I gave him a look. “Indecisive. There’s not much that I try to hide, you know. I’m the definition of an open book.” Even as I said it, I knew it wasn’t the truth.

“I don’t know if I would agree with that,” Levi said easily.

I arched an eyebrow. “No?”

Levi’s eyes smiled down at me. Really smiled. The kind of smile that was absolutely genuine because it wasn’t just muscles moving lips, but reached his eyes, too. “No,” he said simply.

“How do you figure?” I tipped my head back, smiling.

“Do you remember in English class we learned about the story pyramid thing?”

I nodded.

“Well, here’s my thinking.” Levi leaned forward. “We’re eighteen—”

“I’m nineteen,” I said.

“We’re still teenagers,” he said. “So if life was a plot structure, we’d still be in the rising action stage. Our lives are just beginning. Your big aha! moments are waiting for you. Mine, too. Somewhere out there.” He grinned. “In baking terms, I guess you could think about it like a cookie that isn’t done baking.”

I liked the way he put it, like I was the hero in this story and not just someone else’s sidekick. Like somewhere beyond imagining, plot devices were murmuring among themselves, wondering when to kick in and to set me off on my hero quest. I’d given up on thinking I’d have one ever since I turned eighteen and no one showed up to tell me I was the Chosen One.

Part of me wanted to laugh it off, minimize how much I liked his fanciful analogy. Because suddenly, it all felt too real. The more I let him in, the more I let him mean to me … the harder it would be to let him go. Let him go. My stomach twisted. I would be doing to Levi what Tom did when he went fishing—catch and release.

Could I do that to him? To myself?

“You never know,” he continued. “Maybe we were meant to meet. I mean, what were the chances that the waitress at Busy’s also happened to be my landlady?”

“I love that you think it’s fate,” I said. “Not everyone believes in it.”

“Well, I do,” he declared. His eyes darted over my shoulder, forehead scrunched like he was trying to focus.

I twisted around. “What is it?”

“I think I see something over there,” he said, pulling his hand loose. His pinkie hooked around mine for just a second. “Hold on, I’ll get it.”

I swallowed my surprise as I watched him get to his feet and amble toward an abandoned plastic pail and a miniature spade with a broken handle. It had been there for weeks, too old and broken for any of the children to touch. Levi crouched down, brushed the crusted sand off them, and then returned to me, loot in tow.