“Hi!” Eve said again, her voice so high she sounded like she’d been sucking on a helium balloon. “We’re…” She looked around like she was trying to remember where she was. Her attention snagged on a stainless steel water bottle she must have dropped—that was what he’d heard.

“How long have you been standing there?”

She didn’t answer because Clara and Maya appeared from inside the house, each of them holding one end of a cooler.

“I thought you were going to the beach,” he said to Clara. I thought you were already gone.

“We are,” Clara said. “We’re gonna spend the day going over my school applications.”

“And eating,” Maya said. “For me, it’s mostly about eating. These two brainiacs are going to do the school stuff.”

His mind was all muddled. How much had Evie heard?

She just kept staring at him, her mouth hanging open. She had heard something.

Well, shit. He could make this worse, or he could try to make it better.

“Get in the car,” Sawyer said.

Some part of Eve registered that his voice was low and commanding, but another part of her could barely make sense of what he was saying, his words seeming to reach her through a thick fog.

“What is going on here?” Maya dropped her end of the cooler, put her hands on her hips, and moved so she was standing between Sawyer and Eve.

Sawyer ignored her. It was like he hadn’t even heard her. He pointed at a Subaru parked on the gravel drive at the end of the yard, “Get in the car, Eve.”

He called her Eve on the first try again. It continued to be…unsettling.

“Hold on, now, Sawyer.” Maya, bless her, got all up in his face. “You can’t just—”

He still wasn’t listening to her. Or maybe he was, because he gentled his tone and tried again. “Eve. Please, will you get in the car? I promise I won’t take up very much of your time.” He turned to his sister, whose mouth was frozen in an O of astonishment. “I’ll drop her off at the beach.”

Eve felt like she had that day at the Mermaid Parade, like even though she couldn’t get her brain to properly process what was happening, life was about to take a sharp twist. If she let it.

She got in the car.

She waved off Maya’s barrage of questions—Was she okay? Did she want company?—even though she appreciated them. “Call me if you need me!” Maya shouted as Sawyer started the car.

They drove in silence for a few minutes while Eve adjusted to the idea that Sawyer had not left her for Jeannie Wilkerson.

Was it wrong to be relieved about that? Because she was. But she was, simultaneously, pissed. The thing that had driven her away hadn’t even been real?