A year ago Genevieve had moved into the guest house here at the farm and fallen in love with her landlord, Sam Turner. Since then, she’d invited Sebastian to several social events here. Genevieve loved people, loved talking with people, and loved hosting people, especially now that she had access to a great setting (Sugar Maple Farm) and a boyfriend who could do all the cooking (Sam).

On this last Saturday in September, the heat had topped out in the eighties, then slipped into the seventies. To take advantage of the weather, Genevieve had convinced Sam to move his dining room table and chairs outside to the grassy area on the side of the house. She’d sunk tall wooden stakes into the earth, then draped string lights back and forth from the house to the stakes, so that the lights formed a canopy over the table.

Genevieve had told Sebastian they were having a “small group” over for dinner tonight. He knew her well enough to know that “small group” could mean thirty. Because of that, he’d thought it possible that Leah might attend. He’d gotten his hopes up. Showered and shaved, chosen his clothes carefully, spent time on his hair.

Which was stupid. Embarrassing.

He found out after he’d arrived that tonight’s “small group” meant twelve. He’d shown up early along with Genevieve’s parents, Sam’s dad and stepmom, Natasha and her husband, Wyatt. Ben, Eli, and Penelope would be here soon.

Sebastian kept wondering why he was feeling let down. Then remembering . . . it was because Leah wasn’t coming.

Almost three weeks had passsed since he’d given her and Dylan a tour of the hospital.

His life and hers overlapped too little. So little, it was making him crazy. Weeks would go by without his seeing her. Then, when he was finally near her again, he experienced the kind of high that made him crave more. Then more weeks would go by without her.

It reminded him of the conditioning he’d learned about in Psychology 101 in college. The occasional reward of seeing her motivated him to wait and watch and wait and watch for more.

He spotted Ben making his way toward the gathering, and excused himself. He and Ben had talked a couple of times since Ben’s date with Leah, and things were getting back on decent footing between them. However, this was the first weekend Sebastian had spent at his Misty River house this month, so this was the first time they were seeing each other in person.

“Hey,” Sebastian said.

“Hey.” Ben offered his hand for a fist bump.