I kick back into gear. “So that’s Ethan. Still nerdy, no longer tiny. He was really good at puberty.”

“Apparently.” Ben laughs. “Did you guys ever . . .”

“No,” I say quickly. “No no no no no. He’s straight. And he has no game. None of us have any game. We’re kind of like three celibate stepsiblings.”

“As opposed to stepsiblings who have sex with each other?” Ben’s smile sets my whole body into overdrive. Like, I’m pretty sure there’s a little Olympic gymnastics team practicing their floor routines in my stomach.

“I can’t figure out if you like me,” I blurt.

He laughs. “What?”

“I don’t know.” I laugh too, but my heart’s pounding. “It’s just. The whole time at karaoke, you seemed sort of . . . withdrawn, I guess? Like you didn’t want to be there—”

“Karaoke’s not really my thing.”

“Yeah, but I keep thinking about how if you really liked me, it would be your thing. Not karaoke in particular, I don’t care about that. But I think I’d find anything fun if I was with you. Even weird, violent arcade games where I can’t turn around to look at you or a zombie will eat part of my body.”

“Well, that’s what zombies do,” Ben says.

“I know.”

“But I get what you’re saying.” He furrows his brow. “I’m being a shitty date.”

“No you’re not!”

He tugs my hand. “Come on, let’s walk. I can’t sit here.”

“Why not?”

“Because you being honest makes me want to be honest, but I can’t do that if I’m looking at you.”

“Oh.” My stomach twists. “Should I be worried?”

“Worried?”

“I feel like I’m about to get dumped. Not that we’re in a relationship. Oy. I’m sorry. I’m so . . .” I exhale. “Why am I so awful at this?”

“At what?”

“At this.” I lift our threaded hands. “At being with you and being a normal human being with, like, minimally functional conversational skills. I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”

“There’s nothing wrong with you.”

“I’m just so new to all of this, and here you’ve already kissed people and probably had sex, and you had this whole other relationship before me. I don’t know if I can live up to that.”

We turn onto a side street and then into an alley, and the fact that there are no people around makes Ben twenty times more relaxed. I can feel it in his grip.

“But I don’t see it like that,” he says finally.

“How do you see it?”

“Well, for one thing, I’m the one with something to live up to.”

“That’s ridiculous.”

He smiles slightly. “No, really. I just—like, the fact that you’ve never dated anyone before or kissed anyone . . . I don’t know. What if I mess it up for you? I don’t want to be the guy who fucks up your first kiss.”

“You wouldn’t.”

“It’s just this pressure, you know. I want to make it perfect.”

“Being with you already is perfect.”

He snorts.

“I mean, except for the parts where you tragically underestimate my claw-machine skills and get hit on by Ansel Elgort’s doppelgänger and have fifty-six pictures with your ex and—”

He kisses me.

Just like that.

His hands are on my cheeks, and he’s kissing me.

Holy shit.

I mean, I never realized how close someone’s face gets when they kiss you. His head is right there. It’s tilted down to meet mine. His eyes are closed, and his lips move against mine, and WOW, I don’t know what the rules are around the appropriateness of getting a boner in this sort of moment, but—oh.

I should kiss him back.

I try to move my lips around like he’s doing, like I’m trying to eat his mouth without my teeth. But I think I’m doing it wrong, because he pulls back a few inches, grinning down at me.

I grin back. “What?”

He laughs. “I don’t know.”

“That was a kiss,” I say slowly.

“No question.”

“I guess the pressure’s off now, right? No more worrying about making the first kiss perfect.”

“It was perfect,” I say.

“You sure you don’t want a do-over?” he asks, smiling up to his eyes. “Second first kiss?”

“Oh, I could do that.”

He laughs, hands falling to my waist. And then we’re kissing again, and it’s the same startling closeness.

I slide my eyes shut.

And the whole world narrows. I don’t know how else to describe it. It’s like I’m not on the street and I’m not in New York and it isn’t July and none of it matters. Nothing exists but Ben’s hands on my back and his lips on my lips and my fingertips and his cheekbones and my thundering heartbeat.

I never knew kissing had a rhythm. I never even thought of it, beyond lips mashed together. But I can feel it like a bass line, somehow steady and urgent at once. Ben pulls me even closer, not an inch between us, and this time I don’t worry about boners, because if there are rules about that happening, he’s definitely, definitely breaking them, too.

I kiss him even harder.

“Oh,” he says faintly. And I have this limitless feeling, suddenly, like I’m capable of anything. I could stop time or lift a car or press my tongue between his lips.

“You’re not bad at this,” he says.

“I’m not?”

“I mean, we should definitely keep practicing. Always room for improvement.” I feel him smile against my lips.

I smile back. “Infinite do-overs.”

“I like that,” he says. “It sounds like us.”

Chapter Twenty

Ben

I’ve been home from my fourth first date with Arthur for a couple hours now, but I’m still coasting on my happy high. It’s like the satisfaction I just got from a scene I wrote, where an old nemesis of Ben-Jamin unexpectedly popped back in and is making things extra tense. It’s this exciting feeling of everything falling into place. Except this happiness is a real thing everyone can see. Like holding Arthur’s hand as we left karaoke. Like the first kiss. Like the second first kiss.

I can’t focus anymore, so I close my laptop. All I can think about is how much I want to still be out on the streets hanging with Arthur. Or even having him over to hang out. Wherever.

I have to talk to him. I don’t even text, I just call.

“Hello?” Arthur asks.

“Hey.”

“It’s actually you. Not a butt-dial. I get everyone’s butt-dials. Always have. Always will. Unless I change my name. Identity change seems like a good idea since I sang you a song about a rat.”

I have only said one word on this call—a call I made—and I’m already ready to settle into another few hours of Arthur rambling. It’s better than my favorite Lorde and Lana Del Rey songs.

“You can sing a different song next time,” I say. I like that we’ll have a next time. That even though things have gone wrong, we’ve tried to make it right. “So I was nervous to admit this at karaoke, but—”

“Please don’t tell me you’re actually a bunch of rats wearing a cute boy as a disguise.”

“Worse.” I take a deep, dramatic breath. “I haven’t listened to Hamilton.”

He doesn’t say anything. Then the line goes dead.

Arthur texts: I’m sorry for hanging up, but I’m speechless. I really need to know something: HOW DOES THIS HAPPEN? HAMILTON HAS BEEN OUT FOR YEARS!!!

I laugh at his ridiculousness. Whoa three exclamation points, I text back.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! he says.

I’m actually glad we’re doing this over text.

BEN HUGO ALEJO!!!!

So we’re breaking out the full poet name.

So you’ve heard nothing of this millennium’s greatest phenomenon?