“Oh, oh!” Philip piped in. “If you decide to go through with it, can I be there when you tell your mom? Please, please, pretty please?”

Sheree cringed. “Not me. I wouldn’t touch that with a ten-foot pole.”

They began imitating my mother, arguing over what they thought she would say. But I was somewhere else, wondering how Parker would react. And, for the first time in my entire life, I realized that, despite what I had always been told, I might, one day, feel a baby growing inside of me after all.

Parker SOUTHERN CROSS

IN THE BACK OF THE Uber after the party, I knew I was going to be exhausted at work tomorrow. I knew I should have left earlier. But I also couldn’t stop doing something I hadn’t really done in a long time: smiling.

The day, the dancing, the laughing. Had I imagined it? Or had there been a moment between Amelia and me as we said goodbye? Everyone in Cape Carolina knew I had always had a soft spot for Amelia—well, maybe everyone knew except for Amelia.

Once, I had believed that maybe she had a soft spot for me, too. Our mothers threw an epic end-of-summer party every year on the beach in front of the Oyster, the beach’s oldest hotel. They invited all their friends, and they insisted that Robby, Mason, Amelia, and I be there every year.

But the summer after I graduated college, Robby was on his honeymoon and Mason had wormed his way out by claiming he was sick. (Hungover was more like it.) So that left Amelia and me as the only two members of the under-fifty crowd.

We had exchanged hellos and caught up briefly. But then the sea of revelers wanted to ask me about my postcollege plans and to ask Amelia—much to my dismay—about potential wedding bells with her boyfriend. As it started to get dark and the tiki torches were lit and bonfires stoked on the beach, Amelia caught my eye across the party and gestured with her head out toward the sand.

I nodded, grabbed a bottle of champagne from the bar—the bartender protesting mildly—removed my shoes, and followed her down the beach, to a quiet spot away from the party. She sat down, wrapping her arms around her knees, and I followed suit.

“Don’t get views like this in New York, do you?” she asked, smiling.

I shook the champagne just a little. As the cork popped and the bubbles exploded into the night, Amelia squealed. I handed her the bottle. “Ladies first.”

She took a swig and handed it back to me.

I looked up. “There is nothing like a Southern sky,” I said. I hadn’t been alone with Amelia, this close to her, since the summer before I left for college. As I took a swig of the champagne and handed the bottle back to her, I told myself the jitters in my stomach were from the drink, not her.