I stare at him, trying to control my emotions. The silence is awkward.

“I heard you have a book coming out soon,” I say.

I wanted to say Celine told me, but if I can avoid lying, I’ll do it.

“I do, yes.”

That’s it. That’s all he says. Not offering any details. Getting information from him about Max is going to be even more challenging than I thought.

I have a feeling he doesn’t like me. He smiles and he’s accommodating, but there’s just something about him that makes me want to retreat in my shell like a turtle.

“Are you enjoying Carmel?” he asks.

“I love it,” I say. “It’s my kind of town.”

He smiles politely.

“Maya came here last year; she loved it so much, she returned,” says Celine.

“Is that true?” he asks, his tone still flat, polite, semi-uninterested.

I force a smile.

“You keep coming back and Ethan keeps running away from it.”

“That’s not true,” he says.

Celine rolls her eyes and starts laughing. “If you say so.”

Eventually, we all go to sleep. It’s late and tomorrow Celine and I have to be at Café Azure bright and early.

Thirty-Nine

June 8

I wake up feeling anxious about seeing Ethan again. I wasn’t expecting him yesterday and haven’t properly planned how I will ask him about Max. The way I see it, I have three options:

1. Ask him directly.
2. Trick him into telling me
3. Trick Celine into asking him, which I should’ve thought of before he got here

If I ask him, he can say no, and that’s that; I’m stuck. If I trick him, that’s all fine and dandy, but how do I even go about doing that? I have no idea. I can pretend I’m curious and what? Hope he’ll just say, ‘Oh, yes, it’s my friend Max from two houses down the road. Let me introduce you to him.’ That sounds stupid, and I’m not manipulative enough to get that out of him. Even considering how I sneaked my way into her life under false pretenses, using Celine is too low.

It sounded simple when I flew here, but now that I’m faced with two actual people…

I don’t even leave my room and risk waking them up. Instead, I call Alisa.

“He’s here,” I whisper.

“What?” she asks so loudly, I’m afraid they’ll hear from the other rooms.

“Don’t yell. They’re still asleep.”

“Who?”

“Celine and Ethan.”

“Oh, the maestro. How is he? Just like you imagined? What’s the plan?”

“Easy on the interrogation. And no, he’s definitely not how I imagined.”

“Give me details. I’m dying here.”

“Remember the photo we saw online?”

“Yes.”

“Well, there’s no beard, no glasses, longish black hair, and these eyes that stare you down no matter where you are—”

Alisa laughs hysterically. “Like Mona Lisa?”

I laugh too. “Yes. Like that.”

“OK, what else?”

“A massive tattoo of a bird of some sort, with large wings on both his arms. And by the way, he looks like a gym buff. He’s all muscle.”