The real surprise—at least to me—was that the “friend” turned out to be J.P.

I didn’t even know J.P. and Boris hung out that much. I mean, outside of the lunchroom.

J.P. looked shockingly…well, good as he followed Boris into Tina’s apartment. I don’t know what he’s done to himself, but he looks all tall and…guylike.

The thing is, I don’t normally notice this kind of thing about any guy except Michael. I don’t know what’s the matter with me. Maybe it was just the shock of seeing J.P. in a setting outside of school, or in jeans instead of his school uniform or theater-going clothes. Maybe it’s just all the people who keep telling me how hot J.P. is, rubbing off on me.

Or maybe I’m just hot-guy-deprived, on account of not having had Michael around for so long, or something.

Still, it was weird. J.P., in addition to looking hot, looked kind of abashed, too. He shuffled in and said hi to me, while Tina was squealing over the ice cream and running to get spoons.

Tina is not the hardest person to please when it comes to presents. Case in point, she will practically faint over anything from Kay Jewelers.

“Hi,” I said back. And I don’t know why (well, I do know why: it was the hot thing), but it was weird. I guess mainly it was weird because J.P. had asked me what I was doing tonight and I’d sort of blown him off and…well, there we were together.

But also because of the hot thing.

And things got progressively weirder. Because even though at first things were cool, and we were all eating the ice cream and watching Ever After (Tina told the guys they could stay for ONE movie, but then they had to go, because if her parents found them there, they’d kill her. Well, her dad would, anyway. He’d probably kill Boris, too, and in a particularly painful way he’d learned from Tina’s bodyguard, Wahim, who’d been given the night off, along with Lars, since they’d been informed we were “in” for the evening).

But then Tina and Boris stopped paying attention to the movie and started paying attention to each other. A LOT of attention. Like, basically their tongues were in each other’s mouths. Right in front of J.P. and me! Which wasn’t TOO embarrassing (not).

After a while I couldn’t take the slurping noises anymore (even though I kept turning up the volume on the TV. But even Drew’s pseudo-British accent couldn’t drown out those two).

So finally I grabbed the melting ice cream containers and said, “Somebody should put these in the freezer before they make a mess,” and jumped up to leave the room.

Unfortunately—or maybe fortunately, I don’t know—J.P. said, “I’ll help you,” and followed me. Even though how hard is it to return two ice cream containers to the freezer? I totally could have done it by myself.

Inside the Hakim Babas’ cool, clean kitchen, with its black granite counters and Sub-Zero appliances, J.P. grabbed a root beer from the fridge, then pulled out a kitchen counter stool and slid onto it while I fought to find space in the crowded freezer for the ice cream. There were a LOT of Healthy Choice frozen dinners in there (Tina’s dad is supposed to be watching his calories and cholesterol).

“So,” J.P. said conversationally. In the background, we could hear the television from the media room, but not, thank God, the slurping noises anymore. “You missed a lot of school last week.”

“Uh,” I said, as I wrestled with what looked like a frozen beef tenderloin. “Yeah. I guess I did.”

“How are you doing now?” J.P. wanted to know. “I mean, you must have a lot of make-up work.”

“Yeah,” I said. The truth is, I’ve barely looked at all that. When you’re sunk as deep in a hole as I am, homework doesn’t seem all that important. Not as important as new jeans, anyway. “I’ll get to it tomorrow, I guess.”

“Yeah? What’d you do today, then?”

I was so busy jamming the meat deeper into the freezer that I didn’t even think about my reply. “I went shopping with Lana,” I said with a grunt. Then, FINALLY, the meat gave way, and I was able to slide the ice cream into the freezer.

It wasn’t until I slammed the freezer door shut and turned around, brushing ice shards off my hands, that I saw J.P.’s expression and realized what I’d just admitted.

“Lana?” he echoed incredulously.

I glanced toward the hallway to the media room. Empty, fortunately. Boris and Tina were still, um, occupied.

“Uh,” I said, feeling my stomach lurch. What had I done? “Yeah. About that…I don’t know where that came from. I wasn’t going to tell anybody.”

“I can see why,” J.P. said. “I mean, LANA? On the other hand, is she the one who picked out that shirt?”

I looked down at the silky babydoll top I was wearing. I’ll admit, it was pretty cute. And low-cut.

And, amazingly, with one of my new bras—and my new chest size—I actually had a tiny bit of cleavage in it. Nothing trashy, but definitely there.

“Uh, yeah,” I said, feeling myself blush. “Lana’s a really good shopper….” Which might just be about the lamest thing I have ever said. And I mean ever.

But J.P. just nodded and went, “I can see that. I think she’s found her calling. But how on earth did THAT happen?”

Hesitantly, I told him about Domina Rei, and how Lana’s mother had asked me to speak at a Domina Rei event she’s in charge of, and how Lana had thanked me for agreeing to do so, and how one thing led to another, and…