I woke up to poking. A finger jabbed at my shoulder blade repeatedly. Smacking the hand responsible only made them poke me harder. But it was the giggling that had me opening my eyes.

Carter and Kennedy stared back at me, laughing. I was still at the Wrights. Light filtered in through the curtains. What time was it? Before I could grab my phone from the coffee table, the poking started again.

When I turned around, I came face to face with Romeo. Our faces so close that the tips of our noses touched. I realized other things as well. Like that fact that I was tucked into him, our body parts practically merged as one with our legs tangled together.

How did we end up like that? Why did we end up like that? All the couch space we had and I was laid on top of him like a blanket. "Sorry," I mumbled, peeling myself away from him. But I moved too fast and fell off the edge of the couch. The kids laughed harder. I think I even heard Romeo in the mix.

"I would've caught you," he said, peering at me on the floor. "But your giant head was on my arm and now I can't feel it."

Well, at least he didn't think how we slept on the same couch, cuddling like our lives depended on it, was weird. Then again, it was Romeo. Pretending everything was business as usual was his thing.

"I'm hungry." Kennedy said, rubbing her eye with one hand and holding a stuffed panda in the other.

Carter followed up with, "Where's mommy?"

And to top it all off, my mommy was calling.

I spent the next forty minutes making bowls of cereal and trying to convince my mom that she didn't have to come by to check on me. Romeo helped keep the kids entertained while I made sure everything was in order for when the Wrights returned.

The power was, thankfully, back on and I tossed the blankets we used in the washing machine and set it to quick wash. The blankets were washed, dried, and back in the linen closet by the time Mr. and Mrs. Wright walked through the front door.

They were immediately bombarded with love from their kids and too busy apologizing to me to even care that I had a friend over.

Their alarms didn't go off.

They couldn't find a gas station.

There were detours because of flooding.

When I received my payment for babysitting, I thought for sure it was a mistake. Mrs. Wright insisted it wasn't and thanked me a million times over.

"Ballin'," Romeo said when I told him I got triple the pay. We were in his dad's car, heading to my place. "You're buying me breakfast, right?"

"No. Every cent of that is going to my future car." And with that payment, I might be able to buy a car in time for summer.

"Have you even told your mom you can drive?" He asked, glancing over at me.

I sighed, falling back in my seat. "Why are trying to kill my mood?"

"I'm just asking."

I had to tell her at some point, though. A parent's signature was needed for me to get my license and, most likely, the car. "I'm going to act like Indy and pull up in my brand new car with no explanation."

Romeo shook his head. "You're nothing like Indy."

"I could be," I said, imagining myself walking into a room like I owned it. My sister did what she wanted and if anyone had a problem, she could get them to see things her way with a just a few words. She'd be the perfect back-up for when I came clean to my mom about my driving and wanting a car.

"Or," Romeo said, pulling me out of my head. "You can be Daya and be upfront with your mom. No one likes being lied to."

I imagined that conversation going like all the others where I asked her to let me do anything she deemed dangerous. It would've been pointless.

How'd that saying go? It's better to ask for forgiveness than to ask for permission--or something like that.

"We'll see," was all I said to Romeo.

I was so caught up in thinking about what car I was going to buy that I forgot I wasn't supposed to be riding around in Romeo's.

My mom was out front when he parked. "Is she mad?" he whispered, even though she was too far away to hear us. "Would it help if I told her I aced my driving test on the first try and brought the instructor to tears with my perfect parallel parking?"

But my mom didn't look angry as she waved before turning back to her car in the driveway. Weird. Romeo and I got out the car, and that's when I noticed the little girl. She couldn't be more than thirteen. Her hair was braided with clear beads on the ends.

The girl was crouched down, looking under the car. "Come on, Tangy, you can't stay under there." The little girl looked up at me and waved when I got closer. Then went back to yelling at the car.

"It's her cat," my mom informed me. "Did the Wrights make it home okay?"

"Yeah," I told her. Before I could explain further, Andre appeared.

He was dusting dirt off his hands and shirt, squinting at my mom's car that he'd been hiding behind. "Why'd you have to adopt the scariest cat you could find?"

I turned to the little girl. Was that his K-pop loving sister? She stood glaring at her brother. "Don't blame Tangy. You left the front door open."

Andre looked up, probably ready to argue with her, until he saw me. The briefest of smiles appeared on his face before my mom's obnoxious ring tone stole his attention. It sounded like that antique rotary phone my great-grandma used to let me play with.

"Catch him!" Andre's sister shouted.

A blur of orange ran past my feet. I might've screamed as I had behind Romeo, who thought it was hilarious. The cat darted across the lawn. Andre grabbed him before he ran out into the street. He held it at arm's length to avoid getting clawed. "Chill, Mr. T."

"Don't call him that," the girl growled as she took her cat, cradling him like a baby. "You're safe now, Tangy," she cooed. The cat actually seemed to relax at the sound of her voice.

"We're sorry for the inconvenience," Andre said to my mom.

She waved him off. "I'm just glad I saw him run under there before I drove off. And it'll be a fun story time for my blog."

Please stop talking, woman, I thought as I fought really hard not to clamp my hand over my mom's mouth. She could go on about her blog for hours if you let her. Thankfully, Andre and his sister had the perfect excuse to leave: a paranoid cat.

"Thanks for bringing Daya home, Jerome." I knew that tone. The calm before the storm. As soon as Romeo left and my mom and I were behind closed doors, I expected another tear-filled rant like when Andre dropped me off.

Instead, as we stood in the space between the living and dining rooms, she just looked exhausted. "Is this going to be a thing now? You riding around with different boys?"

"It's not like that," I told her, scraping the polish from nails. "I'm not trying to disrespect you or your rules, but I can't always call you for you a ride. If you'd let me drive--"

Her phone rang again. The shrill sound ending our conversation. "I have a meeting. We'll talk about this later."

I already knew how that talk would go. We had plenty of talks about her letting me drive. They all ended with her telling me I wasn't ready. She was the one who wasn't ready.

She wasn't going to understand that until I showed her.

● ● ●

After my mom left for her meeting, I was starved and decided to take Romeo up on his offer to get breakfast. We went to this hole-in-the-wall restaurant that served the best French toast. Keraun, Jason and Nia joined us, the five of us crammed into a booth fighting over elbow room and syrup.

"I bet it's going to be one of those cheesy rom-coms," Nia said between bites of her hash browns.

Whenever Valentine's day fell on a weekday, our school held a movie night. The movie was a mystery until the night of and Nia tried to guess it. She'd been right last year and didn't want to break her streak.

Keraun drowned his eggs in ketchup before chiming in. "A lot of people complained about last year's movie. I think they're going to do something different."

"Didn't they play that old ass movie Sleeping Seattle?" Romeo asked, sipping his orange juice.

"Sleepless in Seattle," Nia corrected. "That movie is a classic."

"If classic means boring, then yeah, it was super classic."

Nia rolled her eyes at him and took another bite of her food. "Anyways, I think they're going to pick a recent rom-com, like To All the Boys I've Loved Before or something."

Romeo frowned up at the thought. I made him watch all three movies with me one day I had really bad cramps and his brother was home being his usual annoying self. He complained a lot, but he was invested in the Peter K versus John Ambrose love triangle.

"Or maybe they'll let us watch Romeo & Juliet."

Romeo outright groaned at my theory, pinching the bridge of his nose. "No. Just no."

"Wait," Jason said, looking up from his waffles. "I thought she called you Romeo because you liked the story."

I snorted. "Oh, no, he hates it with a burning passion."

"I hate that people think it's a romance," he said, stealing a strawberry from my plate. "There's nothing romantic about two people killing themselves for love after knowing each other for less than a week."

If my mom's blog could get her talking for hours, Romeo's trigger was Romeo & Juliet. He could hold a week long debate on how much he hated it. Sometimes I brought it up just to hear him rant about it.

"Okay, but, a young Leonardo DiCaprio," Keraun pointed out.

Everyone but Romeo agreed to that. He simply shook his head like were a lost cause.

"I just realized this year isn't going to be as much fun." Nia pointed to Keraun and Jason. "You two are obviously going together. And you," she said, turning to me. "Have been very cozy with Andre, so I'm sure he's going to ask you. It'll just be me and Rome."

"That didn't hurt my feeling at all," Romeo mumbled. Nia patted his shoulder in sympathy, but didn't take back what she said.

That night in my kitchen with Andre flashed through my mind. I didn't know how cozy we were if I sent him running away by being too close to his face. "I doubt that."

"I'm borderline psychic," she argued. "And my prediction for February 14th is To All the Boys I've Loved Before and Daya getting her first boyfriend."

The thought both scared and excited me. I liked spending time with Andre, but did he feel the same?

After Breakfast I paced my bedroom floor, opening and closing the messages between Andre and me as I tried to decide my next move.

Should I text him?

What would I even say?

Indy would definitely text him.

Then I remembered the cat. I sent him a message asking if their cat was okay and tossed my phone before I could change my mind and block his number.

I left my phone in my bedroom while I went to the living room to do homework. Once I had enough of The Scarlet Letter, I did a load of laundry. Then I cleaned out my email inbox, re-painted my nails, did a quick fifteen minute work out, and doodled on my iPad.

The longer I spent avoiding my phone, the more nervous I was about looking at it. What if he hadn't replied? What if he did? It was only a text about his pet cat, yet my stomach was is knots as I picked up my phone from my bed.

It'd been almost two hours and the only message on my phone was from Indy.

Nia should stick to predicting movies.