“You’re old Mr. Laurence’s grandson,” I said.

“That’s right.”

I didn’t know what to say. I’d never known anybody before whose parents had died. Our dad was in Iraq. If something happened to him, it would be like the sun had gone out of our sky, but our lives would basically go on as usual, anchored in our routine orbits by our mother’s steady gravity.

“Sorry about your folks,” I said.

He nodded once, shortly, his black-lashed gaze sliding away.

“Well . . .” I shifted my weight from foot to foot. “It was nice, uh, meeting you. I gotta run.” Like, literally.

He uncurled from his seat on the porch. He was taller than me, strong and lean. “What are you, in training or something?”

I stuck out my chin. “Yeah, actually. I’m on the cross-country team.”

“What’s your time?”

“Twenty-three minutes.” Give or take a minute.

“Pretty good.” His smile flashed, exposing nice white teeth. “For a girl.”

I grinned back. “Whatever. I don’t see you running.”

His dark eyes met mine. “Maybe you will.”

We stood a minute, awkwardly. Something about the way he was looking at me in my sports bra and running shorts made my face get even hotter.

“So.” I refastened my ponytail. My hair was thick and curly like my father’s, either my best or worst feature, depending on my mood and the humidity. “I guess I’ll see you around.”

“What about old Weasley here?”

I looked at the cat hunkered down at the tuna. “It’s fine. I mean, it’s not like I can carry him home with me. At least now I can tell Beth not to worry.”

“Beth. Is that your sister?”

“My middle sister, yeah.”

He nodded again.

With a little wave, I turned and loped away, aware of him watching behind me.

I finished my run—four miles in twenty-nine minutes with time out for the cat, not bad—thumped up our front steps and into the house. Meg was in the kitchen making a salad while Amy set the table.

I grabbed a pitcher of water from the fridge.

Amy wrinkled her nose. “Get away. You smell.”

I ignored her. “Guess what? I just met our new neighbor.”

“You mean Trey?” Meg asked. “Seriously, Jo, you should take a shower before dinner.”

“Oh my God, he’s so gorgeous.” Amy sighed dramatically. “Like Edward Cullen.”

“Language,” Meg said. The Reverend Ashton March’s girls did not take the name of the good Lord in vain. Leastways, not when anybody could hear.

I lowered the pitcher. “Wait, you saw him?”

Trey’s hair was black, not bronze. But I could see how my Twilight-obsessed little sister could compare him to a sparkly vampire. There was that golden skin. That tall, lean build. Those almost black eyes, like he was hungry for something.

“He stopped by while you were gone,” Meg said. “To drop off Beth’s cat.”

“Oh.” I felt oddly deflated at having my big news scooped. “Well, good.”

It wasn’t like Trey was my exclusive property or anything.