“Because you care deeply about your number? Or because you hate Paradise Cruises?” I arched an eyebrow at him. I knew I was flirting, just a little bit. Obviously, there were bigger things to deal with here, but he was seriously cute, and my hair was not going to be holding these waves for much longer.

“No, I’m actually doing this for purely mercenary reasons. Hoping if I wait them out a little longer, they’ll up their offer. College isn’t going to pay for itself.”

I nodded, but my smile froze. For me and for Stevie, college was going to pay for itself, in that I’d always known I had a college fund waiting for me, and that I could go wherever I wanted (the caveat about no conservatories was new). Loans and grants and how people actually paid for college was not something I’d ever had to concern myself with.

Hearing this guy say it, so matter-of-factly, was making me feel ashamed of myself—and at the way I’d yelled at my parents about college just a few hours earlier.

“Sounds like a plan,” Stevie said, shaking me out of these thoughts. “And—what’s your name? I could save this as ‘I Cruise,’ but…”

“Let’s not do that,” he said, giving us a smile that crinkled the corners of his eyes. “I’m Cary.”

“Like Grant?” I asked.

“Or Fukunaga,” he replied. “But I’m Cary Tasso.”

“I’m Kat,” I said with a smile. “And that’s Stevie.”

“Nice to meet you both,” he said as Stevie pressed a button on her phone. A second later his phone rang, a jazzy, upbeat guitar sound, and he looked down at it. “I assume you’re the 203 area code?”

Stevie nodded. “We’re in from Connecticut for the night.”

“Number saved,” he said, typing in his phone. “So I’ll let you know as soon as I hear something.” He started to put his phone in his pocket just as it rang again. I stared at it, hope flaring in my chest that it was his uncle, saying he was just around the corner and would be there any second, the answer to all our problems.

“Is that him?” I asked, crossing the fingers on one hand.

Cary looked at the screen, then shook his head, pressing the button to silence the phone. “Paradise Cruises,” he said. “They’ve started calling from creative area codes recently, trying to get me to answer. That one was Alaska.”

Brad must have decided he’d had enough of all this standing around and talking without getting any closer to a walk, and he lunged in the direction of the door. “I think he’s getting antsy,” I said, as though I’d had a lot of experience with Brad’s various moods. “So we can leave him with you, right? Since you guys already get along so well?”