“So you’re saying — you don’t not want me to keep this up?”
“The way I see it, you don’t have to make your mom mad, and we get a few more customers in the door too.”
Pepper takes a breath like she’s going to say something, like she’s going to correct me, but after a moment, she lets it go. Her face can’t quite settle on an expression, toeing the line between dread and relief.
“You’re sure?”
I answer by opening the container she handed me. The smell that immediately wafts out of it should honestly be illegal; it stops kids I’ve never even spoken to in their tracks.
“Are you a witch?” I ask, reaching in and taking a bite of one. It’s like Monster Cake, the Sequel — freaking Christmas in my mouth. I already want more before I’ve even managed to chew. My eyes close as if I’m experiencing an actual drug high — and maybe I am, because I forget myself entirely and say, “This might even be better than our Kitchen Sink Macaroons.”
“Kitchen Sink Macaroons?”
Eyes open again. Yikes. Note to self: dessert is the greatest weapon in Pepper’s arsenal. I swallow my bite so I can answer her.
“It’s kind of well-known, at least in the East Village. It even got in some Hub Seed roundup once. I’d tell you to try some, but you might steal the recipe, so.”
Pepper smiles, then — actually smiles, instead of the little smirk she usually does. It’s not startling, but what it does to me in that moment kind of is.
Before I can examine the unfamiliar lurch in my stomach, the bell rings and knocks the smile right off her face. I follow just behind her, wondering why it suddenly seems too hot in here, like they cranked the air up for December instead of October. I dismiss it by the time I get to my desk — probably just all the Twitter drama and the glory of So Sorry Blondies getting to my head.
“One rule,” she says, as we sit in the last two desks in the back of the room.
I raise my eyebrows at her.
“We don’t take any of it personally.” She leans forward on her desk, leveling with me, her bangs falling into her face. “No more getting mad at each other. Cheese and state.”
“What happens on Twitter stays on Twitter,” I say with a nod of agreement. “Okay, then, second rule: no kid gloves.”
Mrs. Fairchild is giving that stern look over the room that never quite successfully quiets anyone down. Pepper frowns, waiting for me to elaborate.
“I mean — no going easy on each other. If we’re going to play at this, we’re both going to give it our A game, okay? No holding back because we’re…”
Friends, I almost say. No, I’m going to say. But then—
“I’d appreciate it if even one of you acknowledged the bell with your silence,” Mrs. Fairchild grumbles.
I turn to Pepper, expecting to find her snapping to attention the way she always does when an adult comes within a hundred feet of disciplining her. But her eyes are still intent on me, like she is sizing something up — like she’s looking forward to something I haven’t anticipated yet.
“All right. No taking it personally. And no holding back.”
She holds her hand out for me to shake again, under the desk so Mrs. Fairchild won’t see it. I smile and shake my head, wondering how someone can be so aggressively seventeen and seventy-five at the same time, and then I take it. Her hand is warm and small in mine, but her grip is surprisingly firm, with a pressure that almost feels like she’s still got her fingers wrapped around mine even after we let go.
I turn back to the whiteboard, a ghost of a smirk on my face. “Let the games begin.”
PART TWO
Jack
“Should we have a signal?”
I pull my goggles off my face. “Why would we need a signal?”
“I dunno,” says Paul, shifting his weight between his feet so rapidly, I’m a little worried he’s going to slip on the pool deck. “Just in case I forget? You said 4:15, right? Sometimes I just get so in the zone when we get to play water polo, man, and I might just—”
“If you forget, I’ll just … swim up and nudge you or something.”
“That’s not much of a signal.”
I hold in an almighty sigh. I’m lucky Paul is helping me in the first place. This is kind of above and beyond the best friend call of duty. “Fine. I’ll — hold up three fingers, I guess.”
Paul’s face bursts into a freckly grin. “Sweet. I’m on it. This is gonna go so great.”
Somehow the more times Paul has said some variation of that in the last twenty-four hours — which I think is a number in the dozens by now — the less likely it seems that it will. The good news is, as usual, if this doesn’t work, I have more than a few backup ideas in my arsenal. In the last two weeks, I’ve learned that staying a step ahead of Pepper means you’re already three steps behind.
We agreed not to go easy on each other, but I suspected for the first, say, four hours or so, maybe she was anyway. Apparently she was just waiting for lunch to quote retweet the deal I posted to our Twitter page: 
Big League Burger 
@B1gLeagueBurger
Anyone who unfollows Girl Cheesing on Twitter gets 50 % off our grilled cheese too! All three and a half of you are welcome anytime
Girl Cheesing @GCheesing · 1d
Anyone who unfollows Big League Burger on Twitter gets 50 percent off their next grilled cheese! And, y’know, the relative comfort of knowing they’re eating something that doesn’t suck
12:35 PM · 22 Oct 2020
Before we’d hit the pool deck that day, I’d been scrolling through Twitter and decided to go another route. Some video was trending, with the headline:
Big League Burger May Start Testing Delivery in Several States
I quote retweeted it from the Girl Cheesing account, writing:
Girl Cheesing @GCheesing
oh god is nowhere safe
Boostle @boostle · 1d
cool never putting on real pants again boostle.com/p/big-league-burger-maystart-testing-delivery-in-several-states
2:42 PM · 22 Oct 2020
It hit a thousand retweets before practice even started. I realized, then, the notifications that had been rolling in weren’t just comments and likes and retweets — people were starting to follow our account too. Thousands of people. People who seemed every bit as invested in this Twitter spat as Pepper and I were ourselves.
After practice that day she’d offered me a breezy wave, then walked into the locker room, where she’d promptly responded to my tweet with an image of a bike messenger posing outside of Girl Cheesing, holding up a giant Big League Burger bag. The tweet read: Apparently not!
By nightfall, Jasmine Yang released another vlog update on “Twitter Gets Petty,” breaking the whole exchange down with screenshots and even analyzing all the unrelated likes and replies both accounts made in between.
“Stay up-to-date with all things in the #BigCheese war by tuning in to my page, where you can decide in real time who’s in the lead.” She pointed down to the bottom of the screen. “Comment with the cheese emoji for Girl Cheesing, and the burger emoji for Big League Burger. Ta-ta for now, Petty People!”