I believed if I stared at him long enough, I might be able to articulate the truth of how he made me feel—safe, frustrated, lonely, loved. I had the words, almost, but then Ari appeared next to him. In her eyes, I saw her plans and her orders, her agnostic views of us all. She was beautiful, and she would take him.

My head jolted and I became fully alert. The pilot announced that we were beginning our descent into Charleston, and I had to blink several times to get my bearings. Wallis looked at me and grinned.

When we touched ground, and I turned my phone back on, there was another text from Atlas: Please call me when you can.

Leaving the airport, we drove through the late-spring drizzle to the appointed address on Rutledge Street. By the time Bo met us at the gate, the clouds had moved on, the sun returned.

“Shorts!” Wallis exclaimed after jumping out of the taxi and giving him a hug. “I’ve never seen you in shorts. And they’re pink. We are really letting loose this weekend, aren’t we?”

In DC, Bo was rarely out of solid-color button-downs, overlarge khaki pants, and square-toed black shoes. But here he stood before us, head to knee in pastel, stylish loafers without socks. “I’ve already had two Bloodys,” Bo said. For all his talk of his complicated relationship with his parents and his hometown, he did seem very relaxed. Maybe it was the vodka, or the smell of jasmine, or the weather that allowed for summer clothes that elevated his mood. “Put me in shorts, and I’m a different man.”

We dragged our bags up the pea gravel drive toward the house, which was three stories with front facing piazzas on the bottom two. Brown brick and black shutters, porch ceilings painted haint blue.

“Tell us about the house,” Wallis said. “You grew up here?”

“We had a smaller place on the East side of Charleston when I was little, but we moved over here once my sister and I were old enough to start school. This is Judge Collette Reed’s labor of love. Mind you fawn over it. That will score you some points.”

A truck, looked like catering, came in the gate behind us, and we stepped aside to a wisteria-draped stone wall along the driveway to give it room.

“What is the plan for the day?” I asked after we resumed our walk to the house, our suitcases making tracks in the gravel. “Just tell us where we need to be.”

“My parents are hosting an intimate dinner for thirty tonight. Cocktails and appetizers at quarter past five. My father likes punctuality.”

“Thank you,” I said, already fretting about what to wear. Which of my new clothes would be appropriate? “We’ll gladly take any and all instruction.”

“Daisy likes to know the rules for social situations,” Wallis teased.