Tweet Cute(96)

Jack shrugs. “I mean, it’s not that top secret. It’s just for like, mobile ordering and delivery. And some interactive chats and games.”

I hike my knees up and nudge him with my foot. “Chats and games they’re letting Jack develop on his own. He was the one who pitched them in the first place.”

Jack smiles down at his lap. “Should be fun,” he says, chronically underselling himself as usual.

“Congrats, man,” says Stephen. “Hey, you should take a look at this client we’re trying to pitch a chat platform to right now that’s kind of like Weazel—do you freelance? Because if you had any ideas, we c—”

“Please embargo this nerd-palooza for another five minutes,” says Pooja, knowing that, left to their own devices, Jack and Stephen will start talking about the respective apps they’re working on until they’re blue in the face. She scrolls down.

Jactricia—or PepperJack, as they’ve come to be known, once Patricia’s nickname came to light (seriously, HOW STINKING CUTE are these two?)—has stayed pretty chill since the war died down. They still don’t have Twitter accounts of their own, and their Instas, if they exist, are private.

But they were kind enough to provide the Hub with a recent pic, posing with the latest permanent offering on Girl Cheesing’s menu: the PepperJack Grilled Cheese. Cue the collective “d’awwww.”



Paul and Pooja let out an actual “d’awww” at the same time, hers mocking and his unabashedly earnest. The picture is one Ethan took of me and Jack the day we all had a picnic in Washington Square Park just before the first semester of college started—sandwiches from Girl Cheesing with massive shakes and fries from Big League Burger. Naturally, Jack and I were hamming it up for the camera, both trying to shove our grilled cheeses into the other’s face. Even I have to admit we look insufferably cute.

There you have it, folks. A fitting end to the cheesiest romance ever told, and a love we can all brie-lieve in.



Paige raises a paper cup full of hot cider, prompting us all to do the same.

“To my little sister and her weird dessert brain.”

Ethan chimes in. “To my little brother—”

“By eleven minutes—”

“—and his secret dorky hobbies.”

We all cheer, and Pooja looks up from her now-empty waffle plate and says, “Okay, okay, that’s enough cuteness for one night. Turn on Mean Girls before we all get diabetes.”

Paige does the honors of pulling it up on the TV, and I look around the room at the happy, mismatched lot of us—Pooja in her Stanford Swimming sweats, Paul in a bowtie, Stephen with his face full of waffle, Ethan making fun of him, Paige watching it all with an amused kind of exasperation—and Jack, already staring at me when I look for his eyes, the same way he always seems to be. He smiles one of those half smiles, the kind I return without thinking. Of all the unexpected recipes this “weird dessert brain” of mine has ever come up with, I doubt I’ll ever create anything as perfect as the one right in this room.

This may have started with a war, but whatever it is now, there isn’t an end in sight—not as long as we’re both still winning.





Acknowledgments


First, holy guacamole, thank you to my agent, Janna Bonikowski. I can only describe the last few years as “everything happens so much,” but you were never once fazed by any of it, with the kind of counsel and support that goes way beyond the agent call of duty. This book may have been inspired by a tweet, but it happened because of you—I never would have written it without your encouragement and insight. Basically, my dreams came true, and it is all your fault.

Thank you to my editor, Alex Sehulster, who gave me the best advice of my life before we were even working together, and told me I was supposed to be writing YA. I am a much happier writer for it, and now I am also a writer who knows the ridiculous joy of getting to work with you and learn from your ideas, both plotwise and dessertwise. Thank you also to Mara Delgado-Sanchez and the Wednesday Books team. I could not be more excited to be making my debut with you guys.

Thank you to Gaby Moss—may every overexcitable green bean who moves to New York immediately meet someone who so fiercely takes them under their wing and teaches them how to savor the good things and laugh at the scary ones. To my writers-in-crime: Suzie Sainwood, who has held my hand through every step of this journey; Kadeen Griffiths, who is too pure for this human world; and Erin Mayer, the spooky teenage witch of my heart. Thank you to Yumee Cho, who taught me that your organs don’t spontaneously fail if you read each other’s work. May we all be swapping ideas and mopping one another off the floor until pen do us part.

Thank you to the women of Bustle—my coworkers, my friends, my guides. I hope we are all still fighting about the best kind of potato until the Earth flies into the sun. (It’s tater tots, and I just got this published, so I’m right.)

A massive, dweeby thank-you to the fanfiction community that raised me and made me the writer I am today. From the day I posted my first fanfic at eleven years old, y’all have taught me, supported me, and watched me tank at more dreams than I can count, but never, ever, ever let me give up on this one.

(Thank you also to the girls in the back row of my college stats class for not tattling on me for updating my Spider-Man fan fiction during lectures. Lol, math.)