"Er, Kate?"

"Yeah?"

"When you said you had 'everything we need,' I didn't expect you to mean it so… literally."

Esme watched on in a mix of amusement and disbelief as Kaitlyn continued pulling things out of her backpack. An unending tide of specialty spices, rubber spatulas, an electric mixer, and even a few mixing bowls made their way onto the kitchen table she shrugged. "I like to be prepared. Besides, I didn't want to mess with your roommate's stuff."

As she unpacked, Kaitlyn took a moment to appreciate the space. Esme's apartment was a relatively modern affair of clean lines and white walls. While she wouldn't call it large, it certainly was more spacious than her own dorm by a large margin. Not to mention that it boasted an impressively updated kitchen and relatively new glass stovetop. The combination of the wood-accented furniture and the assorted houseplants standing guard at every corner made the place look like an interior design advertisement come to life.

Esme rolled her eyes. "I told you, she's completely fine with us borrowing her things. Besides, what even is that?"

"This?" Kaitlyn lifted up what appeared to be a coat hanger with metal wire stretched across the bottom. "This is for slicing the cakes, to make them nice and even. You've never seen one?"

"Of course not! It looks like something you'd use to saw someone's leg off."

"Geez, Esme. Morbid much? What do you think I am, some kind of mad scientist?"

Esme stared at her in silence, eyes flicking between the trove of items on the table and Kaitlyn. Her eyebrows raised ever so slightly. After a moment, Kaitlyn ducked her head sheepishly. "...Right. Point taken."

They shared a laugh and got started.

After a lot of back-and-forth, they'd decided to celebrate October by making a pumpkin spice cake with cream cheese frosting. Normally, Kaitlyn would have deemed something like that far too basic for her tastes. However, given her friend's apparent love of all things fall and pumpkin spice, she'd made an exception. It also helped that Heather had been hounding her to take advantage of the yearly trend for Kate's Kitchen.

That didn't mean she'd allow them to get away with making something boring, though. Her freshly-made pumpkin pie spice mix would make sure of that. Besides, the contrast between orange cake and creamy white frosting would allow for some stunning decorations. She'd even brought food coloring and white candy melts to make miniature pumpkins and the like, if they had time.

They got to work mixing the batter and getting everything ready. Seeing as this was a group project, Kaitlyn made a serious effort to get her friend involved. It was tempting to relegate her to the simpler tasks that were hard to mess up, like combining the dry ingredients or cracking eggs. Fortunately, between Esme's competence and her interest in actually learning, she was soon manning the electric mixer and assisting with the pumpkin puree preparation no problem. She even managed to soften the butter in the microwave without melting it.

A little under an hour later, Kaitlyn slid the trio of round cakes into the oven, closing it with a sigh. "There. All done with phase one. We could start the frosting now, but honestly? I think we're better off waiting until the cakes are out. They need to cool a bit, anyway…"

Esme fell into one of the chairs with a similar sigh. "Sounds good to me. I could use a little break! My feet are still killing me from walking around campus all day…"

Kaitlyn looked over at her friend and winced. "Ah, whoops. You've got stuff all over you. I should've brought aprons or something…"

It was true. While Kaitlyn herself had somehow managed to escape unscathed, Esme's previously pristine white sweater was now accented with spatters of orangeish batter. As the girl looked down to inspect herself, she shrugged. "It's fine. I need to do laundry anyway! Though I'm astonished you made it through unscathed. Maybe we need to fix that…"

She suddenly leaned forward and patted her flour-coated hand on Kaitlyn's shoulder with a sly grin. Kaitlyn pulled away with a cry of mock anguish, a puff of white trailing behind her. "Hey!"

Esme just chuckled. With a shake of her head, she settled into the other chair. I should've seen that coming. Well, at least my shirt's white…

As they took advantage of the downtime to chat, the topic quickly shifted toward midterms, which had just finished a few days ago. As usual, Esme had managed to pass her Genetics exam by a comfortable margin. She wasn't close to acing the thing, but that was only to be expected. Her professor was absolutely brutal.

"I seriously can't thank you enough," the girl gave Kaitlyn a bright smile. "Elliot, too. Without all those study sessions, I would have been completely underwater. I suppose I should count myself lucky to have so many capable first years right next door!"

I wonder if I really did help? Would her grades be worse if I didn't study with her? I mean, she's also got Elliot helping out, even if she says that she learns better from me… Food for thought, I guess.

"It's no problem, really," Kaitlyn assured her. "You guys would've done the same for me. Besides, I feel like I learned a ton just from helping you study, too."

"Really?" The girl gave her a dubious look. "It certainly seemed like you knew all of those topics like the back of your hand. If that's how you behave when learning something…" Esme shuddered dramatically.

They chatted for a little bit before there came a brief lull in the conversation. The apartment was quiet aside from the occasional click of the oven's burner heating up and the distant sound of road noise. Esme's roommate evidently had incredibly late classes today, so she wouldn't be back for a long while yet.

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

Steeling herself, Kaitlyn took a breath. All right. This is as good of a chance as I'll get. If I don't ask now, I don't know if I ever will.

At this point, they'd built up a good enough relationship that Kaitlyn felt like she could call them close. The fact that they were hanging out like this, without Elliot as a common denominator, was proof of that. Still, would it be enough?

"Hey, Esme?"

"Hmm?" The girl blinked, returning her attention from the oven to meet Kaitlyn's gaze.

"Can I… ask you something? You don't have to answer, but…"

"Of course!" Esme leaned forward. "What is it?"

Kaitlyn took one more breath, making an effort not to break eye contact. There was no point in dancing around the topic. That had only ever resulted in vague non-answers. She had to be direct. "Are you and Elliot… dating?"

There. I said it. Now it's out in the open.

Esme froze, eyes widening slightly as though she were a deer in headlights. "Oh! Er… Why do you ask?"

Kaitlyn thought long and hard about how to respond. Based on the sudden guardedness in Esme's tone, answering wrong might completely lock her out of this line of questioning for good. At least, until the next loop.

"...Because…" Her words were slow and measured. "...There's a few reasons. For one, you two certainly seem close enough to be a couple. And also… well, if we're being honest, I do want to know if he's in a relationship. I don't want to step on anyone's toes or make any assumptions, though…"

The thought of using the old "asking for a friend" excuse had crossed her mind, of course. But considering how important honesty had been so far in Elliot's route, it just seemed like a nonstarter. Not to mention that it was already a paper-thin disguise to hide behind anyway.

Esme flushed slightly, breaking eye contact. Her chin rested delicately in one hand as the other drummed absentmindedly against the tabletop. "First of all, no, we're definitely not dating. Oh gosh, this is awkward. We're, uh, actually cousins."

She froze, staring at the older girl. She was biting her lip, dark eyes refusing to meet her own. Then, Kaitlyn burst out laughing.

"You can't be serious," she gasped, wiping her eyes. "You're cousins?! This whole time, I thought you were dating!"

Esme reddened further. "It's not that funny! It's… well, it's embarrassing! Do you know how many people make that mistake?!"

Kaitlyn gathered herself, wiping a tear from her eyes. "Esme, I'm so sorry. I didn't… I didn't even know! That's crazy!"

Slumping in her seat, Esme groaned and let her head fall against the table. "Yeah… Oh gosh, this is so awkward. We grew up together, so we're pretty close, and we don't really look very similar. So I completely understand how you came to that conclusion. It's probably my fault, really. Elli isn't super into relationships, so I kind of… warn off a lot of girls that would bother him. It's the least I can do. But that's usually not a problem!" Esme continued quickly before Kaitlyn could respond. "It's not like most of them actually get to know him in any real sense. They're just strangers. And even if they did, Elli doesn't usually like talking about family, so…"

As the girl trailed off, gently banging thudding her head against the table from embarrassment. Kaitlyn couldn't help the grin that still stretched across her face.

Oh, thank goodness. That's such a huge win.

It wasn't just the fact that Elliot was likely single. It was so much more. This whole time, she'd seriously thought the game might force her to break up the couple before swooping in and stealing Elliot for herself. Just the idea of carrying out a plot like that made her stomach turn, nearly as much as intentionally going after a bad ending. But this revelation not only took that possibility entirely off the table, but opened up new avenues as well.

"He doesn't like talking about family… is it because of the Ambrose thing?" Kaitlyn asked.

The girl nodded, lifting her head and tucking a strand of hair back behind her ear. "Exactly. Our moms are sisters, so we have different last names. He mentioned that you knew, though. It's one of the reasons I'm ok with telling you."

That certainly cleared up a lot of things. It wasn't just that the pair acted like two peas in a pod. They basically were. Even if they were cousins rather than siblings, who knew how much time they'd spent together growing up? And if Elliot really was as bad at making friends as his mom had implied, then it only made sense that Esme might've become a lifeline of sorts.

"So… yeah," Esme sighed, composing herself once more. Her hands folded atop the table in front of her. "Now you know. Surprise, surprise."

"Well, thanks for telling me. Really." Kaitlyn scratched her head. "I'm super grateful you cleared that up. I really feel kind of bad now for assuming…"

"Don't. Like I said, it's entirely my own fault," Esme smiled apologetically. "Though to be honest, I am glad you asked. As embarrassing as it was, it's better than you finding out some other way. That would be… quite awkward."

Yeah it is, Kaitlyn shuddered. It wasn't like she could have gotten the "cousins" tidbit in many other ways. But if she had… that really would have painted an unflattering picture of the pair.

That could have gotten really weird really fast. But it's sounding like this is much more straightforward than I feared. Finally, a bit of good news.

"...But if you are interested in Elliot, I'll have to warn you. You may be setting yourself up for disappointment. Like I said, he isn't really into relationships. They're a bit… touchy for him."

Kaitlyn returned her attention to the conversation. As excited as she was at all these revelations, there was still more info to be gained. She had to take advantage of it while she could. "Touchy? Did he have a bad experience or something?"

Esme shrugged apologetically. "Not my place to tell, really. You'd have to ask him. I just wanted to warn you before you got your hopes up."

Kaitlyn shrugged. "That's fair. I've kind of gotten the same impression from him about people in general. The last thing I want him to think is that I'm just trying to cozy up to him for his money or something."

Esme giggled. "Good luck. You'll be going against an entire lifetime of him dealing with that particular issue. Still… I hope you can help him bring down those walls, even a little bit. He needs more people who care about him for him. More than just me."

She met Kaitlyn's eyes, dark gaze boring into her own. In them, Kaitlyn saw what the girl had left unspoken. Implicit approval.

The fact that she's even telling me this means that she's ok with it. Right? She wouldn't be helping me this much if she hated me, or if she thought I was bad for Elliot…

Kaitlyn shifted uncertainly before her eyes fell on the other supplies she'd brought with her. "Well, on that note… want to work on some of those chocolate decorations?"

"Ooh!" Esme perked up. "Sure! I'm not sure how well it'll go, but I'm perfectly willing to try!"