“Really?” An image flashed in my mind, a doorstep of a nice home. A man in the doorway. A confused smile that grew with understanding. A hug long overdue. Well, that was best-case scenario; there were other movie clips that played in my mind as well. “Was he excited? I mean … he wasn’t upset?”

“I can tell what you’re thinking, you know,” he said as we stopped our horses in front of the barn. He caught the quick straightening of my features and quirked his lip.

“So, what am I thinking?” I said with a flirtatious tilt of my chin.

“You’re thinking—what would happen if you showed up on your father’s doorstep? Right?”

My spine went rigid. “I never said I didn’t know my father. My father and I are very close. He’s really great.”

Shit. I wanted him to think I was like Kori, but that didn’t mean I wanted to outright lie to him.

“When you mentioned just your mother, I assumed. My bad.”

“It’s okay.” But it wasn’t okay; I shouldn’t have snapped at him. I just really didn’t want him to know my neurosis over my nonexistent father.

He swung down from his horse and asked, “Want a soda?”

“Sure, I’ll be right there.”

“Take your time. Ride around.”

I nodded, but I just wasn’t into riding after that. And I really hated lying to Shay, but my MIA father was too deep a bruise to be poking at.

When I entered the tack room, I expected to find Shay bent over into the refrigerator, not rifling through my messenger bag.

“What are you doing?”

He jerked up. All of my bag’s contents were scattered across the table, most notably both elaborately decorated flour bags. Shay’s body blocked me from getting to them without causing a scene.

“I accidentally knocked it over.”

“So you thought it would be okay to go digging through my stuff? Prying around?”

“No. Not like that.” He sat with one hip on the table. Annoyingly cool. “Since when do girls carry bags of flour around?”

I swallowed, concentrated on not freaking out at the invasion, even as I snapped the words off. “You wouldn’t get it.”

His calm eyes took me in. They didn’t seem to care about the panic thrashing about inside me. “Try me.”

“It’s a class project, okay?”

“So it’s what? A project to see how much strain the human spine can endure?”

“No.”

I looked for an opening to get to my things, to put them back in my bag, but he wasn’t giving me one.

“They’re supposed to be babies.”

He picked up Baby Charms with one hand. “I don’t get it.”

“We have to be responsible for them like they’re children or something. You know, make sure they’re accounted for and taken care of.”