His dad’s phone rang and he looked at the screen and stood. “I’m going to take this outside.”

Brian had gotten the Coltons’ contact information from Shawn but hadn’t figured he’d use it. Now his hand shook as he heard the ring on the other end. On the third ring he almost hit the red button to hang up, but then he heard the voice of a man he assumed was Jimmy Colton.

“Hello?”

“Mr. Colton?”

“Yes?”

“This is Brian Michaels. I was wondering if you could bring your son over to meet me.”

“Oh . . . um, yes. Yes, we can do that.”

“I don’t know if he still wants to . . .”

“He would like that very much.”

“All right. How about tomorrow afternoon?”

“Uh, tomorrow works.”

“Melissa can give you our address.”

“Okay, great.”

“We’ll look forward to it.”

“Great, I’ll tell him.”

“All right,” Brian said. “See you then.”

“Hey,” Jimmy Colton said, “thank you for calling.”

David watched his father leave and the room grew quiet. He glanced at Nate, still holding the camera. Nate raised his eyebrows, signaling David. David shrugged and Nate tilted his head toward Courtney. When David still didn’t get the hint, Nate blew his lips like a horse.

“Oh, I almost forgot,” David said. He looked at Courtney. “I’ve missed a lot of your birthdays. So I have some catching up to do.”

“No, you don’t,” Courtney said, her hands placed tightly between her knees, shoulders hunched forward.

“I’ve got something in the car I want you to see.”

“Let me get it,” Nate said. “But you can’t look out the window. And you have to wait until I come in to see it because I need to get your reaction to it, okay? No pressure, I just want to make sure I don’t miss anything—”

“Nate,” David’s mom said, “I’ll get it.”

“Good idea,” Nate said.

“Now, if you don’t like it, you can return it for something else,” David said. “I kept the receipt.”

Courtney looked at her mother, her eyes wide.

Susan stepped onto the porch and found Jimmy staring at the front yard. When he turned, his mouth was open as if he’d just heard earth-shattering news.

“You’re not going to believe this,” he said.

“Hang on. I need to get something from the car.”

Jimmy grabbed her arm. “It was him.”

“What?”

“On the phone. That was Brian who called me. He wants David to come to his house tomorrow.”

Susan’s mouth dropped. She hugged Jimmy and turned back to the screen door and pulled him inside. “Tell them,” she said. “You have to tell them now.”

Jimmy was not used to being the center of attention. He put his phone in his pocket and looked up and saw all eyes in the room on him. Nate had his phone trained on Jimmy’s face.