Right when she’d almost convinced herself that maybe Connor wasn’t extra nice to her, a hand tapped her shoulder, and when she turned around, there he was. Connor. No shirt. Gym shorts over his racing suit, slightly sunburned chest, and messy, half-dry blond hair.

There were pink marks around his green eyes where his goggles had dug into his skin. Everybody got goggle lines after racing, and Annabelle hated how they looked on her own face. But that hot-chocolate warmth filled her belly as she imagined reaching out and touching those reddish indents on Connor’s.

She shouldn’t want to touch someone else’s goggle indents, but with Connor . . . there was something about those marks that made him seem the tiniest bit vulnerable. Imperfect. And somehow that made her heart swell with so much affection she couldn’t believe it still fit behind her ribs.

“Nice races, HB,” he said.

“You too,” she squeaked out. “Your backstroke’s been incredible. You’ve been, like, flying.”

That had sounded weird, maybe. Like she was trying too hard to compliment him. But Connor’s grin was extra wide.

Jordan joined him then. “Way to race, kid.”

Ugh. Kid?

But then Connor said, “Bye, Annabelle.”

She loved the way her name sounded coming out of his mouth. He said it carefully, like it was in a foreign language and it mattered to him to get every sound right.

He said it like she mattered to him. A whole lot more than Mia or Ruby or the lifeguard or anybody else.

Chapter 17

Mom and Mitch both had work events that night, so they left Annabelle money to order dinner. She was picking up her phone to call for pizza when the text came in.

Connor.

She dropped the phone, and it bounced off one of the couch cushions and onto the ground. It buzzed a second time before she could find it.

A bunch of us from the team are going to the creamery if you wanna come.

Getting there in 30.

Annabelle’s smile spread so wide that her lips nearly split in the front where she bit them when she was nervous. This had to mean something, Connor going out of his way to invite her.

Cool. See you there, she typed back, her fingers shaking so much that she almost dropped the phone again. She put in an exclamation point and a smiley face at first, then deleted them.

She texted Mom to say she was biking to get food instead of ordering, which wasn’t a lie exactly, and then she added that she might get ice cream with Mia, which was.

She could have been getting ice cream with Mia, if she told Mia about meeting Connor and the rest of the team. But the truth was, she didn’t want Mia there. So she put away her phone without sending another message.

Annabelle locked up her bike a few blocks from the Creamery. The line looped around the corner, like it always did in the summer.