He’d been sending quite a few of these texts over the last couple days, ever since I’d ignored his call at the book party. I suspected the reason he wanted to see me—to tell me that Ari was back—and I couldn’t dream of a conversation I needed less. I didn’t know why he was so desperate to inform me of their relationship status. He was with her. I got it. I was all set. I had been running out of excuses for why I was busy, but now I finally had a real one.

“So?” Wallis nudged me for my answer to her question. “Can you just tell me what’s up with you?”

“There’s been a lot going on, Wallis,” I said as I began my text to Atlas. “A lot to manage.”

“If you’re trying to manage me, you can take that off your plate.” Wallis stood on her toes to see over heads. The line to board, already at a crawl, had stopped moving entirely.

“Manage you?” I asked.

I’m about to board a flight to Charleston for the weekend.

“I see it, sometimes,” Wallis said. “Don’t you?” At this question, I looked up from my phone. “You’re like someone from the bomb unit in your protective padding. Fiddling with my wires. Or at least putting a protective box over me. I want to give you a break from that.”

His response came immediately: Charleston? For anything specific?

“Wallis, honey,” I said. Bo has invited us down for a party. “It’s adorable you’d think I’d even attempt to manage you.”

We were able to start walking again, which was positive, as Wallis seemed about ready to bulldoze through the line. “It’s adorable,” she said, “that you think you aren’t doing it.”

I figured it might have something to do with Blake Darley. He’s in Charleston, right?

The flight attendant gave our boarding passes a cursory glance, and to the second-to-last row we went, me to the window and Wallis to the aisle. I didn’t mind sitting in the back of the plane; I’d heard somewhere that was the safest place to be in the event of a crash-landing.

Bo had wanted us to travel together, but there had been less expensive flights available, and he couldn’t argue against that. We’d land a few hours behind him, taxi to his family’s home, try not to make a fuss upon arrival.

“Fine,” Wallis said, once we’d found our assigned pair of seats and I still had not answered her. “You say nothing’s wrong, and I am going to choose to believe you. Besides, I don’t think your mood will last long in Charleston anyway. How can one drink sweet tea and be pissy at the same time? Doesn’t seem possible.”