“Why is no one else ever ready on time?” Cressida asks from the front hall, exactly where I knew she’d be. Her usual routine is to lean against the cubbies and watch us all dart around desperately. “Practice is always at the same time. It doesn’t magically move up just to catch y’all off guard.”

“You could have a little more sympathy this morning,” I retort.

“Even less. We all woke up at the same time. I’m ready to go.”

“Start driving yourself, then!”

“No way. Watching you all race around is too much fun,” she replies as the sound of running footsteps continues to echo upstairs as Anne and Emma hurry about. “Especially hungover.”

“Can you at least check if Jenny is here to pick us up?” I ask.

“She wasn’t a minute ago—holy shit.”

“What?” I reply, quickly lacing up my left sneaker. “Is Jenny not here? I still have a headache, but I can just—” I glance up as I grab my right shoe and freeze in place.

Because the sight of Adler Beck walking into my living room is not one I ever expected to see.

He’s wearing a tracksuit, all black with Kluvberg’s logo embroidered in white. A jacket is tossed across the top of the leather weekend bag he’s carrying. He must have taken a red-eye to be here this early, but his are perfectly blue, without any dark circles.

“What are you doing here?” I choke out.

“I got your gift,” Beck states.

I stare at him. Thanks to the copious amount of tequila I consumed last night, it takes me a minute to realize he’s talking about the painting I sent. “A thank you note would have sufficed. You didn’t need to fly across the Atlantic,” I reply.

“If you’d answered any of my calls, I wouldn’t have had to,” Beck retorts.

Shit.

“I didn’t—I’ve been busy,” I reply lamely.

He scoffs. “So have I. But I answered yours.”

“I know.” The call with Beck at my father’s wedding is burned into my memory. “I wasn’t—wasn’t sure why.”

“Why what?”

“Why you were calling.”

“Answering would have been one way to find out,” he snaps. “I wanted—want—to talk to you, Saylor,” he replies, in a tone that suggests it should be obvious. If he were anyone else, it would be.

“But why? You were so mad when you left Canada.”

“You’ve had weeks to think about it and you can’t figure out why?”

“Don’t flatter yourself,” I retort. “I’ve had other things to think about these past few weeks, okay?”

“What is going on down—” Emma comes to a screeching stop when she enters the living room with Anne right behind her. “Holy shit,” she says breathlessly. “Am I hallucinating?”

“If you are, I am too,” Anne replies.

“Me three,” Cressida calls from the entryway.