Page 106 of Places We've Never Been

She shrugged. “Yeah, so. I was looking for clues about our moms.”

“In Skyler’s stuff?”

She shrugged. “In everyone’s stuff.”

“That’s not cool.”

“You did it,” she said.

“I…” She was right. I had done it. Ezra had done it. We’d all turned into suspicious thieves on this trip, apparently. “Only in my mom’s. And I didn’t take anything.” My voice was scratchy because my throat was tight. Aside from the fact that his art was breathtaking, even better than it had been four years ago, I wasshocked that he had drawn me. And by memory? Or maybe while looking at a picture? But I couldn’t think of which picture he could’ve used. “You need to go put that back before he figures out it’s missing.”

“You don’t want to look at any more? They’re mostly people. He has a couple more of you.”

I held up my hands as she started flipping pages. “No, I don’t. If he wanted me to see them, he would’ve shown me.” As I said that out loud, my throat became tight for a completely different reason—my feelings were hurt. He didn’t trust me enough to eventellme he was still drawing let alone show me his art.

“Skyler is private. He doesn’t share anything with anyone,” she said. “He needs some extra encouragement sometimes.”

“Just put it back, Paisley.”

“Are you going to tell on me?”

“I don’t know yet.” How would Skyler react if he knew both Paisley and I had looked at his book? She hadn’t even known he could draw until this trip. He had talked about the extreme pressure that came with people’s expectations of his work. I didn’t want him to feel any pressure to create because of me.

“Hello!” Skyler’s voice filled the RV as he came into view.

Paisley panicked and hid the book behind her back, then slid it into the crack between the bed and wall. “Hi!” she said.

“What are you doing? You look like you’re definitely guilty of something,” Skyler said to her. He seemed to be avoiding my eyes altogether.

“We were just talking about Norah’s kiss,” Paisley said, wiggling her eyebrows.

“No, we weren’t,” I said. “At all. Because that kiss was completely one-sided.”

“Well, I hope there was at leastsomechemistry,” Skyler said. “Because your brother went and invited Ty to lunch.”

“Hewhat?”

“Is that a bad thing?” Skyler asked. He was still hardly looking at me.

“Yes! Did Ty accept?”

“He’s sitting out there right now.”

“If you kiss a guy,” Paisley said in her matter-of-fact voice, “he’s going to think you want him to come to lunch.”

“I didn’t kiss him,” I said into my knees. Why would he accept an invitation to lunch? Did he think I had changed my mind and sent my brother after him? This was going to be one hundred times more awkward than the kiss had been.

“Hey, Paisley,” Skyler said. “Will you give us a minute?”

Paisley looked to the crack where she had hidden the sketch pad and then to me before scooching off the bed and out of theRV.

“What’s going on?” he asked.

“I don’t want him here.”

“Ty?”

I nodded.