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"That was so far from awesome," I said The rain had stopped temporarily, but I worried about ould happen if it started pouring again Would all of utters? I wished I could ask Mykia to come over, but she was fifty miles away at her farht to throw a tarp over the pile of mulch--too bad they didn’t have a supersized one to cover the whole backyard Maybe I’d text her later, but s for arden I had a date with Google later

"You’re going to help e," I told Trey "To to help me plant the tooing over to Colin’s tomorrow"

"No, you’re not"

He went silent for a mooing to Colin’s His dad’s painted the gallery wall, and I want to hang some of my stuff"

"What kind of stuff?" Jackie asked innocently, though I thought she’d caught the look that said, sensitive topic!

"I’raphy," Trey answered, suddenly shy "Wait, I arapher Well, sort of Colin’s dad said I shouldn’t belittleand lack experience He says talented people are born that way, so technically I have a lot of experience, even though I’ht, but knew enough to keep it inside

"He’s right about that," Jackie said

Trey and I responded at the sa siestured to me "You can only fake it well if you knohat you want to be" She flashed her nicotine-stained teeth at Trey "You just gave us a good re for our jobs because we forgot how to fake it until we could figure out what to do"

Trey turned to ht lose your job? Why didn’t you tellJackie a surreptitious dirty look

"Forget I said anything," sheit part"

She was Jackie and I needed to up our confidence game Here I orried about Glynnis’s self-esteem, when I could use some lessonsthe opposite "You and I could write a hundred cans for Landon Cosmetics, and they’d all be fantastic"

"Landon Cosmetics?" Trey wrinkled his nose "What’s that?"

"Makeup They do retro products Red lipstick, crea for the sa "Here, check this out They’re getting into sixties stuff, and we n"

Trey accepted the lipstick case as though it renade and studied it closely "It looks kind of like a rocket"

"I call that one," Jackie said quickly

I took the lipstick back from Trey "You can have that idea I think we need to move beyond the obvious"

We But eren’t "we" Jackie and I weren’t on the sa, but it was the reality of it "We’ve both got to work our hardest on this, and I don’t think we should help each other until we’ve got a solid idea down on paper"

"I don’t think we should help each other at all," Jackie said, frowning "One of us is going to be disappointed, and I couldn’t stand the burden of feeling that I hadn’t helped enough"

"What are you two talking about?" Trey said, his gaze wandering back and forth between the two of us