“Belle?” Mom called, and Annabelle slid open the screen door to join them on the deck.

They were sitting at the table, with Mom’s feet on Mitch’s lap and a glass of wine in front of each of them.

“How’d you get home?” Mitch asked. “I would have come to get you.”

“Got a ride,” Annabelle mumbled. She didn’t add that the ride came from the bus driver, or that she’d had to wait twenty-five minutes for the bus and trek home from the closest stop, almost a mile away.

“That shirt’s so cute on you,” Mom said. “I’m glad you had a night with friends, honey. Did you have fun with the girls?”

She sounded so hopeful. So eager to know that Annabelle wasn’t a complete disaster—that at least she could handle making some nice friends and spending a pleasant evening with them.

“Sit down and join us,” Mitch offered.

But Annabelle’s clothes smelled like the bonfire, and anyway, Mom and Mitch were so happy there, just the two of them.

On the floor of the deck, those newer planks of wood were still the littlest bit lighter and smoother than the old ones. When they’d set up the deck furniture in the spring, she’d caught Mom sighing over them.

Mom leaned forward, squinting to see Annabelle better. “Are you okay? Did something happen?”

“My hand’s just bothering me. I’m gonna go ice it before bed.”

She went up to her room even though it was barely nine and checked her phone as a reflex, as if there might be a message from Connor. And then a giant wave of humiliation threatened to drag her under and spin her dizzy as she looked at the blank display.

Connor had never been interested in her. He flirted with everybody, like Elisa and Kayla had said. He’d probably only kept their text conversations going because he was bored.

Annabelle didn’t have any new text messages—no surprise there. But she did have new messages in her email. She tapped on her inbox and then gasped.

She’d given him her email address in her letter, and he’d written.

Her dad had written her back.

Her letter had made his day, that’s what the email said. He said he was thrilled to hear from her. He said they could email back and forth to get to know each other again, if that’s what she was comfortable with. He’d wait until she was ready to talk on the phone, and he wouldn’t push for a visit yet. But whenever she was ready, she was welcome.

He didn’t say a whole lot about himself—only that he was working at a coffee shop for now, right down the street from his apartment. “Nothing too fancy,” he wrote. “But I get to come up with new menu items. I added that grilled cheese you used to love, with goat cheese and strawberries.”

She remembered that sandwich, with little green basil leaves peeking out. “Grown-up grilled cheese,” Dad had called it. She’d felt so sophisticated when she ate it.