"Thanks, but—" he makes a buzzer noise, as of a game show highlighting an incorrect response: ennnh. "Wasn't trying to be cute."

She shrugs. "Then you are occasionally very cute when you aren't deliberately undermining the impression of same."

He laughs. "Okay."

"What are you generally trying to do? Or are you bouncing around like a pinball, occasionally meeting sharp impacts but never rolling around towards something specific?"

"The incredibly weird realization that I'm friends with somebody who has other friends?" he says after a moment's thought.

"Have you historically been friends even with people who didn't? Your mom left me with the impression that you've been altogether a loner, historically."

"I don't understand the idea that one's friends all have to get along with each other," Bella says. "I can go to Angela's to paint our toenails and yours to invent - we never actually named that sport. Hm. Anyway, even if Angela wanted to avoid you that wouldn't mean I'd have to interact with only one of the pair of you."

"Are you sure you're a high school student?" he teases. "Because you make way too much sense."

"Here I am, enrolled in high school," Bella says. "Taking classes. Actually showing up to them, in fact. Teenagers being idiots is optional, but most people will be idiots if you give them an excuse and wedge them into low-stakes environments."

"Oh, uh, I'm not allowed to take you into the basement anymore," he adds. "So hanging out at my place might not be the greatest idea."

"Yep!"

"Let me guess. The basement is off-limits because we might fornicate in it, but it didn't occur to anyone that my dad works until late in the evening and I spend many of my waking hours at home completely unsupervised."

"Pretty much. Well, actually I think Mom is hoping we'll fornicate at your place."

"That did seem to be on her wishlist. She was very wistful about the whole thing. What exactly does she imagine you having a girlfriend would do that having a mere friend could not? Even a fraudulent green-card marriage with someone from the Philippines or something could occur with a mere friend. Not me, since I was born here, but you know what I mean."

"Get me the fuck out of her life?" he suggests. "Without pissing Dad off too bad? He'd flip his lid if I started seeing somebody he didn't think was 'respectable' enough. But I kinda see Mom's point, actually, I bet he'd be just fine with a shotgun wedding to a girl I met at school."

"Am I even that respectable?" Bella asks. "Lower-middle-class background, divorced parents, willing to associate with you?" She sticks out her tongue at him.

"Police chief's daughter," he counters. "Can't shun you without looking like he has something to hide."

"Maybe they'd kick me out of the house and drop a trust fund on my head," he suggests with a shrug. "Or maybe Mom thinks he would. And I'm telling Hilary you called her a goddess."

"Please do," Bella invites. It's the sort of thing that might invite cake. "Do you think you'd get a trust fund? Because getting kicked out and funded thusly sounds like a pretty okay solution to several of your problems, although not the living-alone one unless you promptly alienate your shotgun wife and then she aborts. Or you like her and wish to spawn. I bet there's someone you could seduce in this school if you wanted to do that."

"...Okay, back up," he says, laughing. "Are you suggesting I go screw some girl, knock her up, marry her, and then piss her off until she runs away, all so I can get out of Dodge on my dad's money? Man, you are cold."