By the time I stagger back to my room from the studio, my mouth still tastes like him.
I scrub my teeth. Twice. It doesn’t help.
Mia is sitting cross‑legged in the middle of my bed with a bag of chips she definitely bribed someone for, watching some game show in rapid‑fire Italian.
She looks up, freezes, and narrows her eyes.
“You look like you got hit by a truck,” she says. “Or kissed by one.”
“Shut up,” I say, heading straight for the bathroom.
She gasps dramatically. “I knew it.”
I close the door on her cackle and splash cold water on my face until my skin stings.
The mirror is no help. My lips are a little too red, my pupils a little too wide. I look like a girl who almost made a very old, very satisfying mistake.
“Okay,” I tell my reflection. “We’re not doing that again.”
Th
