When Bodie hands Anna her drink, he makes sure their fingers touch and says, “Two twenty-five” which is what a small costs.

She hands him a five, but I’m still working on the register tape. I’ve almost got it, but some of the paper is bunched on one side, so I have to use a knife to finish jamming it through.

“Oh, keep the change,” she says, like it’s no big deal to pay more than twice what she’s been charged. All I have left to do is close the register lid, so she wouldn’t have to wait more than two seconds.

“Thanks,” Bodie says. He grabs a pencil from under the counter. “Hey, do you think I could give you a call some—” but she’s already out the door.

I almost feel bad for him, but then he says, “Pilgrim, can you make me a hot chocolate? You make them better than me,” like I’m supposed to swoon. Like he still believes in the power of his charm, even after he got shut down.

When I make his hot chocolate, I kind of hate myself.

On the way home, when I stop at the drugstore to buy a tube of dark red lipstick, I hate myself a little bit more. But when I get home, put the lipstick on, and study my reflection in the bathroom mirror, I love the way my lips look like a Valentine and I can’t stop staring.

After I get the lipstick perfect, I pull my hair back in one big twisty braid that falls over my shoulder, because Adam told me once that it looks pretty that way. And it does. I don’t look like the old April anymore. I look like maybe I could really fit here. Like this is the place where my life gets to start, and maybe I’m ready for it.

I hear Adam’s footsteps on the stairs and my heart bangs around in my chest in a good way.

“Lucy, I’m ho-ome,” Adam calls as he opens the door.

I stand my lipstick tube up on the shelf Adam cleared for me in the medicine cabinet and run out to meet him.

“Hey,” he says, hugging my waist. He spins me around and kisses my neck. “Ready to get a tree?”

“Yeah.” I kiss him back, and my lips leave a big red smudge on his face. He doesn’t wipe it off.

Adam drives us out of the city through wide-open farmland where the sky looks big and the land is just arching out in front of us. He turns down a dirt road lined with short, fat pine trees and parks in front of a rickety white farmhouse.

“Stay here,” he says, “I’ll be right back.”

He leaves the car running for me so the heat’s still on, sprints up the porch steps.