Natalie flapped a hand in their direction like a promise, but it was one Mia knew was fake. Still, the little exchange had burned off enough of the anxiety holding her hostage that she was able to finally open the door to Mama’s house and slip into the dark entryway.

An empty silence pressed against Mia. It was the kind that came with an abandoned house, even though she knew Mama was there.

Izzy followed in behind her. “So everyone’s a nosy busybody in this place, or just her?”

Grateful for Izzy’s light tone, Mia smiled and then started the long process of shucking off her boots and other layers. Izzy followed suit. “It’s a fine balance. They want to know all the gossip but not have to actually give any of their own.”

“Yeah, I’m getting that vibe.”

Once they were down to jeans and long shirts, Mia nodded toward the kitchen, where she knew Mama was waiting for them. The passive-aggressiveness of the nongreeting was the steel in Mama’s spine that kept her upright.

The lights in the hallway were dimmed, the walls lined with photos. Most were the kind that kids were forced to take at school, the ones with jewel-colored backdrops and dead eyes. But there were a few candids scattered throughout as well.

Mia stopped in front of one of her, Asher Lowe, and Cash Bishop.

The three of them were laughing, no space between their bodies to tell where one ended and the next began. Their hips bumped, and their arms knew nothing of personal boundaries as they grasped each other’s waists with careless hands.

Her eyes caught on her own face, tipped up as it was toward Cash. There was a desperation, a raw hunger, in the way she had been looking at him that now flushed her cheeks hot. Back then he’d been the only thing she could see.

He, on the other hand, was looking into the camera, the hints of a handsome face lurking beneath a baby fat softness that had lingered into teenage years. She studied his lean frame, the stance that was steeped in a confidence that came from the money in his family’s bank account.

She’d known that body then almost as well as her own.

Mia’s gaze slid to Asher without permission, and her throat fluttered closed, a breath caught just on the wrong side.

The picture had been taken in the summer, a few months before he’d killed himself. They’d been sixteen, giddy and reckless and cocky, thinking that being on the brink of adulthood actually meant something. Those days had been slow, syrupy, and happy in a way Mia often forgot she’d ever been.

It was the first summer she and Cash had been officially together, clumsily altering the dynamic between the three of them without much thought to Asher.