“She died,” I say flatly, suddenly not in the mood for euphemisms. “And like my mom said, I found her.”

Daniel leans back as if I’d struck him. “That must be tough.”

I shrug, biting my lip, desperate for a change of subject. I mentally kick myself for saying anything.

“I can’t imagine life without Mawmaw Barb. She’s the matriarch of our family.”

“Moony raised me,” I tell him. “I haven’t lived with my mother in a long time.”

He takes this in, a pensive draw around his eyes. “So, it’s kind of like you lost a mother.”

“Exactly.” I am grateful he can put it into words for me. I have lost and gained a mother in one blow.

I lean back in my chair and study the boy across from me. Behind his warm, inviting eyes and relaxed smile, there is tension spread like thin butter on toast. He keeps his own secrets, and I want to know what they are. If New Orleans is a city built on stories, what’s his?

“Tell me something about you no one knows,” I hear myself saying. Who am I? I think immediately. Who is this girl who asks boys about their deepest secrets? I frighten myself, but underneath the fear is another older emotion desperate to break the surface. I can’t name it yet, but it feels like hunger.

He assesses me for a moment. His eyes dance away from mine, and he laughs in this low, throaty way. “Uhhh. Okay. I’ll play,” he says. “I keyed someone’s car once.”

I sit up. “Are you serious?”

He shrugs.

“Who?”

“Nah.” He waves his hands. “I don’t want to say.”

“That’s fair,” I tell him. I think for a moment, then ask, “Boy or girl?”

“Girl,” he admits.

“Younger or older?” I ask this time.

“Older,” he says.

I narrow my eyes at him, as if squinting will help me figure out what he’s not telling me. “A lot or a little?”

“A little.”

“Did you know this mystery woman who was only a little older than you? I mean, before you trashed her paint job?”

He scrunches all his features up into the center of his face and then releases them. “Yeah.”

I study him. “Revenge, then?”

“Sort of.”

“An ex?”

“How’d you guess?” He looks like a shamed dog.

I shrug. “Hard to imagine a nice guy like you going after some random girl, and the only girls guys get angry enough to take revenge on are usually exes—bad ones.”

“It wasn’t my finest moment,” he confesses.

“She must have yanked your chain pretty hard to get you to do that,” I say.

Daniel laughs, but there’s not an ounce of humor in it. “She was a pro.”

“At chain yanking?”

He laughs again. “At manipulation.”