Tamiko made a fake-annoyed face. “Well, you can miss me a little,” she said, and everyone laughed.

Then the post-lunch crowd started to roll in and we got busy.

Besides a steady stream of day campers, a number of Sierra’s music friends came in, including one of her bandmates, Tessa, who made me a little nervous. She had a crush on my good friend Colin from my new school, and… so did I, I guess. I made myself busy with another kind of crush while Tessa was there—crushing toppings at the back counter (okay, hiding) while Sierra chatted with her.

I caught the name “Colin,” and my ears perked up. I felt myself blushing a little bit.

“…haven’t seen him much at all,” Sierra was saying.

My blood boiled a little bit. It was true that he hadn’t visited Molly’s since I’d returned from camp, but I didn’t want Tessa to know that.

“Me neither,” Tessa said.

Well, that was good anyway. If I wasn’t seeing him, at least she wasn’t either.

Sierra and Tessa chatted about new lyrics for a song they were both struggling to finish. I heard the bell jingle, and a bunch of Tamiko’s photography “friends” (colleagues?) came in. I sighed and let her handle their orders while I cleaned and prepped. If things got crazy—which they would, shortly—I’d rejoin the fray and take orders. For now, I preferred to stay in the background and feel sorry for myself about not having a lot of friends who could visit me at work.

After a little while, Tamiko called, “Allie! Rush! All hands on deck!”

I washed up and joined the girls at the counter. There was a line almost out the door, and I’d been so lost in my own world that I hadn’t even noticed!

By the time things settled down, almost an hour and a half had passed. We’d been so busy, I hadn’t even had time to look at the clock. Gosh, I thought. How were Sierra and I going to handle these crowds when it was only the two of us? Maybe things really would be so crazy with Tamiko gone that the time would fly.

Later, as we cleaned up the mess we’d made during the rush, Sierra began singing her new Wildflowers song. It was all about loving someone she hadn’t even met yet. Only Sierra!

I couldn’t help but laugh. “Sierra, you are so funny! You love meeting people so much that your songs are about loving people you haven’t even met yet!”

“Well, hey, it’s true! All our future boyfriends are out there somewhere right now!”