I can acknowledge (no pun intended) that it’s a little weird to have a dream imprint, but Wednesday has been mine since its inception, and I’m so grateful to have now published two books with an incredibly amazing team there. Thank you, always, to my delightful editor, Vicki Lame; her lovely assistant, Vanessa Aguirre; my fabulous publicist, Meghan Harrington; marketing extraordinaires Alexis Neuville and Brant Janeway; the whole excellent team of production editor Carla Benton, production manager Jeremy Haiting, and copy editor Kaitlin Severini; the managing editorial team of Eric Meyer and Elizabeth Catalano, and, of course, those responsible for making this book look so gorgeous I can only hope my words live up: text designer Devan Norman, cover artist Alex Cabal, and legendary cover designer Kerri Resnick. Many thanks, too, to Bethany Strout and the entire team at OrangeSky Audio, and to Natalie Naudus and Lori Prince for breathing the most beautiful life into Amber and Jack.

To my wonderful agent, Patricia Nelson—thank you for constant support, quick email responses, as-needed phone calls, and general wonderfulness. I am so grateful for all the pieces you’ve picked up and everything you’ve put back together, and I can’t wait to see what else lies ahead with you.

A tremendous debt of gratitude to everyone who lent their expertise to various areas of this book. The brilliant Sarah Henning and Maggie Hall went way above and beyond, and Home Field Advantage is so much better for their tremendous help and that of Lauren Gibaldi, Lindsay Myers-Humlie, Kelly Head, David Nino, and Mark Oshiro. Any remaining errors are mine, except for Amber’s distaste for Mountain Dew, which is, frankly, her problem.

I’m also hugely grateful to A-M McLemore, who pushed me through to the end of writing this book with one insightful phone call; Marieke Nijkamp, who is forever one of my first readers and greatest cheerleaders; Katherine Locke, recipient of a truly embarrassing amount of my angst, but who’s always there for the joy in equal amounts; Jenny Bent, who gave this book its title during a generous phone call years ago; ’Nathan Burgoine, who helped change the course of this book with a single Twitter thread; and DongWon Song, who first made Wednesday my home.