“I thought you said you weren’t much of an actor,” I tease him, and he shrugs.

“You can’t grow up being Willa Culver’s son and not learn a thing or two about playing a part.” He’s staring at me now. “Besides, I couldn’t pass up an opportunity to share the stage with an old friend.”

“She told you,” I say. “About my mother.”

Cole nods. “I don’t remember much about that summer,” he admits. “I don’t even remember you. But there’s a framed photo of your mom that sits on the piano in our living room. I’ve grown up looking at it.” He’s studying me, and I see his mind working behind those gray eyes. “You look like her.” Something crosses his face then. Something I can’t decode. “I should’ve known it was you all along.”

It’s weird to think about Cole growing up looking at that photo of my mother. My own father has always kept her memory locked in a tiny shoebox, tucked away on the top shelf of his closet. In the dark.

But Willa keeps her in the sunshine. On the piano in the living room.

“I should have told you,” I say. “On the beach. That first night. But—”

He cuts me off. “You didn’t owe me your truth. Everyone has secrets.”

“Even you?” I ask him. I’m staring at that little tattoo on the inside of his wrist. The compass rose. A protective mark for a sailor who’s never been to sea.

Cole shrugs. “I’ve got a few.” He drops his eyes back to the script in his lap. “You hear any more whispering?” he asks, and there’s a funny sound in his voice. Something that’s almost teasing, but almost not.

“You said it was the wind in the dune grass,” I remind him, and he looks back up at me.

“I said that’s what most people believe.” He reaches over to run his fingers across the inside of my wrist—the spot where the little tattoo marks his own skin—and I shiver. It’s just the lightest touch, and he pulls his hand away almost before I have a chance to feel it. But it makes it hard for me to think straight. “You might wanna think about getting your own compass rose,” he tells me. “We all get lost sometimes.”

I don’t get a chance to say anything else, because people begin drifting back into the theatre then, and Jude calls the end of the break.

“Back at it, my lovelies!” Willa tells us. “Let’s take it from the top.”