Oliver had been stopping by since our hike, but we didn’t have plans to go on a second date. I thought about asking him all the time, but I found myself hemming and hawing when the opportunity presented itself. Phoebe told me the ball was in my court—I just couldn’t figure out what to do with it. Sometimes I thought about asking him if he wanted to play tennis, but every time I got close, I remembered Ros and swallowed the words, lost my voice like I had that day at the lagoon.

“Hey,” said Phoebe. “We just got a lesson from Benna, and the takeaway is that we’re supposed to make you more beautiful as the yeti.”

“That sounds lovely. I’m all about beauty,” Oliver said. “Celia, how are you doing?”

How was I doing? How was I doing?

I’d spent most of my time since the date trying to figure out what was wrong with me, and why my internal love compass seemed to be so screwy. Here was this really nice guy who I liked quite a lot—and whose character on TV I loved—but I couldn’t seem to transfer the feelings I had for Blade to the feelings I had for Oliver. Plus I still was thinking about Ros all the time, and the spring’s magic wasn’t working nearly as quickly as I wanted it to. The ball may have been in my court, but it was lodged in my chest, and I didn’t know whether to cough it up and serve it up, or swallow it, let it be eaten by my stomach acid. I had the same problem with the sunglasses he’d given me. I kept them on me, but found myself squinting in the sun instead of reaching for them.

Of course I didn’t say any of this.

What I said was:

“I’m fine.”

“Do you want to get lunch?” Oliver asked us.

“Yes, definitely,” said Phoebe. “I need a break from all of this.”

“I actually told my friend Touchstone I’d take him to the Dropped Acorn,” I said.

“Oh, fun,” Phoebe said. “I haven’t seen him since Audrey’s party.”

“Really? We’ll have to change that soon,” I said. “You should get to know him. He’s the best.”

“That’s the clown friend, right?” said Oliver. “Tell him I say hi?”

Given that Touchstone still referred to Oliver as “Fish Eyes,” I suspected I would not.