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“Hey,” he greeted me as he opened the door. “I didn’t expect to see you for another...” He raised his wrist as I pushed

past him into his room.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m early.” I wasn’t there for obvious observations. “Are you dropping out of the race to protect me?”

His eyes flew open, and he leaned out the door to look down the hallway before reentering and shutting the door behind him.

“I wasn’t kidding when I said no one knows yet, Addie, so if you don’t mind—”

“I just need a yes or no.”

He compulsively brushed at a spot on his shirt. “I’m sorry, what was the question again?”

I crossed my arms and rolled my eyes. “Are you dropping out of the race to protect me?”

“Okay...” He eyed me warily and walked past me to the desk. “That’s what I thought you said. Um, no.”

“Because if you are, I don’t need you to protect me, Wes. I’m a big girl, and I can handle whatever they throw at me.”

“I’m sure you can.”

“And I’m not saying you should stay in the race. I don’t care if you stay in the race or not. I really don’t. But—”

“But I shouldn’t drop out to protect you?”

“Right.”

He gave me a thumbs-up. “Got it.”

“So?”

His eyes flitted from side to side. “So... what ?”

“Are you going to?”

“Am I going to drop out?”

“Yes.”

He nodded. “Yes.”

“To protect me?”

“No.”

“You’re sure?”

“Quite.”

I released the entire contents of my lungs and nodded once, sharply. “Okay. Good. Thanks.” Then I turned back to the door

and reached for the knob.

“Wait a minute.” His soft laugh got a step closer. “Are you at least going to tell me where that came from?”

That was fair, I supposed. I faced him again. “It was just a theory Laila had.”

His Adam’s apple bobbed up and down as he swallowed, and the smile faded. “About what? You mean... you and Laila were talking

about why I’m dropping out? You told her?”

My eyes flew open, and I took a step toward him, horrified, as I realized what he was thinking. He was thinking exactly what

he should have been thinking, based on the incomplete pieces of the puzzle I’d given him. “No! No, I definitely didn’t. Sorry.” I covered

my eyes with my hands, still hearing it the way he must have heard it. “I wouldn’t, Wes. Really. All I said was that I thought

you were hoping to talk with Sebastian and that I felt there had to be more to it. That was it.”

Calm returned to his eyes, and he leaned his shoulder against the wall. “And Laila jumped to me dropping out all on her own?”

I felt my hackles rise for a moment, thinking that he was doubting my story, but it didn’t take long at all to realize there

was no hint of cynicism in his voice. “Nothing ever came up about you dropping out. Not from me or her. She just thought maybe

one of your opponents or somebody found out about our past... the way we ended... and they were going to use it against

you.”

Wes nodded and tilted his head from side to side while his eyes rose and seemed to do computations in the air. “Huh. Yeah.

If that came to light, it might not look great.”

“I mean, not that it should be a big deal after all this time, but for the purposes of a cutthroat political campaign—”

“Of course it should still be a big deal, Addie.” His voice was quiet and gravelly. “It is a big deal.”

I pulled my eyes away from his and turned back to the door and opened it. “Don’t do that. I don’t want to have this conversation.”

“Hey.” He rushed over and put his hand on the door, causing it to close again. “You brought it up. And now that it’s been

brought up, don’t you think—”

“What? I’m not allowed to leave now?”

Don’t be a jerk, Addie. You know very well he didn’t mean anything by it.

His gaze darted from my eyes to his hand, a foot above my height, pressing the door closed. He sighed, and his shoulders fell.

“Of course you can leave. Sorry.”

“Thank you.”

For a long time, when we were kids, it had looked like I was going to be tall and Wes wasn’t. In fifth grade, Cole shot up

like a weed, but I was the next tallest for a couple of years after that. Then Brynn got tall. Cole got even taller. Laila

and I had several more moderate growth spurts. And we were all taller than Wes. And then in eighth grade, a magical thing

happened. At least I thought it was magical. Cole had been less than impressed as Wes seemed to grow about a foot and a half

overnight and Cole became forevermore the second tallest of our group.

Now, as he lowered his arm and stepped away, I had to swallow down an unwelcome appearance by fifteen-year-old Addie’s hormones—or at least the bred-in-the-bone memory of those hormones.

There wasn’t much in the world those hormones— that Addie—would have liked more than having Wes’s all-grown-up stature towering over her, blissfully keeping her from leaving.

“Oh. Here.” I reached into the pocket of my coat, briefly squeezed my fingernails into my palm to make sure I was steady on

the outside, even if I felt slightly less steady on the inside, and pulled out a pair of men’s gloves and handed them to him.

“Not quite as fancy as your leather ones, of course.”

“These are great!” He slipped them on and wiggled his fingers around as the type of smile usually reserved for a gift of concert

tickets or a puppy spread across his face. “How much do I owe you?”

“Don’t worry about it.”

“Are you sure? These really are great.”

“Well, they aren’t sticky. That’s something.”

He laughed. “That’s definitely something.”

“And bonus, they’re designed and made by our own Mrs. Kimball, so—”

“Mrs. Kimball?” The smile stayed in place, and new curiosity began dancing in his eyes. “Cole’s wife?”

I stared at him, waiting for him to catch up and put two and two together, but then realized there was zero reason whatsoever

he would be able to do the math. He didn’t have all the figures.

“Um, yeah. Laila.”

He literally stumbled back a step as curiosity was replaced by wonder and astonishment. “ No. ”

“Yep. Finally. A little over a year ago.”

“Wow.” He sat on the edge of his bed, still studying his gloves. “Took ’em long enough. I mean, we used to talk about them

getting together—”

“Who did? You and Cole?”

“Oh no. Cole was clueless. You know that. But you and I used to talk about it. And Brynn. But I don’t think I ever thought it would actually happen.”

“No, neither did I. If anything, I just assumed neither of them would ever end up with anyone, and they’d move to Miami and

eat cheesecake together until they died, like some romantic tension–oblivious Golden Girls.”

Wes laughed as he took off his gloves. “Do you remember when Lai talked us all into performing that horrible lip-sync routine

to that Spice Girls song in eighth grade?”

“Oh, good grief!” I chuckled as the memories of Cole and Wes dressed as Baby and Scary, respectively, flooded my mind. “‘Say

You’ll Be There,’ right? She really could get us to do anything.”

“She could get Cole to do anything, and then they’d gang up on us and we were all done for.” He smiled wide and shook his head as he set the

gloves on the bed beside him. “Thank you for these. Really.”

“You’re welcome.”

We were having dinner in a few hours. Whether or not that was a mistake remained to be seen, but still... so it was. Dinner

was the time set aside for me to ask questions and for him to provide answers. But we were here now. Alone. Dinner would be

very different. I still hadn’t even figured out where we could go. He’d said he wasn’t hiding, and I didn’t think I was either.

But that didn’t mean I was ready to deal with the reaction this town would have to seeing Addie Atwater and Wes Hobbes together

again.

I crossed over to the desk and grabbed the chair, taking quick note of the pads of paper that had been scrawled on and crossed

through, and turned it around to face him. “So why are you dropping out?” I asked as I sat.

“Thank you for not telling Laila.”

“Of course.”

“I’m just saying, I know how close the two of you are—”

“You don’t know anything.”

He chewed on his bottom lip and nodded. “You’re right. Sorry. I just mean I know how close you were , and I don’t think there was ever much you didn’t tell her and Brynn back in the day, so I appreciate the discretion.”

“Quit trying to change the subject, Wes.”

He took a deep breath as his head fell back. “I’m not.” He faced me again. “I’m actually trying to politely ask if I can trust

you with what I’m about to say now.”

I scoffed. “If you can trust me ?”

“Yes,” he replied, completely unfazed by my short-fused umbrage. “Like you just said, I don’t know anything. I don’t know

you , quite frankly.”

It felt like the air had been knocked out of me, and my head began spinning, and suddenly I was in the kitchen at my house.

My dad’s house, rather. I mean, I wasn’t literally there. His words hadn’t opened a portal to a different multiverse or anything.

(Jeez, Joel had turned me into such a nerd.) But it felt almost as real.

It was August 8, 2003. The night before our wedding. Wes was on one side of the marble island, and I was on the other, but

we might as well have had an actual island between us.

“You’re not listening to me.”

“What? Of course I am. I’m nervous, too, Wes.”

“I’m not nervous, Add. This has nothing to do with being nervous. I just want to make sure you’re sure.”

“Sure that I want to marry you? How could you even ask me that?”

“No, not that you want to marry me. That you want to marry me tomorrow.”

“Why? Don’t you want to marry me?”

“I love you, Addie. I love you so much. I love you forever. You know that.”

“Then we’re fine.”

“Addie? You okay?” Back in his room at the inn, Wes was leaning in, concern in his eyes. “You look like... Are you going

to be sick? Can I get you anything?”

What was that? “Um, yeah... I’m fine.” I swallowed hard. And then again. The third time, the nausea dissipated. “Maybe some water?”

“Of course.” He jumped up and grabbed a little clear plastic cup and removed it from its wrapper, then filled it with water