“I always wondered why you stopped hanging out with us.”

Was I on five or six? “Peter! You made me lose my count again!”

“I have that effect on women.”

I roll my eyes at him and he grins back at me, but before he can say anything else, I yell, “Kitty! Get down here!”

“I’m working—”

“Peter’s here!” I know that will get her.

In five seconds flat, Kitty’s running into the kitchen. She skids to a stop, all of a sudden shy. “Why are you here?” she asks him.

“To pick up Lara Jean. Why aren’t you helping?”

“I was running an experiment. Wanna help me?”

I answer for him. “Sure, he’ll help you.” To Peter I say, “You’re distracting me. Go help Kitty.”

“I don’t know if you want my help, Katherine. See, I’m really distracting to women. I make them lose their count.” Peter winks at her and I make a gagging sound. “Why don’t you stay down here and help us bake?”

“Bo-ring!” Kitty turns tail and runs back up the stairs.

“Don’t you dare try to sprinkle or frost when it’s all over!” I yell. “You haven’t earned the right!”

I’m creaming the butter and Peter’s cracking eggs into a chipped salad bowl when my dad gets home. “Whose car is that out front?” Daddy asks as he walks into the kitchen. He stops short. “Hello,” he says, surprised. He has a Chan’s Chinese Bistro bag in his hands.

“Hey, Daddy,” I say, like it’s perfectly normal that Peter Kavinsky is cooking in our kitchen. “You look tired.”

Peter stands up straighter. “Hi, Dr. Covey.”

My dad sets the bag down on the kitchen table. “Oh, hello,” he says, clearing his throat. “Nice to see you. You’re Peter K., right?”

“Right.”

“One of the old gang,” my dad says jovially, and I cringe. “What are you kids up to tonight?”

“I’m baking cupcakes for Kitty’s PTA bake sale and Peter’s helping,” I say.

My dad nods. “Are you hungry, Peter? I have plenty.” He lifts the bag. “Shrimp lo mein, kung pao chicken.”

“Actually, Lara Jean and I were going to stop by our friend’s party,” Peter says. “If that would be okay? I’ll bring her back early.”

Before my dad can answer, I say to Peter, “I told you I have to finish these cupcakes.”

“Kitty and I will finish them,” my dad interjects. “You two go to that birthday party.”

My stomach flips. “It’s really okay, Daddy. I have to be the one to do them; I’m decorating them specially.”

“Kitty and I will figure it out. You can go get changed. We’ll keep working on these cupcakes.”

I open and close my mouth like a trout. “All right, then.” And I don’t make a move, I just stand there, because I’m afraid to leave the two of them alone together.

Peter smiles at me broadly. “You heard the man. We’ve got this covered.”

I think, Don’t act too confident, because then my dad will think you’re arrogant.

* * *

There are certain outfits you have that make you feel good every time you wear them, and then there are outfits where you wore them too many times in a row because you liked them so much, and now they just feel like garbage. I’m looking at my closet now and everything looks like garbage. My anxiety is only compounded by the fact that I know Gen will be wearing the exact right thing, because she always wears the exact right thing. And I have to be wearing the right thing too. Peter wouldn’t have come by and made such a point of going to this party if it weren’t important to him.

I pull on my jeans and try on different tops—a frilly peach one that suddenly looks prissy in my eyes, a long fuzzy sweater with a penguin on it that looks too kiddish. I’m stepping into a pair of gray shorts with black suspenders when someone knocks at my door. I freeze and grab a sweater to cover myself up.

“Lara Jean?” It’s Peter.

“Yes?”

“Are you almost ready?”

“Almost! Just—just go downstairs. I’ll be down soon.”

He lets out an audible sigh. “Okay. I’m gonna see what the kid’s doing.”

When I hear his footsteps walking away, I scramble and try a cream polka-dot blouse with the shorts-suspenders ensemble. It’s cute, but is it too cute? Too much? And should I do black tights or black knee socks? Margot said I look Parisian in this outfit. Parisian is a good thing. It’s sophisticated, romantic. I try on a beret, just to see the effect, and I immediately throw it off. Definitely too much.

I wish Peter hadn’t snuck up on me with this. I need time to plan, to prepare. Though truthfully, if he’d asked me ahead of time, I would have come up with an excuse not to go. It’s one thing to go to Tart and Tangy after school, but a party with all of Peter’s friends, not to mention Genevieve?

I hop around my room, searching for my over-the-knee socks, then searching for my strawberry lip pot that looks like a strawberry. Gosh, I really need to clean my room. It’s hard to find anything in this mess.

I run to Margot’s room for her big grandpa cardigan, and I pass Kitty’s open door, where I see Peter and Kitty lying on the floor, working with her lab set. I root through Margot’s sweater drawer, which is now T-shirts and shorts because she’s taken most of her sweaters. No grandpa cardigan. But at the bottom of the drawer there is an envelope. A letter, from Josh.