Author's Notes: Well, I meant to get this chapter out much sooner, but then everyone in my house got sick for three weeks (!), and then by the time I actually got to writing, I thought it needed work so then I rewrote it and made enough content to basically post a completely alternate version of this chapter. Anyway, I'm not sure I love it, but I need deadlines for motivation, and Thanksgiving was the deadline for me on this one. The alternative is… going on hiatus forever, which I'd prefer not to do, lol. I might end up changing this one down the line if chapter 4 doesn't cooperate, but for now, here we are!

Also I know next to nothing about rugby the sport or the season, so I'm going to need you to handwave anything I've ever written on the matter, please and thank you.

Hope everyone is well and that you have a good holiday if you're celebrating Thanksgviing. May you stay healthy this winter season.

I'm aiming for my next update to be mid-December.

Kissed Connection

Chapter 3: The Kissing Booth

When Amity'd learned she'd been grounded, it hadn't sounded so bad at first. The grounding was only three weeks. She'd win her freedom right around Thanksgiving, and that was completely fine since she was pretty busy at school, so she'd be available around the time everyone in her social circle would want to hang out anyway.

That, and it wasn't like she was restricted from doing everything.

The rules were simple, but strict: she could only attend class or her internship; otherwise, she was expected to go straight from home to school and back home again.

Whether she could go to rugby practice had been up for debate: Amity argued she was the team captain, but while Odalia considered the sport beneficial to round out Amity's college resume, her mother had countered that most of their championship games were done for the season. Since Amity had made the mistake of looking like she wanted it too much, Odalia had deemed it part of Amity's punishment to skip the practices, something Amity was surprised her coach let her mother get away with.

Okay.

So.

On the bright side, she'd done well on the SAT and had a lot of time to craft her essays for her early action application and turned that in with no minor amount of worry. On the down side, the twins had gone back to college a few days after the party, and, with her parents ever busy with work, the entire experience had left her isolated in the manor with her thoughts, her books, and her stress, and frankly, she was sick of it all.

After overworking herself in her room, she was looking forward to her first true social event outside the house: the Harvest Charity Festival, a fair and food drive held in the local park that the Student Council had set up as their community Thanksgiving event. She was happy about it even though, as Student Body President, she'd been tasked with one of the more laborious jobs which was to be the main day-of coordinator. But after her parentally-enforced home confinement, it was a welcome change to be around people.

And so, protected against the cold with her favorite lavender winter coat over a maroon sweater dress and her favorite boots, Amity walked through the park green they'd rented, double- and triple-checking her list.

Food stalls with the proper permits set up in the right area and serving food?

Check.

Carnival games and activity booths prepped and going?

Check.

Brown-haired girl who shares your childhood love of Azura that you've tried not to think about ever since she Cinderella-ed you at your own Halloween party?

Check.

"Wait what?" Amity said aloud to herself as she took a harder look at the crowd she'd glanced over.

No Cat Hoodie Girl.

Wonderful.

Now Amity was so starved socially that she was seeing things.

She turned her back on the crowd to walk deeper into the fair, checking the list absently as her mind spit out several thoughts.

There was no reason Cat Hoodie Girl would be here; she was a Glandus student and the majority of the guests were friends or neighbors of Hexside families.

Of course, a smaller part of her brain piped up, Glandus students also live in this community, so statistically speaking, it is possible.

But! a third part countered, it doesn't matter if she's here or not. We aren't hoping to see Cat Hoodie Girl now, are we?

Maybe at the Halloween party, Amity had been optimistic that seeing the other girl was going to lead somewhere.

But being grounded at home with her parents reminded her just how far she'd come the past several years: she was mere weeks away from the dream of getting into the college they'd always wanted. And once she got the acceptance letter, she'd have one more semester of straight-As to maintain so she wouldn't mess that up. Getting distracted now—and for what, a heretofore nonexistent relationship with a stranger that wouldn't last past their senior year?—wouldn't do.

"Hey, Amity!" Skara said, making Amity jump as she sidled up holding a funnel cake that was so piled high with whipped cream, powdered sugar, and candy that it threatened to topple over. It smelled like pumpkin spice and looked delicious. "Everything going okay? You look, well, sorta angry."

"I'm not. I'm just thinking about… things. Everything's fine though. Hexside's basically done this festival every year for the last decade, so it runs pretty smoothly at this point," Amity shrugged. "How's your booth going?"

"Oh, you know, everyone's a little shy at the beginning, but it's heating up, if you know what I mean," Skara said with a wink. "Kissing booths are so much fun."

"Are they though?" Amity asked because she found the idea kind of weird philosophically.

"You're only saying that because you haven't been in the hot seat," Skara said, taking an impressive bite out of the funnel cake without getting any powdered sugar on her chic navy sweater. "You should try it!"

"I'm sure you and Boscha have it handled."

"Psh, of course," Skara said. "But you can always drop by. It's the perfect place to meet that special someone."

Amity made a face. "If I'm going to run into my special someone, I'd rather do it somewhere other than a kissing booth."

"Wait, you like somebody?" Skara asked curiously, and Amity glanced down at her clipboard, worried her face revealed too much.

"I meant, hypothetically," Amity said.

"Sure," Skara said, but her eyebrow waggle said she was far from convinced. "As for me, I'll tell you how it goes."

"You made a date with someone at the kissing booth?"

"You could say that." Now Skara was the one looking down, studying her funnel cake like it held the mysteries of the universe. "It's… complicated."

"How can it be complicated?"

"Can love ever be simple?" Skara asked with a laugh that was a little too sharp. It was suspicious since Skara had perfect pitch, so something must've been bothering her. But Amity dropped it as Skara had so neatly done for her.

"I'll take your word for it," Amity said.

Skara cleared her throat. "And speaking of Boscha, have you seen her? She said she'd hold my stuff while I bought this funnel cake for us, but she just disappeared. She has my backpack and my phone."

"I haven't talked to her since the festival started. But I can text her for you," Amity said.

"Thanks. Tell her I'm going to grab a drink from the hot chocolate cart, and then head back to the booth for my turn at being the kisser. See you around!" Skara said, walking off.

Amity waved, sent off the text to Boscha, and went to visit the vendors and booths in the back half of the fair where the children's attractions were. She checked out the rides and wove through the throng of laughing kids and festival-goers until she reached the last stop on her list, the petting zoo which was supposed to be manned by Barcus. To her surprise though, Viney was there, competently minding the attraction, attending to the animals and making sure visitors were being respectful and safe.

Viney hadn't been scheduled on her list. Amity would've remembered seeing the name because the last time she'd seen Viney, she'd been sitting next to Cat Hoodie Girl, talking to her like they knew each other.

Amity bet Viney would know Cat Hoodie Girl's name if she asked.

But that would be… weird to say the least. She and Viney rarely talked outside of school-related activities or projects. Viney was considered a bit of a troublemaker (though, to be fair, it was mostly due to her protesting the track system at school, insisting she should be able to study anything—Amity could admire that), but what had sealed Viney's social fate was that her family was, to quote her mother, forgettable. Though Viney's parents were members of the same country club as her parents, they lacked influence unlike Skara's father who was on the board for Blight Industries or Boscha's father whose insane family wealth funded many of the companies Odalia partnered with.

For her part, Amity had nothing against Viney. It's just that if her mother were to hear about it...

"What's wrong, Prez? Is the poster crooked or something?"

Amity looked over at Viney who'd joined her at the outer fence of the pen, trying to see what Amity had been emptily staring at which was apparently one of the sponsor signs attached to the gates surrounding the petting zoo. Amity played along and pretended to examine the poster—Sponsored by the Noceda Veterinary Clinic, it read—then shook her head.

"Thought it might've been off, but it's all in good order," Amity said.

"Oh, thank Titan," Viney drawled. "Would've been pretty embarrassing for us. Can you imagine what these four-year-olds would say?"

Amity made a face. "Are you making fun of me?"

Viney laughed. "Yeah, I definitely am."

"This fair donates several thousand dollars to the local charities," Amity started, "and it's our job to—"

"Okay, okay, step off the soap box, Madame President," Viney said. "Crooked posters aside, you've got nothing to worry about. Barcus got sick at the last second, so he asked me to take over. But I've got this all under control. That's why you're here, right?"

"Mostly I'm making sure no one needs anything…"

"Then we're cool. I'm keeping an eye on 'em," Viney said, sweeping a hand at the pen. "The kids. Not the goats or the rabbits. The animals behave."

"Well, good," Amity said, then stopped. This was normally the moment she'd graciously leave Viney to it, but she couldn't move.

"Anything else I can help you with?" Viney asked. "Want to pet a bunny?"

"Uh, no," Amity said, then thought screw it. "I mean, yes. To the help. Not the bunny."

"Sure."

"You came to my Halloween party, didn't you?"

"Oh yeah! I did," Viney said. "I didn't think you had it in you to throw a party without your parents knowing. I'm kinda impressed."

"Don't be," Amity said. "It was the twins' idea."

"Heard you got grounded though."

"Oh, I did."

"Then good job," Viney said.

"Thanks?" Amity said, thoroughly mystified by this conversation but pressing forward.

"Sorry, you were asking about the party?"

"When we were playing Spin the Bottle, you sat next to this girl…"

"Oh yeah, the one you made out with," Viney said brightly.

Amity could feel the blush shoot past her cheeks straight to the roots of her hair.

"Yes, uh, I mean, maybe? I mean, it was part of the game," Amity stuttered, and Viney tilted her head forward, encouraging her to go on. Was it weird to ask the other girl's name at this point? Maybe Viney would slip and say it, saving her the trouble. "I want to get in touch with her. She goes to Glandus, right?"

"Oh, she used to. She doesn't anymore. Not since Homecoming," Viney said, which explained why Amity hadn't been able to find her. Glandus wasn't that big. "But that's a whole other story."

"Sounds like you know her well…"

"Kinda," Viney said. "I got a part-time gig at her mom's office, and we hang out sometimes. She's pretty cool. Any reason you're looking for her?"

"Uh…" Amity said, her brain casting for an idea and thought of the beanie on her desk. "I have something of hers, but I don't know how to get it back to her."

"You could give it to me," Viney offered. "I can see she gets it when I see her next."

"That's okay!" Amity said quickly. "I don't have it with me. Is there any way I could get her na—"

But Amity didn't get to finish asking because an ear-splitting shriek reverberated through the air.

"Owww!" wailed a little kid as a goat happily chomped on the hat that was currently tied to his head.

"Whoops, duty calls!" Viney said, giving Amity a wave as she jogged over to the child. Amity waited for a moment longer, but by the time the kid was calm, the line to the petting zoo had gotten significantly longer. Viney met her eyes and gave a helpless little shrug, and Amity waved good-bye to leave her to it.

Amity turned back to the main path towards the heart of the fair, already calculating that she'd find Viney after the fair was over.

She'd nearly gotten to the entrance when someone called her name.

"Blight! Come here!"

Amity glanced up. Boscha was waving urgently at her from the ticket counter in front of the kissing booth. As Amity approached, Boscha shooed away the people in line, put a 'Be Back in 5 Minutes' sign on the window, and yanked Amity behind the counter.

"What are you doing? Those people wanted tickets!" Amity hissed.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah, and they'll come back in five minutes," Boscha said. She glanced out the window then back at Amity, and Amity immediately knew by the glint in her friend's eye that she was not going to like what was coming next.

"I need you to do me a favor," Boscha began, and Amity held up a hand.

"No," Amity said. She took a seat in the space's only chair, her feet grateful for the sudden reprieve.

"You don't even know what I was going to say!" The redhead protested, fists clenching before Boscha threw her arms outwards in frustration. Amity leaned back. It always helped not to be in Boscha's area of effect unless one was willing to suffer either purposefully or accidentally being smacked in the head.

"It's not hard to guess," Amity answered back. "You need me to cover for you in the kissing booth when you're up next, right? You want me to sit in for you."

"No, you're wrong," Boscha said with a self-satisfied smirk. "I don't want you to sit in for me, I want you to sit in for Skara."

"Interesting, but no."

"There's someone coming here that she absolutely cannot kiss."

"In that case, doubly no," Amity said.

"Blight! Are we friends or not?"

Amity made a little so-so gesture with her hand to which Boscha responded with a much ruder gesture with hers.

"Boscha, if there's someone that shouldn't be here, you have my permission to act as bouncer and kick them out," Amity said. "Or I could do it."

"No!" Boscha said, a little too desperately.

Amity lifted an eyebrow.

"Okay, the thing is," Boscha said, opening her mouth then closing it again. "The thing is that I don't want Skara to know that I got rid of this person."

Now Amity was intrigued. "Why not?"

"You know that Halloween party?"

"The one at my house that I was grounded for several weeks over," Amity deadpanned. "I'm aware."

"You could have just said 'yes'," Boscha grumbled. "The thing is… Skara met a girl at that party. You were there."

Amity thought of her kissing Cat Hoodie Girl in Spin the Bottle. "Yeah, I was."

"Yeah, okay, and Skara got her number, and these last few weeks, they've been flirting with each other."

"They have?!" Amity asked, and mortifyingly, her knee jerked up into the table, sending a roll of tickets to the floor. She cursed and started spooling them back into their original wheel while trying to pay attention to Boscha who'd started pacing behind her.

"Blight, keep up. Haven't you noticed how giggly and distracted Skara's been?"

"I don't know how many times I have to tell you I've been grounded for the past few weeks," Amity said. "So, no, I haven't noticed!"

"You still go to school," Boscha pointed out. "Surely you've seen something."

"I've been a little busy. My mom got my teachers to double my workload somehow," Amity grumbled. "Besides, Bosh, Skara's always giggly and distracted."

"It's different when she's flirting," Boscha said. "She gets this look in her eye, and when she's super smiley, she has this dimple"—here, the redhead made a circle around her right cheek area that Amity didn't even try to interpret—"and it's ridiculously—"

"As much as I'd like to learn the minutiae of Skara's facial expressions, can we circle back around to how you know Skara's texting the girl from the Halloween party?"

"I saw a text from her pop up on Skara's phone the Monday after."

"What's the girl's name?" Amity asked, feeling faint. At least she'd find out Cat Hoodie Girl's real identity.

"Dunno. Skara put her in as 'Heart Emoji Pumpkin Emoji Heart Emoji Exclamation Point'."

Or not.

"Okay, so she's texting someone new, sure," Amity admitted. "But what does that have to do with the kissing booth?"

Boscha glanced left and right as if they might be spied on before pulling Skara's phone out of her pocket and turning the screen to face Amity. It was a log of the texts between Skara and the other girl.

"Skara and Heart Emoji Girl are planning on meeting up right here. At this time, right now," Boscha summarized, taking the phone away before Amity could follow through on the temptation to reach out and scroll up.

"Did you know Skara's been looking for you and her stuff?" Amity asked sourly. "How'd you even get into her phone?

"Come on, she hasn't changed the password for any of her phones since middle school and… nevermind that! You're asking all the wrong questions!" Boscha insisted. "Don't make me go through all the gory details when we only have a minute until she's due to go back up there to suck face with Heart Emoji Pumpkin Emoji Heart Emoji Exclamation Point!"

"How are you so sure they're meeting at the kissing booth to kiss?!" Amity asked, even though now thinking back to her conversation with Skara, it was beginning to take on new meaning the more Boscha talked.

Boscha sent her a withering look.

"And they say you're smart," Boscha growled. "Are you going to go out there to stop this or not?"

Amity knew she was missing something here, that there were unanswered questions such as "Why would Skara bother inviting Heart Emoji Girl to the kissing booth when there is literally an entire fair to make out at?" or "Why does Boscha care this much about Skara seeing someone else?" or "Why does it have to be me when Boscha is actually one of the volunteer kissers for the booth?", but the reality was that, no matter what she kept trying to tell herself, the impulsive part of her that she was beginning to strongly associate with Cat Hoodie Girl or Heart Emoji Girl or whatever her real name happened to be was yelling at her to jump first and answer questions later.

"Fine," Amity said. "But I'm not doing the entire shift."

"Yeah, yeah, you can tag me back in," Boscha said. "After you get rid of Skara's date! I'll keep Skara busy after you send her out."

Boscha nearly pulled her arm socket out as she bullied Amity out of her seat at the ticket counter.

"And just what am I supposed to say to Skara about going in to replace her?" Amity hissed when Boscha half-dragged, half-pushed her into the kissing booth.

"I don't know, Blight. Use that brain you're always blathering on about!"

Amity wanted to protest that she did not, in fact, routinely blather on about her brain, but Boscha had already left her to it.

Skara entered the booth a second later, not noticing Amity at first as she dug into her purse for chapstick. She'd managed to apply one cherry-scented, glossy coat before she spied Amity.

"Hey," Skara said, "isn't it my turn next?"

"Uh, I decided to come try my luck," Amity said.

"I thought you wanted to meet your special someone anywhere but a kissing booth." Skara said, skeptically.

Amity's brain scrambled around for something… and came up empty. For all her reputation as a cold-blooded ice queen, she'd apparently run out of cool because the truth just started to bubble out of her. "Boscha said I'm supposed to fill in for you!"

Skara tilted her head, confused. "Why's that?"

"Um, she didn't want me to tell you, and I… don't know why," Amity said.

"That's mysterious," Skara said.

"Yeah, you should talk to her about it. It sounded like she didn't want you to, uh, kiss someone else."

"But I've been kissing people all day," Skara pointed out.

"Maybe she meant someone you might actually be interested in dating?" Amity suggested.

Now Skara flushed, looking… almost pleased, if Amity had to guess. "Boscha said that?"

"No, not exactly," Amity said, "but she was willing to do a lot to stop it from happening."

"Did she say anything else?"

"Um, she talked about how when you're really smiley, you have a dimple that pops out right here?" Amity added, feeling dumb as she gestured vaguely to the right side of her face, and Skara put her hand to the cheek in question, eyes closing.

"Oh, so she does notice me," Skara said, and when her eyes opened, they were filled with resolve. "Okay, well, if Boscha wants you to sub in for me to stop me from kissing someone, why shouldn't I let you? I'll go find her right now."

Amity let out a relieved sigh.

There.

Perfect.

She had made it Bocha's problem.

"Wow, this went way better than I thought! And it's good timing," Skara was saying when Amity tuned back in. "I had made plans to meet someone, but… now I just don't think it's going to work out."

Amity thought of Heart Emoji Girl and winced. "Wait, Skara..."

But Skara wasn't paying attention to Amity in the slightest.

"You should go for it," Skara said with a wink as she exited the booth. "Byeee!"

Skara left, and Amity didn't know what to do except sit down on the stool in the booth waiting for the next person to show up.

A part of her hoped she wasn't going to see Heart Emoji Girl. Because if she didn't, that meant Boscha was wrong, that the other girl had not been flirty texting Skara all this time, and that Amity wasn't going to be facing someone who'd been wanting to see Skara all along instead of her.

On that fun thought, nerves seized her, making her quail, a feeling which was rare for Amity. She was, of course, no stranger to game-day nerves; she'd had a lot of experience dealing with them whether it was on the rugby field or during standardized tests or when presenting her work to be judged for any of the contests she'd entered. Usually, the competitive part of Amity welcomed that edge, that heightened sense of awareness when she was about to show off, that feeling that winning was so close.

But as with everything related to Heart Emoji Girl, this was nothing compared to all those other times.

For the first time in a long time, Amity wanted something. To know this other girl, to learn more about her, to maybe have a connection to someone that wasn't a parent-approved friend or a classmate she had to best or a stranger to win over.

It felt strange, but nice, but scary. Very scary.

Before she could continue to spiral further though, the curtains to the booth entrance swished, and it was Beanie/Cat Hoodie/Heart Emoji Girl. In a vast improvement over her other outfit choices, she was wearing a baseball tee that said 'Witch' on it over ripped jeans… looking embarrassed as she inexplicably held her admission ticket up in front of her face, her eyes cast to the ceiling.

"Okay, before this goes any further, I have to say… I'm sorry," the girl said, "but I can't kiss you."

"It'd certainly break our streak, but that's fine," Amity said as lightly as possible even as something leaden crashed in her chest.

"Oh! You're not Skara." The girl's eyes flew open, and Amity tried not to read the disappointment she heard in the statement.

"No, I'm—"

"Amity, I remember," the girl interrupted. "I remember everything from the last time we talked."

"Ah yeah, getting kicked out of a party would be pretty hard to forget."

"That too," she said. "But it's, uh, nice to see you. I didn't know that you'd be, uh, here, kissing people in the, uh, in the kissing booth."

"I didn't know either. I was supposed to be running the fair, but Skara had to step out. Skara's the one who's supposed to be here, which I guess you already knew"— Oh no, I've been talking too long, Amity thought, panicked as her mouth continued to say things—"because you are also here, right now, and you were hoping to see Skara at this moment, right?"

"I was expecting her, yes," the other girl said, either having not noticed Amity rambling or deciding to graciously let Amity save face. "Since that's what she told me."

"Yeah, I heard you two were talking," Amity said because she was a glutton for punishment. It was not in her top ten list of brightest ideas to keep talking with the girl she probably had a crush on about her romantic interest in one of Amity's friends.

"Texting, not talking," the girl corrected quickly though Amity wasn't sure why she drew the distinction. "Badly, on my part, it seems like."

"Can't have been that bad!" Amity said with the false brightness she normally reserved for her boss at her tech internship. And why, why, why was she acting as Skara's wingwoman? She couldn't seem to stop herself. "Skara looked excited to meet up with you when I saw her…"

The other girl shut her eyes tight again. "Yeah, about that… I really need to talk to her. Do you know where she is?"

It was like another arrow to the heart, but Amity soldiered on. "I'm not sure. She wanted to find Boscha about something. I'm surprised you didn't see her in the ticket booth."

"Huh, no one was there when I arrived. I just tossed some money inside and grabbed one of the tickets," the girl explained (which, frankly, should have worried Amity more but she got distracted by what the girl said next). "But it's okay, I'll find her after."

"After what?" Amity asked.

The other girl looked down at her ticket and then up at Amity. "I have a confession to make."

Against her will, Amity felt her pulse pick up.

"I wanted to run into you," the girl said when Amity didn't say anything. "I thought there was a good chance I would since you're friends with Skara, and this is going to be kind of awkward if you have it already, but…"

"Have what?"

The girl transferred her ticket from one hand to the other, and with her recently freed hand, reached around to dig into a messenger bag Amity hadn't noticed she'd been wearing. A second later, she pulled out a book and handed it to Amity.

Amity took it, but she didn't need to see the title to recognize it. "The Good Witch Azura 5."

"You said you hadn't found a copy last time we talked, and I already… how did you put it? Pre-ordered the book so I could then pull an all-nighter reading it from cover to cover on the first day of release," the other girl said with a small smile.

"I still hadn't gotten the chance to grab a copy," Amity said, having a bit of a hard time forming the words because affection was seeping into her, chasing away jealousy and nerves and hurt, filling her heart with something bright and warm. "I… You're… You're giving this to me?"

"Lending it to you," the other girl clarified. "I wouldn't mind giving it to you, but… I kind of already wrote my name in it?"

"That is the dorkiest thing I've ever heard," Amity said softly, but without any bite to it.

"Says the girl who dressed up as Hecate for Halloween," the girl snarked back, but Amity wasn't listening because she'd already opened the cover and flipped to the first endpage to run her fingers reverently along the words, in sparkly purple gel pen no less—

This book belongs to Luz Noceda.

"Luz, huh?" Amity said aloud, and it felt perfect, like someone had just placed the last piece of a puzzle.

"That's me," the other girl confirmed. "It's nice to meet you, Amity."

Amity laughed before shutting the book, bringing it to her chest, and hugging it. She really didn't know what to say about it all, just that she was so happy, in part because she was genuinely excited about reading the book but also because the other girl— Luz finally, she could dispense with the nicknames—had thought of her and wanted to share this with her.

"I don't know how to thank you," Amity said quietly, eyes meeting Luz's. "I guess I'll owe you."

"You don't owe me anything," Luz replied, instantly, easily. "Knowing you'll enjoy it is thanks enough."

"Still. I want to do something for you." Amity didn't know what to do with all the bubbly, light feelings inside her, and struck by inspiration, she went with what she wanted and stepped forward, plucking the admission ticket out of the other girl's hand and kissing her.

In the admittedly limited history of their kisses, it was fairly chaste. For a moment, she just enjoyed her mouth pressed firm and warm to Luz's. Then her hand drifted to the back of Luz's neck, deepening the kiss, and Amity was faintly aware of Luz's arm moving maybe to wind around her waist, and Amity could've easily kept going, would've done so, if not for the fact that when she was tugged closer, the hard point of the book's cover dug hard into her ribs, causing her to gasp.

"Ow," Amity said, pulling away, and only suddenly then realizing what she'd done, she stepped back fully. "Oh, sorry, you said you didn't want a kiss. Earlier. That is."

Luz's eyes fluttered open. "I'm, uh, I'm okay. That was fine. Totally fine. Couldn't break tradition. And I did pay good money for that ticket, so I suppose I had it coming," she stuttered out. Then she paused, wrinkling her nose, "...and as I'm hearing that come out of my mouth, it sounds very wrong, and just because I paid for this ticket doesn't mean you owed me anything or needed to do something you don't want to do. Oh wow, how is your school getting away with letting you run a kissing booth again?"

"I don't know. I was grounded because of the Halloween party, so I wasn't there for the planning of all this, but… the kissers are all volunteers, and it's to raise money for the food bank among other deserving causes, so… it's for charity?" Amity shrugged.

"Oh, well, if it's for charity," Luz said, rolling her eyes. "I'm glad my money is going to something worthwhile."

Amity's eyes widened. "Oh thorns, the money. If you didn't see anyone at the ticket counter, then I'd better see if the register's okay. And I have to track down Boscha. This attraction isn't going to run itself."

"I'll walk you out," Luz said gallantly, pulling aside the curtain to the entrance for her.

Amity stole a glance at her— Luz! —as they walked, trying to enjoy this brief moment together before she had to go back to work. The string lights threaded through the autumn trees winked on around them as the evening turned to twilight.

"So you're running this entire fair, huh?" Luz asked, sweeping her arm out across the park.

"Guilty," Amity said. "The perks of being Student Body President."

"Sounds more like work than a perk," Luz said, smiling at little at the rhyme.

"There are other perks," Amity insisted. "I get a parking spot at school. Right in front of the principal's office. And I get access to the teacher's lounge."

Luz wrinkled her nose as she turned her head to stare right at Amity. "Amity, I'm worried you don't know how to have fun."

Amity laughed. "The teacher's lounge has the good snacks."

"Ooh, okay. Are we talking about like the regular-sized candy bars and the fancy chips?"

"It's more like the nice granola bars and the classy water."

"And I'm back to being worried," Luz said.

"Don't be," Amity said. "I like granola bars."

"Oof, alright," Luz said, putting her hands to her heart as if mortally wounded.

"What? They're time-effective and nutritionally efficient." Amity said.

"Yum," Luz said. "But it's okay. I'm actually relieved. I thought you were perfect, so I'm glad we uncovered this character flaw before we could get further in our friendship."

"What has granola ever done to you?' Amity asked. Then as her brain caught up to Luz's words, she couldn't help saying, "And are we friends?"

Luz glanced away from her, thoughtful, before she again, easily, instantly, said, "Not yet. But I think I'd like us to be."

Amity didn't know what to do with genuine sincerity and was spared a response when they rounded the corner to the ticket counter to see that a rather disgruntled line of people had formed since there was neither a ticket taker nor a kisser in sight.

"Hm, I'd better step in," Amity said. She looked to Luz and held up the book one last time. "Thanks again for this. You have no idea how much I'm looking forward to reading it."

"Yeah, let me know what you think when you finish!" Luz said. "Or maybe even before you finish! If you like Hecate, then I can't wait to hear what you think at the end of chapter three. Oh, or chapter five. Or seven. Or twelve! And we can't forget sixteen!"

"Why don't I just check in after every chapter?" Amity joked.

"Promise?" Luz asked, and Amity nearly choked on her laugh.

I shouldn't, was the first answer that sprang to mind, and everything in her rebelled.

"Why not?" was what Amity's mouth said. Then she realized that would be very hard to do without Luz's contact information, and she wasn't going to make the same mistake three times. "I… don't know how I'll do that though."

"My phone number's in the book. Text me," Luz said, holding up her phone with a wink, leaving Amity debating if that was the nerdiest or the smoothest way she'd ever gotten someone's number… and finding that she didn't necessarily care.