“How’s Daniel?” I asked casually.

She looked at me, rolled her eyes, and took another sip. “Between you and me?” I nodded. “Daniel cheated on me with the bartender at HMF.”

HMF was one of the bars at the Breakers. “He did not.”

“Oh, I assure you, he did.”

“I’m assuming you haven’t told your mother? Because from the talk around the party, everyone is expecting a proposal any day now.”

She sighed, handed me the champagne, and lay down on her back on the still-warm sand, her arms behind her head. “Can I be honest with you?”

“Always.” I looked over at her. Her serene face, her hair spread in the sand, the way the moon shone on her blue eyes, making them vibrant even in the dark… I had dated my fair share of beautiful women, but for me, there would always be only one Amelia Saxton.

“I felt relieved.”

I laughed, looking out over the roaring ocean, raising the champagne to my mouth again.

“Why?”

“I didn’t love him. My father loved that he was a scratch golfer. My mother loved his family and his job and how handsome he was. I tried to love him. I swear I did. But when I found out he’d cheated, I kind of felt relieved. He was crying and begging for forgiveness, and it was so easy to walk away. I realized I didn’t even feel enough for him to shed a tear about it. Am I an awful person?”

I lay down beside her, twisting the base of the bottle in the sand so it wouldn’t spill. I turned my head toward her. “Amelia, you are a lot of things. Awful will never be one of them.”

She met my eyes and smiled, making my stomach do that thing again that I could no longer pretend was from the champagne. Was she sending me a signal here?

She pointed up to the sky and said, “Is that the Southern Cross?”

I laughed.

“What?”

“Amelia, you can’t see the Southern Cross from here. You have to be in the Southern Hemisphere. Occasionally you can catch it in Key West or maybe Texas, but never here.”

She laughed, too. “But doesn’t that look like a cross?”

I was pretty sure she had had too much champagne. “I’ve seen it,” I said. “On my semester at sea.”

“I’d like to see it,” she said.

“I’d like to show you,” I responded, feeling brave.

She turned toward me then, and the way she smiled, I knew what she said next was going to change my life. And it did. But not in the way I wanted. “Park, I have missed you. I don’t think I realized it, but I have.”

I couldn’t breathe. My heart was beating out of my chest. Is this actually happening?

“You are the little brother I never had.” She turned back toward the sky and said, “Is that the Big Dipper?” Then laughed. “Am I the worst amateur astronomer you’ve ever known?”