But this was Mitch, who scheduled his meetings around Annabelle’s swim meets and called his daughters every Sunday and invited them to visit over every school break. Mitch was nothing like Annabelle’s dad, who had just disappeared.

Well, until the letter arrived, anyway.

Jordan went straight for the snack bar and Connor trailed a few steps behind him, but Annabelle stopped inside the gate. Connor had said they were eating at the pool—but did that mean all of them together? Was he expecting her to hang out with him and Jordan until practice? Or did he figure he’d done his job and now she was on her own?

But Connor came back to where she was standing and flicked the bottom of her ponytail. She knew the ends of her hair didn’t have any nerve endings, but it still felt like they tingled.

“You hungry?” he asked.

She smiled the closed-mouth, school-picture smile she used to practice with Mia and nodded. That was about all she could manage, standing this close to Connor. So close that he could easily reach out and flick her hair again, or touch her arm or her shoulder.

Together, they headed to the snack bar, and Annabelle wondered what those moms with little kids wearing swimmies were thinking—whether they assumed she and Connor were a couple, and what it would feel like to slide her fingers through his if they actually were.

Connor high-fived the pretty college-aged lifeguard as they passed, and then he high-fived Ruby, who was outside the snack bar talking to Jordan. Her reddish-brown hair was twisted up into a clip, and pink bikini straps peeked out from the top of a tissue-thin T-shirt with some kind of band logo on it. She must have had a racing suit for practice in the locker room. Annabelle’s black suit didn’t feel quite so special anymore, in comparison.

“Fiiiiiinally,” Ruby said. “You’re here.”

Jordan pushed the door open for himself and then Connor swooped in to hold it for Ruby and Annabelle.

“Great shirt, Rubes!” he said. “Love their music!”

And he stood next to Ruby, not Annabelle, as they waited to order. Ruby went on and on about some concert she’d gone to, and Connor focused all his attention on her. Annabelle felt the same way she had when he’d commented on her monogrammed towel. Like he was so, so much older than she was and she didn’t belong here with him at all.

Once they’d ordered, Ruby took her Caesar salad to a table in the shade, and Connor and Jordan followed with their burgers. Annabelle waited and waited for her grilled cheese, which was taking forever. By the time she got to the table, Ruby was laughing so hard she made a big show of barely being able to breathe.

“Okay, okay, me next. Coach Colette or that girl Paige?” she asked.

“Colette,” Jordan said right away, but Connor glanced over at Annabelle.

“Oh, sorry!” Ruby said. “Should we stop? Don’t want to corrupt the youth!”