"So, you guys have never..."

"Nope."

"How?"

How?

"What do you mean, 'how?' "

"I mean how? Like, how is that even possible?"

Emily let out a frustrated groan. "I don't know, Aria!"

"Not even after your birthday surprise?"

"Nope! Went to her place, sat on her parents' couch."

"But she's slept over?"

"Yep! On the couch! Fully clothed. I actually put on more clothes before we fell asleep together!"

"But what about..." Emily shut down the question with a sharp glare.

"Aria. If we had slept together, trust me: I'd remember it."

"Is she a virgin?" Emily shrugged her shoulders. "You never asked her?" Emily shook her head. "I bet you Hanna knows."

Emily rolled her eyes. "I bet she does," she said, half-smiling.

"Do you guys ever talk about it?" Emily was confused. Did she and Hanna talk about Paige's virginity? Aria saw the look on her face and clarified, "Do you ever talk about having sex?"

Emily sighed. "Sort of. I mean, we just tease each other about it, you know? And we've done stuff. Nothing serious. We always stop. We've never actually talked about whether or not we're ready. We just... stop." Emily knifed her hand through the air on that last word.

"Huh..." Aria looked as if she were talking to someone who had never used indoor plumbing, trying to figure out how anyone could live like that for very long.

Emily grunted in frustration. "God. It's just so... But it's not as though we have a lot of opportunities. I can't just go over to her place, the way that you guys can with your boyfriends. She still lives with her parents; I still live with my parents." Aria rubbed Emily's shoulder sympathetically. "What should I do?" Emily whined

"I don't think that I can tell you what you should do. You both need to know that you want it, and you both need to know that you're ready."

"Well, what would you do?"

Aria shrugged. "I'd seduce her," she said, matter-of-factly.

"Okay, but practically." Even if Emily were to seduce Paige, they would still need a location. Emily wasn't really up for groping around in the back seat of her Toyota - or the back seat of Paige's mom's Focus - for their first time.

"Just think," Aria said. "Next fall, you guys will be in Stanford, and location won't be a problem anymore!"

"Yeah," Emily said sadly. "If we make it there."

"Emily, you're a shoo-in! And Tricia's a genius - she won't have any problem getting in!"

Emily explained to Aria that Paige was afraid of running into someone from her old school who might recognize her and maybe post something on-line that all of her friends back home would see. It would be hard to keep the news from the vindictive politician.

"Whoa. So, she's just... not going to college?"

Emily shrugged. "She's going to college. She just doesn't want to risk going to a place like Stanford, you know. All of her friends from the swim team wanted to go there."

Aria nodded. "Well, do yourself a favor - don't tell Spencer about this. Tell her that Paige didn't get accepted or something." Emily raised an eyebrow in confusion. "She's already on this crusade to prove that Tricia's up to something. The last thing that she needs is more cause for suspicion."

Emily shook her head. "Jeez. Still?"

Aria nodded. "You know Spence. She won't let up until she finds something."

Emily sighed. Everything had to be so complicated. Always.

Aria's eyes got wide and she slapped her hands against her knees. "What about Hanna's place?"

"Hanna's place?"

"Yeah - her mom's never there. And Hanna could stay over at Caleb's. If she's not already planning to."

Emily smiled, thinking that Aria's plan might actually work.

"Would your mom be okay with you sleeping over at Hanna's, when her mom's not there?"

And, there it was. The complication. "Yeah. Not to mention Tricia's mom." Aria nodded sadly and the two of them sat silently, trying to come up with a solution.

Finally, Emily sighed. "I guess," she said, "I'll just invite Tricia over for a Netflix night. Her mom knows my Mom, so she'll let her stay over. And I can just tell my Mom that I'm watching movies at Hanna's, because her mom's out of town, and she doesn't want to be alone in that house all night."

"Do you think that she'll buy that?"

Emily shrugged. "Can you come up with something better?"

"I don't know, Em. It just seems that, the more complicated these plans are, the more chances there are that something will go wrong."

Emily nodded. But, unable to think of anything better, she figured she was going to have to take that chance.

"So, how are you going to get her?" Hanna asked, her eyes as wide as the smile that was stretched across her face.

This was the problem with asking Hanna for help. She would want to have all of the details.

Emily tried to play it cool, hoping that, if she acted blasé about it, Hanna would, too. "I'm going to do what Paige told me that she would do," Emily said. "Wining, dining, dancing, romancing, singing… she couldn't come up with a word to rhyme with 'singing.'" Emily laughed, and Hanna joined her.

"Does she have ID?"

"I'll have to find that out."

"Yeah – 'cause if she doesn't, you'll be whining and dining! You see what I did there?"

"Whatever, Hanna. You're sure that your mom's going to be away this weekend?"

"She's locked and loaded!"

"And you're…"

"Bunking with Caleb," Hanna droned, her tone heavy, rebuking Emily for feeling the need to ask.

"Great! I'll get Paige to ask her parents to let her sleep over with me, for a Netflix night. Then, we'll just come here!"

"Why can't you just tell Paige that you're coming here?"

"It's called romance, Hanna. I'm not just going to say, 'Hey – you want to go out on Friday, then go over to Hanna's and do it?"

"That's what I would do. Damn – dating women must be hard!"

"Yeah. I'm sure that Caleb would agree. Anyway, I'm not sure that she's even ready to take it to the next level. So, I'm going to have to play it by ear. If I'm not getting the signals, then we actually will have to come back to my place."

"Your mom's cool with her staying over?"

Emily shrugged. "I'll just have to find a minute alone so that I can text her and let her know that Paige is coming."

"You think that she might not be ready? Because she's a virgin?" Hanna whispered the word as though she were saying something dirty.

"Hanna! I don't even know whether or not she's a virgin!"

"You want me to ask her?"
Emily glared at Hanna.
"What? She knows that I'm not a virgin!"

"Hanna, everybody knows that you're not a virgin."
Hanna glared at Emily.
"Not like that. I just mean that you're not shy about telling people about all of your… escapades."

Hanna shook off her offense. She sidled up to Emily and asked her, in a playful voice, "So, when you two are going at it like mad dogs on my bed, what name are you going to scream out? Paige, or Tricia?"

Paige and Emily were doing homework on Emily's bed when Emily reached over and took the earbud out of Paige's ear. Paige took the other one out, smiling at Emily, who was smiling back nervously. "Hey," she said.

"Hey," Emily said back. She exhaled, fighting off her nervousness. Paige just lay there, smiling patiently. Emily took her hand, to feel connected. "Do you want to, maybe, do something Friday night?" Emily was nervously fiddling with Paige's fingers.

"Sure, Em! I'm always up for doing something! What did you have in mind?" Paige knew that Emily must have had something in mind. Otherwise, Emily wouldn't have asked her so formally (and so nervously), because they always did something together on Friday nights, unless Emily had a meet or an early practice on Saturday.

Emily shrugged. "I thought that it might be fun to go dancing."

"Dancing, huh?" Paige could see how nervous Emily was, so she didn't string it out. "We should do it! It would definitely be fun."

"Yeah?" Emily smiled, biting the corner of her lip. "And I could take you out to dinner first? Someplace nice?"

"Dinner and dancing!" Paige gave an enthusiastic thumbs up.

"And, maybe, since I don't have practice in the morning, we could have a movie marathon? You could stay over? – If you wanted. And if your parents are okay with it. My Mom will be here, so…"

Emily was rambling. Paige sat up and pulled Emily into a sitting position. She gave her a big kiss. "Is it my birthday again so soon?"

Emily relaxed a little, seeing how eager Paige was for their date. "Okay, great. I'll make some reservations – do you have ID?"

Paige sighed. That was going to be a problem. "That's a little bit tricky, you know, with… everything. You don't know which of these places you can trust, you know? They might put your image on the web, or even sell it to someone else to use as a fake ID. That was one of the things that my caseworker warned me about. I still think that my Dad paid her off to say it…"

"Oh." Emily rubbed Paige's shoulder sympathetically. "Well, if you're okay with it, if you give Caleb your driver's license, he can whip one up for you? He would do it all himself, so you wouldn't have to take it to a place."

Paige's grin got bigger. "That would be perfect!"

"Ladies... Come right in," Caleb said, opening the door to his apartment and ushering them in. He looked as if he had missed at least a couple of nights' sleep, and at least as many shaves. He quickly pushed some dirty laundry off of the couch, onto the floor, and gestured for Paige and Emily to sit down.

Paige reached for her driver's license and handed it to Caleb before she sat down. She smiled as she took in the layout of his studio apartment. It looked something like the Bat Cave, if Alfred had been on vacation for a month. And if Batman was addicted to Five Hour Energy.

Caleb put Paige's license onto a scanner, and an array of monitors around his desk lit up with her image. With a quick series of clicks, he subtracted a couple of years from the date and tilted a monitor toward Paige for her approval. "Do you want me to change the lighting or the angle on the picture at all?" Paige declined. "No, of course not," Caleb said. "You're beautiful just the way you are!" He reached over to push a button on the front panel of what looked like a printer on steroids. It beeped an complained, and Caleb let loose with a few choice words, clicking away the error boxes that came up on his main monitor. He fished through the bottom drawer of his desk, smiling as he found a white plastic tube full of colored powder which he fed into one of the ink cartridges before he fired up the printer again. In a short while, a plastic sheet came out, and Caleb took it over to a cutter to trim it down to size.

"Wow! You do great work! And fast! You could put the real DMV out of business!" Paige showed Emily her new ID, despite the fact that it wasn't any different than her old one, except for the date.

Emily hugged Caleb, so Paige did, too, even though he didn't seem all that comfortable with the contact. Emily turned to Paige and jumped slightly, with her hands on Paige's shoulders, as she let out a squeal of delight. She squeezed Paige's hand tight, full of nervous energy as they headed to the car. It was on: All systems go for their big date.