“Yeah. It was just bad luck. We started running out of things to talk about, and she was doing her one-word answer thing, then she ran into some friends of hers, and they wanted to go on some rides together and stuff. So, she asked if I minded her going home with them.”

“What did you say?”

“I said it was fine, of course. What else was I gonna say?”

“Is it fine?”

“Totally. She’s allowed to do whatever she wants.” His tone seemed a little too airy. Then his eyes caught mine, and a touch of uncertainty flashed across his face. “Do you think I did something wrong?”

The realistic answer was: “Hard to say, I couldn’t hear everything from where I was,” or, “Possibly, it’s a minefield dating someone you’ve dated before,” or, “Wouldn’t surprise me, given my experience with you and what it seems like it would be like to date you.”

But none of those answers were constructive right this minute, and though he was doing an excellent job at pretending otherwise, I had a feeling he was bruised. So, I said, “Nah, I’m sure it was just what it looked like. She saw her friends, and wanted to hang with them. You couldn’t have helped that.”

“Right. It’s normal to wanna hang with your friends.”

“… Yeah,” I said, but I hesitated a fraction of a second too long.

His shoulders dropped. “You think it’s a bad sign, hey?”

“Well … you’re right, it is totally fair to want to see your friends…”

“But if she liked me, she wouldn’t have wanted to.”

I chose my words carefully. “It’s pretty rude to walk out mid-activity. It either means she’s trying to play a game with you, or that she’s…”

“Not that keen.”

“Basically, yeah.”

“Which one do you reckon?”

“Me? I don’t know her. What does your gut say?”

He turned his head pointedly to look down the pier. The track of his eyes followed the roller coaster, dropping his gaze in time with the distant screams of terror. “The latter.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I’m not,” he said, a little too quickly. “It’s fine. We had a good day, and if she wants to be friends, it’s better than being enemies. It’s not like I can force her into having feelings for me. And if she isn’t interested, it probably wouldn’t have worked out anyway.”

I met Ainsley’s eyes across the pier, and she shrugged at me in a question. I held up one finger. Give me a second.