“And you think it’s that simple?”

“I think it’s a start.” Without mentioning The Art of War, I explain about leveling the playing field.

“So how long would we keep up this charade?”

“Good question. What about five dates each?” I suggest.

He whistles long and low. “That’s a lot of quality time together.”

“Well, what about either side can terminate the agreement early if it’s not working out,” I say. “I wouldn’t want us to spend our whole summer being miserable or anything.”

“What about rules?” he asks. “Things we can and can’t do?”

“Rules, yes. Good call. I think we both should be able to make any rules we want, but I haven’t thought that far in advance. Does that mean you’re in?”

He doesn’t say anything for a minute and I feel like he just needs one more nudge. “I’ll even let you have the first date,” I offer. “That way if it’s a disaster, we can call it quits and you haven’t wasted any time at all.”

“You are one determined chick.” He laughs under his breath. “Sure your ex-boyfriend is worth all this trouble?”

Two and a half years of kisses and late night texting and almost perfect life as Jason’s girlfriend flashes in my head. And then the thought of my senior year ruined while I watch from the sidelines as he hangs out with all of our mutual friends.

“Positive,” I say.

I meet Micah at his apartment at the end of the week for our first official “date.” His room looks about like I expected: band posters, mounds of dirty laundry, black sheets taped over the windows.

“You know, they have these things called curtains.” I stand with my back against the wall. There’s no way I’m sitting down in here.

Micah is sprawled across his unmade bed. He looks up from the TV long enough to roll his eyes. “So, the rules. What are they? You strike me as the kind of girl who probably came up with a thousand of them.”

“Actually I only have a few.” I clear my throat. “Number one: no telling anyone else about the plan.”

Micah nods. “Okay.” His eyes flick back to the TV. He’s watching the Cartoon Mayhem channel—an episode of Happy Cheetah.

“Two: no touching. Three: absolutely no kissing.”

“As much as I have no desire to turn myself orange by brushing up against you and your spray-paint tan, I think we might have to touch occasionally to look like we’re dating,” Micah says.

“Fine. Minimal touching.” I hold out my arm and admire my silky bronzeness. “And by the way, this isn’t orange. It’s Desert Glow.”

“More like glow in the dark.” He yawns. “Is that all you got?”

I nod. “Go ahead. What are your rules?”

“I’m kind of a no-rules guy.” He turns to me, a slow smile spreading across his face. “I’m curious, though. What are you going to tell your friends? And your parents? That getting dumped by Jason drove you to the dark side?”

“Well, Bianca knows and Kendall is out of town. They’re the main ones I talk to outside of soccer. And my parents are pretty laid-back as long as I’m home for curfews, so I don’t have to tell them anything specific. I mean, for all they know we’re just work friends hanging out.”

Micah snorts, as if the idea of us hanging out as work friends is all kinds of hilarious. “So no other rules?” he asks. “At all?”

The way he’s looking at me makes me feel like there should be tons more, but I can only think of one. “No making up X-rated stories about me.”

He runs a hand through his mohawk. “What about R-rated?”

“I’ll give you PG-13.”

“Middle school kids can get pretty rowdy these days.” Micah licks his lips suggestively.

“That’s your sister you’re talking about, right?” I say sweetly.

“Not cool.” He throws a pillow at me. “Ugh, she’s actually going to be a freshman.”

As if she can sense us talking about her, Micah’s sister pokes her head into the room without even knocking. “Oh, hey,” she says. “I’m Trinity. I just wanted to say hi.”

“Hi. I’m Lainey.” I give her a smile and a beauty pageant wave. I’ve seen Trinity hanging out at Denali, but today is the first time we’ve officially met. She has dark brown hair like Micah, with little streaks of blue and green protruding from behind her left ear. She’s wearing a flowered dress, a trucker hat, and these weird black shoes shaped like cats. It’s a mix of masculine, feminine, and just plain weird that I don’t think I could pull off, but it totally works for her.

“I know who you are.” She giggles. Micah punches the volume on the TV up a couple of notches. “Cool, Happy Cheetah. Is this the episode where Cheetah and Bipolar Bunny go to the zoo to torment Anxiety Zebra?” She looks back and forth from Micah to me.

“I have no idea,” I say.

“Lainey’s not into Happy Cheetah,” Micah changes the channel to an episode of Celebrity Sightings. “This is more her speed.”

He’s right. I listen as celebrity reporter Ashton Leigh reports the latest updates on Caleb Waters and Flyboys.

“Flyboys is the story of two Air Force pilots who get kicked out of the military for reckless behavior and have to try to make a living as commercial pilots,” Ashton chirps. She flicks her stick-straight blonde hair back over her shoulder. “Currently the crew is filming scenes in Chicago.” The camera cuts to some grainy footage of Caleb Waters in what looks like a hotel.

“Ohmygod,” I say as Micah flips back to Happy Cheetah. “Chicago! That’s pretty close. What if Caleb Waters comes here?”

“Ohmygod,” Micah mimics. “I’m getting all horny just thinking about it.”

I wrinkle up my nose. “Ew, don’t talk like that in front of your little sister.”

“Don’t talk like that in front of your date,” Trinity chimes in.

It is superweird to hear myself referred to as Micah’s “date.”

Trinity clasps her hands together and I notice her fingernails are painted blue and green to match the streaks in her hair. “So, Lainey,” she says like she’s known me for years. “I’ve been wanting to tell you how much I love your commercial.”

Micah makes a gagging sound without looking away from the TV. “I can’t wait to go to Hazelton Forest University,” he says in a high-pitched voice. “I’m doing a double major in soccer and celebrity stalking and a minor in tanning. It’s going to be totally to die for!”

Trinity laughs. A big laugh that shows a lot of gums and teeth. I used to laugh like that, before Kendall informed me belly laughing was uncool, especially with big horsey teeth like mine.

“Those would be the best majors ever,” I admit. I smile at Trinity. She’s so enthusiastic about everything. It’s pretty cute. “I like your streaks,” I tell her, mostly because I know how much being complimented by a popular senior will mean to her.

Trinity’s eyes go so wide that she looks like one of those anime girls my brother used to be obsessed with. “Really? I could give you one.”

“I, uh—” Crap. This is what I get for trying to be nice.

“I’ll use a clip instead of glue so you can take it out right away if you don’t like it.” She looks so hopeful that I can’t bear to tell her no.

Micah, apparently, isn’t as reluctant. “Let her be, Trin. Lainey would look weird with one of your extensions.”

“I would not.” Turning to Trinity I say, “Hook me up. I think I would look cool.”

She smiles her huge smile again. “Awesome sauce! Be right back.”

She returns carrying a camouflage tackle box and when she pops open the lid, I can see it’s full of jewelry, makeup, and hair extensions.

“Pick a color.” She’s got little swatches of hair in every color of the rainbow.

I reach for a teal one. “It’ll match my work shirt.”

Trinity cocks her head to the side and toys with one of her streaks as she looks me over. She fingers the top of my hair and then the area behind my left ear, her pale forehead crinkling up in concentration. I feel a little self-conscious, which is ridiculous. I mean, she’s a kid. Still, I wonder what she thinks of my outfit. Micah wouldn’t tell me where he was taking me, so I tried to dress as rocker as possible, which isn’t too easy when your wardrobe consists mostly of secondhand designer dresses and pastel tank tops. I opted for a black T-shirt dress and the biggest, most metallic jewelry I own. I flattened my hair extra straight. It’s so shiny it’s almost reflective.

“I think you look great,” she says. “But a streak will make you look even cooler. You’ll look right at home where my brother is taking you.”

I focus my attention back on Micah. “Where are you taking me?”

“You’ll see.” He hums a little tune under his breath. “It’s going to be torture.”

Trinity steers me over in front of a full-length mirror hanging on the closet door. She uses the pointy end of a comb to create a part down the left side of my scalp. I barely feel it as she threads a tiny silver clip around a lock of my hair. My mind tries to imagine all sorts of horrific places Micah might take me, but it comes up empty. Hazelton is the smallest suburb of St. Louis. I’ve been pretty much everywhere there is. Even if we go into the city, the number of places that would qualify as torture are pretty limited.

I think.

“You guys are still going to Ms. Creant’s, right?” Trinity leans away from me and admires her work. She finger-combs the left side of my hair.

“Yup,” Micah says, smiling at his sister or my discomfort. Maybe both.

“You’ll like it then,” Trinity says, heading for the bedroom door. “Be right back.”

“Maybe we need to make some rules about where we can and can’t go,” I say, once she’s out of earshot.

Micah drops the remote control on the floor and turns to see the look on my face. “Oh, come on. I have to get some enjoyment out of this.”

“I don’t have any immediate plans to torture you,” I say, sounding just the slightest bit whiny.

“That you know of,” he says. “Maybe just being around you will be agony.”

“Ha-ha. What’s Ms. Creant’s?” I ask. The name reminds me of a voodoo bookshop in New Orleans that my brother and I snuck into on a family vacation a few years back.

“It’s a restaurant in the city.” Micah hops up and crosses the room toward me. Without warning, he reaches out for my hair.

Instinctively I slide away from his outstretched hand, bumping my back against his closet doorknob.

“Chill, Lainey.” He raises his hands in mock surrender. “I was just checking out my sister’s mad skills.”

I got so distracted thinking about where Micah might take me I completely didn’t realize Trinity had finished threading the streak into my hair. I twist around to check myself out in the smudgy mirror. A teal-blue stripe runs behind my left ear. I have to admit I kind of like how it looks.

Trinity returns with a pair of needle-nose pliers. She pinches the clip tight where she attached the colored extension. “Now it won’t fall out,” she explains. “Not for a while.”

“Are you done making her hot, Trin?” Micah asks. “I’m starving, and you know there’s always a wait.”

“Unless Lainey wants to borrow my shoes.” Trinity kicks one of her clunky cat shoes up in the air. They actually have little braided tails coming off the heels. “We look about the same size.”

“I’m good,” I say. And then I start wondering if Micah just implied that I was hot? Or did he mean to say I wasn’t hot without his little sister’s help?

Dude, this breakup is seriously messing with my head.

Trinity nods. She packs up her tackle box of beauty products and slides out of the bedroom. “Have fun, you guys,” she calls over her shoulder.

Micah turns off the TV. He grabs a tube of something from a drawer and squirts it into his hand. With the tips of his fingers, he combs his hair toward the ceiling until it stands about three inches tall. It looks cool. Creepy, but cool.

The door to his room bursts open again. A woman with bleach-blonde hair and a whole sleeve of tattoos pokes her upper body into the room. “What’s going on, Micah?” she asks.

“Hey, Mom. Nothing.” He fidgets with his barbed-wire bracelet. “What are you doing here?”

“I live here,” his mom says. “My last appointment canceled. What are you doing with a girl in your room?”

“Oh, I’m not—” I start to explain to Mrs. Foster that Micah and I are just friends.

He cuts me off. “It’s Elaine from elementary school,” he says. “She barely even counts as a girl.”

“Micah! Don’t be rude.” Mrs. Foster flashes me an apologetic look.