“Look at the first letter of each sentence,” she answers.

And I do, and sure enough: D-A-L–L-A-S.

“What’s in Dallas?” I’m trying not to panic. Dallas is three hours from here. Presumably we’ll drive home tonight, because there’s no way I’m staying in Texas with someone I don’t know.

“I tried googling it, but since it’s New Year’s Eve, there are a thousand things going on. But this has to be it.” She looks at her phone once more. “Five minutes. Let’s go see what it is.”

I follow her downstairs. My hands are sweating. What if this guy is a creep and I’m stuck on this road trip with him? I’m going to have to refuse to go, even if it hurts Nonna’s feelings. There’s no way I can do this. She’s asking too much!

As expected, my ENTIRE family is here — even the Evil Joes. Olivia and I have to push our way through the crowd to the front door, where Nonna is sitting in a nearby chair, as regal as Queen Elizabeth sitting on her throne.

We’re all staring at the door, waiting.

“There’s a car pulling up outside!” my cousin Mary screams.

There’s a mad rush to the window. Outside, Wes has stopped dribbling and is holding the ball against his hip. The car is a huge limo-size SUV with tinted windows, and it seems to be idling at the curb.

This is painful.

“Is he getting out?” Jake asks.

“Nice ride,” Graham says.

Nonna coughs loudly behind us.

“It seems it’s time for the date to start,” she says. Everyone turns from the windows. Nonna looks right at me and says, “Come here, Sophia.” I’m a little worried that she’s used my full name, but I move closer to her.

“When you showed up on my doorstep in tears more than a week ago, it broke my heart. And I wanted to do anything I could to fix that. You’ve been a good sport through all of these dates, even the ones that weren’t very good.” She looks over my left shoulder and gives Aunt Patrice the look.

I nod along. Where is she going with this?

“Thank you for going along with all of this. That beautiful smile is back and that’s all I wanted.”

I lean forward and hug her. As bizarre as this experience has been, I feel good. I feel happy. And reconnecting with my family was worth any heartache I had from my breakup with Griffin.

Nonna has a white envelope, and she pulls out what looks like several tickets. “Tonight’s date is something I hope you’ll like. It won’t be just you and your date. I thought it would be more fun if you had some company.”

She looks past me. “If you are between the ages of seventeen and nineteen, please step forward.”

The crowd murmurs and everyone starts shuffling around. Within a few minutes, Charlie, Olivia, Graham, and the Evil Joes are standing next to me.

Nonna stands up and passes two tickets to everyone standing in line, except me. Olivia takes one look at them and shrieks, “No! Way!”

I look over her shoulder. “No. Way.”

Nonna has scored us tickets to Deep Ellum’s New Year’s Eve music festival. The lineup of bands and musicians is to die for.

“Each of you has two tickets, and you’re welcome to invite someone to go with you.”

She’s still holding four tickets in her hand. I’m assuming two of those are for me and whoever she picked to go out with me, but not sure what she’s doing with the other two.

“How’d you score tickets for this, Mom?” Uncle Michael asks.

“How’d you even know this existed?” Jake asks. “And why can’t we go?”

“This nice gentleman I met while I was visiting Gigi got me these tickets because his company is one of the sponsors. The poor thing is in town to visit his mother, and she’s not doing well. When I told him all about Sophie, he offered to hook me up. Plus, you boys already have big plans. I’ve heard you talking of nothing else for the last three days.”

I nod toward the front door. “Is my date ever coming in?”

Nonna cocks her head to the side. “There is someone out there, but he’s not your date. That’s Randy from the shop. He’s driving y’all over to Dallas. He’ll go visit his brother while you’re at the concert, then he’ll drive you home. Did you know he works as a chauffeur on nights and weekends?” she asks excitedly.

I shake my head. “So where’s my date?” I ask.

“We’ve all chosen your last nine dates. But tonight is different.” She hands me four tickets. “Tonight it’s your choice. Two of these tickets are for you and your date. The other two are for the other couple already in the car. Have a wonderful time!”

For a moment, I can’t catch my breath. Then I throw myself in her arms, hug her hard, and dash for the front door.

Wes is still in the driveway, staring at the car at the curb. He turns in my direction when he hears my footsteps.

He drops the ball. “What’s going on?”

I hold up the tickets. “Nonna got tickets to a music festival in Dallas. And I get to pick my date and—” I draw in a breath, suddenly feeling heat prickle all over my body, despite the chilly air. I look him in the eye and finally say what I’ve been wanting to for all these days. “And I pick you. I hope you say yes.”

Wes’s eyes move over me and a slow grin spreads across his face. “Yes.” He pulls me in close, his hands on my waist. “Do I have to wait until the end of the date to kiss you?” he asks. “Because I’ve been waiting a really long time to do that.”

I close the distance before he can say another word. My lips land on his, and my arms wrap around his neck. It doesn’t take him long to catch up. His hands push my hair back as I melt into him.

“Sophie, your grandmother is seeing this,” Jake yells from the front porch.

I pull slightly away from Wes, then hide my face against his neck. “They’re all watching us right now, aren’t they?”

“Yep.”

I push him. “Go get dressed. We have places to be.”

He starts to walk away but then pulls me back in and kisses me quickly on the lips. “Be back in five minutes.”

***

Randy opens the back car door for us, and Addie and Danny yell, “Surprise!”

I throw myself into the car and give her a big hug. “So this is why you haven’t returned my calls all day!”

She laughs. “I knew if I talked to you I would spill everything. Radio silence was the only way to go.”

I hand her their tickets, and Wes and I crawl into the backseat. He took a shower in record time and now we’re on the way to pick up everyone’s plus one. Well, everyone but the Evil Joes’ dates. They accepted the tickets from Nonna but opted to drive themselves in case they want to come home early. Whatever.

Charlie keeps turning around in the middle-row seat and looking at us with a confused expression. He finally faces Olivia and points back at us. “Did you know about this?”

She lifts that eyebrow. “Not as soon as I should have.”

I’m a little nervous. This is Wes who I’ve known my whole life, but this is also new.

Wes links his hand with mine and tilts his head close. “We have lots to talk about, Soph.”

“Good thing we have a couple of hours until we get there.”

He smiles. “Freshman year. October. The haunted corn maze,” he says.

I nod. I have no idea where he’s going with this. “Um…Yeah?”

“Do you remember that night?” he asks.

I blink. “Kind of.”

He gives me a small smile. “I had been there the week before, and there was this hidden space I found. I told you to take the first three right turns.”

“I remember. I thought you were telling me a shortcut, but I got lost and thought I was going to die in the maze. Were you waiting for me?”

Wes nods. “For over an hour. I was going to make my move. But you never showed. And by the time I finally gave up, you and Charlie were getting popcorn from the concession.”

My eyes get big. “I had no idea. I thought you liked Olivia.”

“And I thought you didn’t like me. That night at the corn maze wasn’t the first time I tried to tell you I liked you. But it just never worked out the way I planned.”

“I really had no idea.”

He laughs. “I know that now, but I was a dumb fourteen-year-old who had no idea how to tell you I liked you. And then I tried to make it work with Olivia, but we all know what a disaster that turned out to be.”

I bite my lip and glance at Olivia, but she’s in deep conversation with Drew. “We both liked you, but she swore she liked you more, so I stepped back for her.”

He tilts his head forward until his forehead is resting against mine. “So we were both dumb fourteen-year-olds.”

“It seems like we were.”

“One last confession,” he says in a whisper. “My favorite cookies are those Key-lime-pie ones you made with Nonna, and I was the one who wrote you that love letter when we were in middle school.”

“That was you?” I shout.

Charlie and Olivia turn around. “What was him?” Charlie asks.

“The love letter,” I answer. “The one I thought was from Ben down the street.”

“Oh, man, you’ve had it bad a long time,” Charlie says in a pitying voice.

Wes looks at me. “I have.”

Wes and I spend the entire trip tucked into the backseat catching up on every little thing we’ve missed over the last couple of years. When we arrive in Dallas, this is already the best date I’ve ever had.

The music festival is held in a huge warehouse downtown, and there are six bands slated to perform up until midnight. We dance and sing along and eat and talk and I never want this night to end.

We see the Evil Joes throughout the night, and we all really try to get them to hang out with us, but I don’t think we’ll be the Fab Six anytime soon. I can’t help but notice Aiden and Mary Jo are back together. I hope this time it works out for them.