She reached the outer perimeter of campus and turned toward the athletic complex, a looming concrete eyesore that had once been modern when it was built in the 1970s but now, she could see from a distance, looked as out of place amid the traditional architecture as she probably had when she first arrived on campus. For reasons that were obvious, Frankie hadn’t spent much time there over her four years. Occasionally, she would accompany Laila and April to the fitness center and half-heartedly give it a go on the treadmill with the Go-Go’s or Duran Duran or Madonna or, when particularly moody, the Cure or the Smiths, blasting out of her cassette Walkman, her spongy headphones soaking up sweat. Once she met Ezra and discovered that he was as disinterested in the fitness center as she was, she abandoned that ruse too.

Still though, she slowed her pace today and lingered. She pulled the Polaroid of the two of them by the pool out of her purse.

“Document each clue,” April had announced, clapping her hands as if this were a murder mystery party and she was the lead detective.

Frankie remembered now that she’d groaned, and Ezra, to her left and unable to meet her eyes, finally turned to her and said: “Look, grit your teeth and keep your mouth shut. We’re adults. We can do this. We’re not going to ruin April and Connor’s rehearsal dinner.”

Frankie had a slew of witty yet acerbic retorts on her tongue, but he’d already returned his focus to April, who was running down the list of rules. Rules! At a rehearsal dinner. This was not what Frankie had signed up for! This was not at all part of the agreement when she’d booked her ticket back east to her old university at risk of seeing her ex-boyfriend with whom she’d had a calamitous breakup. Frankie was just trying to be nice. Showing up. She was just trying to prove that she wasn’t the sort of person who walked away from her past after dumping a pool of kerosene on top of it and lighting a match.

Once the rules had been dispatched—there was a clue at each location that would lead them to the next, and photographic evidence was required to move on (Just so we know there’s no cheating! April had said, ever the professor)—Ezra had been the one to handle the camera. Frankie remembered that now too. She could see that he was a little tipsy, if not significantly wobbly, already in the early evening. Gregory lumbered over, equally foggy, and brought another round of shots.

“This should be interesting,” he said, more to Ezra than to Frankie, and when Frankie waved off the alcohol, Gregory drank hers too. Then, he added: “I swear, if you two don’t kill each other by the end of the night, maybe you’ll find true love.”