“Are people going out?” she asked.

Annabelle didn’t know what she meant at first.

“You know,” Mia said. “Like Kayla or Elisa or anyone? I’ve heard people sometimes hang out at night after they win a meet. Did you hear about any plans?”

Annabelle glanced over at her teammates. Kayla was talking with Ruby, and Colette was showing Elisa something on her clipboard. Connor said something to Jordan, who laughed his obnoxious seagull laugh.

“I haven’t heard about anything,” she said.

“Boo.” Mia wrinkled up her nose and then picked at one of her fingernails. They were bright pink.

Annabelle felt a pang, thinking of their old movie-and-manicure nights. Usually at Mia’s house, where Mia’s mom made the best Greek dishes—spanakopita and souvlaki with tzatziki sauce—even though Mia begged for pizza. And where the TV was twice the size of Annabelle’s, and there was a cushiony extra bed right there in Mia’s room.

She almost asked if Mia wanted to have a sleepover tonight. It had been so long since they’d had one, and maybe it would feel right to talk to Mia about her dad’s letter if it was only the two of them, eating those soft chocolate chip cookies out of the box and painting each other’s nails and talking and talking instead of paying attention to whatever movie they’d chosen.

But then Mia leaned in close to whisper.

“Connor and I were both in line at the snack stand the day you weren’t at practice, and we started talking about lacrosse. Did you know he plays?”

Annabelle opened her mouth, but no noise came out.

“He said maybe we could throw the ball around sometime after swim practice or something.”

She said it like she thought Annabelle would be excited about it. Like this was something fun they could share, the way they’d shared a crush on a cute actor and gone to see his movie together last summer.

“Come on, Mia!” the middle school coach yelled.

“I guess you’d better go,” Annabelle said. “Good luck.” She squeezed her balled-up swim cap in her hand as she headed toward the locker room. She told herself Connor didn’t really want to throw around a lacrosse ball with Mia. Or if he did, it didn’t mean anything.

But right now, he was chatting with that pretty college-aged lifeguard, and when Ruby stopped to talk to him, he put his arm around her shoulder.

So maybe it didn’t mean anything that he talked about lacrosse with Mia . . . but then maybe it also didn’t matter that he’d offered Annabelle a ride to practice or flicked her ponytail twice or watched her walk by with that look in his eyes that made her belly go hot-chocolate warm.

Maybe he flirted with everybody and made everybody feel that warm and special.

Mia’s cousin had said it was a good thing if the person you liked was nice to everybody, not just you. But it had to be even better if that person was nice to everybody but even nicer to you.