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Everyone knew Ellie, and she was almost treated like royalty by the staff. Not that Sadie could blame them; it would be helpful to be nice to the owner’s daughter. They were led over to a booth near the bar beside the stage where they had local bands perform and karaoke on select nights.

They placed their lunch orders—a Diet Coke and a cheeseburger for Ellie and a water and chicken tenders for Sadie—before they went back to talking about Ellie’s day.

Or, more specifically, Austin.

“So,” Sadie twirled her straw around inside her water glass, “is Austin pretty?”

Ellie sighed with a laugh as she dramatically put her hand to her forehead. “Sadie,” she whined, “I don’t like her. She’s just a mentor. That’s all.”

“That’s how it always starts.” Sadie was teasing her. Mostly. “She starts to show you the ways of the world and you slowly fall in love with her while your girlfriend isthousandsof miles away at college.”

“Oh, geez.”

“Studying my ass off.”

“Stop it.”

“Going to practice while you’re making out with Austin.”

“Ew, shut up,” Ellie waved Sadie off with a laugh. “Austin isn’t my type.”

Sadie arched an eyebrow at her. “Oh, yeah?”

“Yeah. I mean, she’s tall and has green eyes and blonde hair but that’s so not my type.” Ellie reached across the table, intertwining her fingers with Sadie. “My type is the red-headed softball player with blue eyes.”

“Thank god I fit that type.”

They leaned across the table and quickly kissed just as Emily Crawford brought their food over. “Ahh, teenage love. I miss it.”

“Says the woman who’s girlfriend would have beenarrestedfor kissing you as a teen.”

Sadie knew about Emily and Sophia Beauchamp’s age gap, but she never would have joked about it with her like Ellie did. Emily rolled her eyes at Ellie as she sat their plates down in front of them.

“Yeah, fair. Anything else I can get for you two? Ranch? Mayo? Keys to the back room so you can make out in privacy?”

Ellie held up an onion ring to Emily. “You can have this if it’ll get you to leave us alone.”

“Done.” Emily snatched the onion ring and popped it into her mouth before walking away with a wink. Picking up a chicken tender, Sadie dipped it into the honey mustard sauce before taking a bite.

“So,” Sadie swallowed before continuing, “do you know everyone in the Cove?”

Ellie looked at her over her burger, confused. Sadie quickly continued.

“I mean, I’m not asking because I think it’s bad. I don’t.” She stumbled over her words as Ellie thoughtfully chewed her food across the table. “It just seems like everywhere we go you know someone or we run into someone. It’s cool. I’ve never had that.”

“Well, my family is fairly big, so that helps. And my parents are well known in the community. And I know a lot of people because they’re friends of Mason’s. That’s how I know Emily. She was at our house a lot when I was younger, so she’s basically like an older sister. Just slightly less annoying than Mason.”

Sadie chuckled. “But you love it.”

“I do.”

After they finished up their lunch, they headed over to the arcade for a bit before walking down by the cove. Sadie loved being able to hold hands with Ellie in public without any judgment. She’d been worried about going to a school in the south because of that, but she hoped things would work out. Besides, she wasn’t planning on dating anyone but Ellie anyway.

“Are you excited about your birthday tomorrow?”

“I am. My parents have this tradition where they do something special with us on our birthday. Brayden picked to go to some baseball game next weekend, but they’re taking me to New York City in a few weeks for a play.”

“Oh, what are you seeing?”