Michelle sighed as she leaned against her locker door, slowly slotting the books she’d gotten out into her backpack. She’d left the house slightly earlier this morning in an effort to evade the judgmental stares from her parents.

  “Why the long face?” a familiar voice, not too far away, called out.

  She gnced up to see Hailey striding towards her. Since they shared their first css on Mondays, it was normal for them to meet up before css.

  “Hey,” she said.

  It took her almost a couple of seconds to register that her friend was alone, with no boyfriend in tow to chime in on their conversation. Michelle was so amazed by this rarity that her mood instantly brightened.

  “Are you okay?” Hailey asked. “You look kind of down.”

  That brought her mood down again. “My parents spent the weekend lecturing me. Well, mostly st night and this morning, since I was busy for the rest of the day preparing for the py.”

  Her parents had first tried to find out how they got together, expressing concern and overprotectiveness. Once they learned the reason she had started dating him in the first pce, and that she had absolutely no desire or intention to even kiss Caledon, they stopped being overprotective and started arguing with Michelle about her logic instead.

  “Why?”

  “They met Caledon on Saturday night.” She zipped up her backpack and shouldered it. “I forgot to tell them about him, and they totally freaked out.”

  “Yeah, I can see why they’d freak out.”

  “Hey! What do you mean?” Caledon was a perfectly respectable boyfriend.

  “No, as in … it’s not like you guys are really dating, you know? Of course they were confused. Especially since you didn’t actually tell them.”

  Michelle’s jaw fell. “Excuse me? We are dating. I’m not having this conversation again.”

  Her friend threw her hands up in surrender, shaking her head.

  “Okay, okay, fine, whatever you say. So what did your parents say, anyway? Did they forbid you from dating or something?”

  “Not exactly. In the end, they told me that when I get older I’m going to realize how ‘silly’ this is,” Michelle said, making the relevant air quotes and rolling her eyes. “But for now they’ve accepted that Caledon is my boyfriend.”

  “Isn’t that good?”

  She thought back to how her parents still looked at her with incredible disappointment, stating that while they were leaving her to her own devices, she needed to realize how ridiculous the whole thing was. The gnces of disapproval she’d been enduring all weekend was not just uncomfortable—they made her feel like she was missing something that she just wasn’t comprehending.

  She frowned.

  “Not if they keep putting ‘boyfriend’ and ‘dating’ in air quotes when they’re referring to him. I feel like they don’t really think of him as my boyfriend.”

  Hailey jerked away the water bottle she’d been drinking from, producing a series of mild coughing that sounded like she was trying desperately not to becoming a hacking mess.

  “That’s so petty,” she gasped out. “Did they seriously do that?”

  Michelle squinted.

  “Why do you look like you’re ughing?”

  “This is me choking!” Hailey insisted, stowing her water bottle away into her backpack. “Come on, would I ugh at you?”

  “Yes?”

  At one point or another, they’d all ughed at each other before.

  “Okay, fine,” she said, giving up all pretense of being serious as her lips curved into a rge grin. “Isn’t it kind of funny though?”

  “No! My parents used air quotes on me!”

  “Sorry, sorry.” Hailey psed into another fit of giggles. “It’s just that your parents always seemed so serious whenever I saw them. I can’t imagine them doing that.”

  They arrived at their cssroom.

  Michelle slumped into her usual seat and sighed again. “Whatever. We’re still going to crochet at your house after school, right?”

  One of Hailey’s hobbies was crocheting, and she had taught everyone in their friend group how to crochet as well, except for Sylvie who simply wasn’t interested. Sylvie still showed up during their crocheting sessions for the company, however. While Michelle wasn’t as into crocheting as Hailey was—her multiple projects spanned from scarfs to tiny amigurumi toys—she still found it pretty fun and enjoyed crocheting together in the same space as her friends while enjoying an iced tea.

  Also, she liked it even more for the fact that none of her friends’ boyfriends were interested in crocheting, guaranteeing her a friends-only time when they were engaging in this particur activity.

  “Yeah, you can ask Caledon to join us too if you want.”

  “Huh? No, I’m good.”

  “Are you sure? Carter’s joining us today, so Sylvie and Autumn asked their boyfriends to come too.”

  “Wait, I thought he wasn’t interested?”

  “He got curious about it, and I thought it’d be fun to teach him a bit.”

  “And your parents are okay with like, eight people in their house?”

  “I mean, it’s not like it’s going to be a party. And they’ve all met Jordan and Xavier before.”

  Michelle threw her head back to stare vacantly at the cssroom ceiling. The assimition was officially complete. Even their crocheting sessions were no longer a safe haven from all the extra boyfriends anymore. This was her life now.

  “Okay. I might ask Caledon.”

  “I heard from Marcus that girls really like it when their boyfriends share pylists with them,” Caledon shared, settling into the spot on the couch beside Michelle as he held the gss of water he’d gone to get.

  Because Hailey’s parents had two couches and four armchairs in the living room, there was plenty of room for all eight of them. According to Hailey, they hosted guests regurly. Her mother had been home when they all arrived. After acknowledging them and ordering pizza for everyone, she had retreated to the attic, ciming to be in the middle of some organization.

  Casting a brief gnce up at Carter and Hailey who were huddled together on the other couch, looking sickening sweet as they each held yarn and a crochet in their hands, Michelle huffily pulled the yarn through her current stitch. Autumn was showing her half-finished bobble hat to Xavier. Michelle wondered if she was deliberately overlooking his obviously feigned interest. Sylvie and Jordan had made a game out of trying to catch pecans with their mouths, taking turns to throw the pecans at each other.

  She still couldn’t believe that those guys were now infringing on the sole remaining activity that gave her uninterrupted quality time with her best friends.

  They’d been trying to distract each other from the sappy couples around them by having conversations about whatever topic that they could think of.

  “Yeah, I guess so.”

  Her friends were certainly susceptible to it. She’d heard Autumn and Hailey squealing about how they made pylists together with their respective boyfriends before, especially before their retionships had become official.

  “Do you want to hear mine? I don’t really know what kind of music you like.”

  Accepting the earbud he was offering her, Michelle resumed crocheting her soon-to-be mini penguin stuffed toy.

  She was pleasantly surprised by the songs in his pylist. Caledon listened to a lot of pop-rock, just like she did.

  “These are good. Can I see your pylist?”

  “Sure. I’ll send it to you.”

  “This is such a couple activity,” she commented, scrolling through the pylist he’d shared with her. “We’re even sharing earbuds.”

  “I know, right?”

  “Hey, maybe you’d like my songs too,” she said. “They’re a lot like yours. Want to hear them?”

  Caledon connected his earbuds to her phone instead and let Michelle py her own pylist.

  “Oh, you’re right. Our tastes are pretty simir. Maybe you can send me yours too.”

  Pleased that he liked her songs too, she smiled at him. Caledon leaned closer and pointed at her half-done penguin.

  “That looks hard to make. It’s going to be a penguin, right?”

  “Yeah. But it’s probably easier than you think it is. Do you want to learn a little?”

  He set his gss down and looked at her seriously. “Okay.”

  She blinked at him. She’d expected him to immediately decline and continue pying his video game.

  She pulled out another skein of yarn from her bag and passed it to him, along with her spare crochet hook. She taught him the basics, guiding him through each step of how to make a slip knot and then make a line of chains from it, and then how to single crochet into those chains.

  Caledon seemed fascinated as the string of light blue yarn under his hands slowly transformed into a solid, square piece. He kept flipping the piece over to look at it from both sides, as if unable to believe that he’d made it with his own hands.

  “I’m surprised you’re interested in crocheting,” she commented.

  “It’s cool that you can just make stuff out of a ball of yarn. I don’t mind learning stuff like that. Anyway, it’s nothing like we have anything else to do since, you know.”

  He waved vaguely at their surroundings.

  She snorted a ugh. “True.”

  “Could I use this for anything?”

  “Yeah, I used the first couple of squares I made as cup coasters.”

  “My mom would cry with happiness if I started using a coaster.”

  “Wait, you don’t use coasters at home?” Michelle gnced down at the ceramic coaster Caledon’s gss was sitting on.

  Hailey had given each of them a coaster to use with their gss, insisting that her parents were very particur about this.

  “I keep forgetting that they’re a thing. When I get a gss of water, my first thought isn’t that I need something to put it on. It drives my mom crazy whenever I leave cup rings on the kitchen counter.”

  “Well, hey, maybe if you brought home a coaster you made yourself, you might remember to use it. I can show you how to make a round one.”

  “Ooh, yeah, I want to learn. Teach me.”

  She demonstrated how to crochet a circur cup coaster, and Caledon picked up on the basics very quickly. He had to learn how to distinguish each stitch from its neighbor so he could put the hook in the right spot for each stitch, but he eventually figured it out with Michelle’s help.

  When it was time to leave, he had two crochet coasters in hand.

  “Thanks for showing me how to make these,” he said, waving them at her. “If I actually remember to use them, I think my mom might end up baking you a thank-you pie.”

  She gaped. “Your mom can bake pies? That’s amazing.”

  “Her chicken pot pies are the best. You know what, I might be able to bring you some tomorrow. She’s making them tonight. I’ll ask her.”

  Michelle squealed in excitement. “Yes, please!”