long.

“Do you have any siblings?” Jack asks.

He looks antsier than usual, slouching in his seat, his knuckles quietly drumming on the desk.

“Yeah. An older sister.”

Jack nods. Opens his mouth as though he’s going to say something else, and then thinks better of it.

I pull out my Monster Cake, a little squished in its aluminum foil, and break off a piece to offer Jack. His eyebrows lift, and he looks at me in confusion, like I’m trying to hand him a fish.

“It’s not poisonous.”

He takes it from me, examining it. A few crumbs end up on his desk. “What is it?”

I hesitate for a moment. I don’t think I’ve actually discussed this unholy mash-up of desserts with anyone aside from my parents and Paige. I wonder if it’s some kind of betrayal, sharing it with someone outside of the family.

“Monster Cake.”

“Monster Cake?”

His lips quirk in amusement, and then I see it again—another shift, another reconsideration. I decide I don’t mind it this time.

“It’s pretty much a mash-up of every junk food known to man, baked into a cake. Hence the name.”

Jack takes a bite. “Holy shit.”

My face heats up. People are starting to walk into the room just as Jack literally tips back in his seat and moans.

“Jack,” I hiss.

“This is the best thing I’ve ever tasted.”

I can’t tell if he’s making fun of me or not, but either way, he is decidedly making a scene. I wrap up the rest of the cake and shove it into my backpack.

“I mean, this is obscene. How did you come up with this?”

“It’s just—I mean, it’s not like I … We were little kids when we made it.”

Jack literally kisses his fingers. I stare into my lap, my face burning, a reluctant smile blooming. I haven’t had a ton of time to update our blog lately—Paige has been posting on overdrive to make up for it—so I’ve forgotten how it feels, having someone try some weird dessert I made up and enjoy it. Usually it’s just people commenting from some corner of the internet, saying they tried it, or Paige groaning her approval when we meet up and bake together.

But this is different. This is so … personal, almost. Having someone outside of the family try something I made right in front of me. Maybe I don’t hate it.

“I feel like you may have flown too close to the dessert sun. I’ve never tasted anything like this, and my parents literally own a—”

“Mr. Campbell, if you insist on eating in my classroom, at least have the decency not to turn my floor into your personal napkin.”

I manage to muffle my laugh by turning it into a cough. Just as Mrs. Fairchild turns her attention back to the board, Jack catches my eye and winks.

I roll my eyes, and then his friend Paul comes in, buzzing about something that happened on the Weazel app. He’s lucky Mrs. Fairchild is either hard of hearing or very committed to pretending she is, or he’d be screwed right now, considering the no-tolerance policy on the app. That aside, there are narcs all over this place—enough of them that I’m never actually stupid enough to pull Weazel up on my phone at school.

Okay. Maybe sometimes. But I try not to, because whoever Wolf is, he responds so fast during school hours, I’m legitimately worried I’m going to get him in trouble.

And despite Jack’s suspicion that I was ratting people out to Rucker the other day, that’s pretty much my worst nightmare. If Wolf got in trouble and was kicked off the app, I don’t know what I’d do. It’s almost scary, how fast I went from not having him in my life to feeling like, Paige aside, he may be the best friend I’ve got. We’re just on the same wavelength on every thing. Life at Stone Hall, but more importantly, feeling like the odd one out here.

The likeliest scenario is that Wolf is someone who has a study hall, or a gap in his schedule. Someone like Ethan, who’s constantly in and out for student government stuff. Or someone with one of the senior internships where they get to leave school for two hours a day, like—

Huh. Someone like Landon.

By the time homeroom lets out, my stomach is gurgling from lack of breakfast. I pull out the Monster Cake as covertly as I can, planning to shove some in my mouth when I open my locker, but I discover as soon as I unlock it that I have acquired a stray. Somehow Jack has managed to follow me across the length of the entire hallway, his friend Paul in tow.