The next day, Archer was making his way down to the cabin after lunch when he spotted Eileen Lamb waving at him from the expanse of grass by the beach, glowing in her yellow dress. He turned toward her, smiling and waving back.

“Hi, Ms. Lamb!” he called when he got closer. “How are you?”

“Hello, Archer,” she said. “I’m fine, thank you. But … what I want to know is, how are you?”

Archer frowned. “What do you mean?”

“I’m a bit worried about you. The show has seemed a little … er … ragged the last week or so, hasn’t it? Is everything going okay?”

“Oh.” A stone dropped into Archer’s stomach. He didn’t think the audience would have been able to tell things were getting a touch sloppy. “I guess it has. But, you know, maybe we’re getting a bit too comfortable. We probably won’t ever look as sharp as we did the first week.”

“Hmm.” Her lower lip poked out. “For most of the guests, that will be the one and only show they’ll see, won’t it? It probably should look just as sharp.” She was being kind, but Archer felt terrible. Maybe they hadn’t just been disappointing guests—his Broadway career could hang in the balance. An amateurish resort show wasn’t going to impress any potential connections.

He was trying to muster up a response when she continued. “And is everything okay with Mateo?”

His cheeks flushed. “Er … I guess. We’re not exactly friends, but—”

She cleared her throat politely. “I meant for him … Is he alright? He seems distant. Or, I don’t know, unhappy in some way.”

Archer didn’t know what to say to that, either.

Eileen tilted her head and smiled. “I wonder if you might want to come for tea with Mateo again? Perhaps I can help.”

“Oh…”

“I don’t mean to stick my nose in, you understand.” She patted Archer’s arm. “But I’ve been around the block a few times. I know a thing or two.”

“Thank you for the invitation. Let me ask him,” Archer said, not expecting it to go well.

It went worse.

Archer arrived nice and early for warm-up. As he’d hoped, Mateo was the only one in the greenroom. He was at the barre stretching to soft classical piano music. Archer took a deep breath as he pulled his ballroom shoes out of his locker. “Eileen invited us for tea again,” he said, approaching like a wildlife photographer creeping up on a skittish fawn.

Mateo’s jaw clenched as he arched his back and extended an arm behind him. “Us?”

“Yes.”

Mateo snorted, straightening out again, leg and arm gliding to the side. “Why don’t you bring Caleb?”

Archer admired the long, powerful lines of Mateo’s muscled body. “She didn’t invite Caleb. She invited you.”

Mateo turned to face Archer. “Why?”