“Okay.” Eve could respect that. She used to run a LGBT teen book club at the library, and one of the things she’d learned—both in her training and on the job—was that you had to respect people’s timelines for coming out. “Just out of curiosity, why are you telling me now?”

“Well, so I was going to wait on account of it being theoretical…”

“But it’s not theoretical anymore!” Eve grinned.

“Oh, it is! It is! There’s just…maybe a prospect of it not being.” She looked around like she was checking for hidden cameras, lowered her voice, and whispered, “There’s a new girl at school.”

Eve clapped her hands. “Awesome.”

The misery returned. “Not awesome. Because what do I do?”

“Talk to her?” Eve suggested. “Be bold and just ask her out?”

“How did you and my brother do it?”

Good question. “I don’t know. He was just always there. He was…inevitable.”

Until he wasn’t.

“Eve.” Clara folded her hands under her chin like she was praying. “I just got overcome with the idea that I had to tell someone—it just suddenly felt like I couldn’t keep it in anymore—and I thought of you. But please don’t tell Sawyer. Not yet.”

Eve’s heart twisted. “I won’t, sweetie. I promise.”

She was flattered by Clara’s trust. And impressed by her self-awareness. She’d made intelligent, logical decisions about college, and she was going to blossom there. Eve felt proud to have played even the smallest role in how well Clara had turned out.

But really, that claim to fame belonged to Sawyer. The guy who did hard things in service of other people.

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Eleven

What happened to Jeannie Wilkerson?” Eve asked as Maya turned in to one of the marinas upriver from Moonflower Bay.

“Why?” Maya asked.

“I was just…idly wondering what happened to her.”

“You are such a liar! You were not”—Maya made air quotes with one hand while the other stayed on the steering wheel—“idly wondering.”

Busted. “Well, Sawyer’s all exorcised, right? We’re friends now. Kind of.” She wasn’t going to try to explain the not-not-friends thing. “Still, it’s not like I can ask him.”

Maya parked and cut the engine. “Well, Jeannie was already in college when the kissing debacle took place, right? She was just back for the summer. I think she must have gone back to school, and that was that.”

“And where is she now?”

“She’s back in town, and she’s coming on this boat ride.”

Adrenaline made Eve surge forward, and her seat belt engaged.