Annabelle wanted to scream.

“He’s not that much older than me,” she squeaked out. “Two years is nothing.”

“It’s kind of not nothing when it’s the difference between middle school and high school, though,” Kayla said quietly.

And now Annabelle was thinking of what Mitch had said the other morning when he and Mom got so mad. How no high school boy should be paying this kind of attention to her. How she was a kid. But that was wrong. She’d thought Kayla and Elisa would understand even though Mitch didn’t.

But they were in high school, too. They were a year older than Connor, even. Had they only invited her here tonight for some big-sister intervention, not because they were actually her friends?

And what right did they have to do that? What did they actually know? Kayla hadn’t ever dated anybody, as far as Annabelle knew. And it’s not like they’d watched every interaction Annabelle and Connor had ever had or read every text.

“You know what?” Elisa said. “I think we need chocolate for this conversation! Who wants brownies?”

But there was no way brownies were going to break all this tension.

“I’m—I’m actually going to use the bathroom,” Annabelle stammered.

When she closed the door behind her, she tried to think of an excuse to leave. She could say she didn’t feel well. Call Mitch to come pick her up. She pulled her phone out of her back pocket and gasped. There was a text from Connor.

What’s up HB? he’d written.

Connor had texted her first! At six, right after Mitch had dropped her off. And on a Saturday night! This was proof that Kayla and Elisa didn’t understand.

Not much, she typed back with shaking thumbs.

What are you up to?

Then she stared at the screen.

Come on, come on, come on!

Ugh, why hadn’t she checked her phone earlier, so she could have written back when he was still paying attention? He might have been texting to invite her to the bonfire!

Actually, he must have been texting to invite her. She and Connor didn’t usually text until eight or nine at night. The only other time he’d texted in the early evening was when he was telling her everyone was going to the Creamery.

And the party was right there down the road. So close she was surprised they couldn’t hear it through the open windows.

She put her phone away and went back out to the kitchen.

“Um, I actually have to go,” she said. “My mom’s home and she’s all mad that Mitch let me come when we were supposed to have family time.”

Elisa frowned. “You have to go now?”

“Yep!” Annabelle gave a little shrug, like, What can you do? You know moms. “Mitch is on his way, I guess. I’m supposed to wait outside.”

She wasn’t sure they believed her, but she also wasn’t sure she really cared. Not when Connor was so close by.

“We didn’t mean to upset you,” Kayla said.