I had to think about that.

“It’s not like she’s in the picture anymore,” I said slowly. “I mean, that I can see. And, I mean, we were broken up then…sort of. The thing is, I don’t even know if he’d take me back. You know, if I offered.”

“He gave you a ring.”

“He THREW it at me.”

“Well, why don’t you ask him?”

“What? Just go up to him and be all,‘Hey, do you still want to marry me?’ ”

“Basically, yeah. Why not?”

I stared at the ceiling. “Because what if he says no? What if he thinks I’m still”—I swallowed—“broken?”

“Then you give him the ring back, say sayonara, and hop on the first flight back here, and I’ll find you a totally hot new guy who fully appreciates what an amazing person you are.”

“Tell her if she wants us to, we’ll still beat him up for her,” whispered the male voice very close to Ruth, apparently thinking I wouldn’t overhear.

Only I did.

And this time, I knew it wasn’t Skip.

“Ruth,” I said. “Why is my brother Mike in BED WITH YOU?”

“Crap,” Ruth said. Then, apparently to Mike, she said, “I told you she could hear you.”

“Hi, Jess,” Mikey called in the background.

“Oh my God.” I was sitting up, convinced I was going to hyperventilate. It wasn’t as if I hadn’t seen it coming. It was just so…so…

Gross.

“I can’t believe I only go away for two days,” I said disgustedly, “and you two have already hopped into bed together.”

“Jess,” Ruth said, sounding worried. “It’s not like that, really. I—I—”

“Oh my God,” I said. “If you say you love my brother, I’ll barf. I swear it.”

“Well, it’s true,” Ruth said. “I think I always have—”

While this was true, I still didn’t want to have to hear about it.

“Put Mike on the phone,” I said to her.

“But, Jess—”

“Just do it.”

A second later, Mike’s deep voice was saying, “Jess. It’s not what you think. I really—”

“If you break her heart,” I said to him, “I will break your face. Do you understand?”

Mike sounded stunned. “Isn’t that what you said to Tasha, about Douglas?”

“Yes.”

“Shouldn’t you be saying that to Ruth, and not me?”

“No,” I said. “Because in this instance, my loyalties lie with Ruth, not you.”

“Oh, thanks a lot,” Mike said, sounding sarcastic.

“Well,” I said. “She’s my best friend. You’re just my brother.”

“I happen,” Mike said, “to love her.”

“Oh God.” The nachos I’d heated up in the microwave for dinner came up a little. “You’re going to make me sick. Literally. Put Ruth back on the phone.”

“Did Rob really propose?”

“Put Ruth back on the phone.”

“What are you going to say? Yes? If you say yes, are you going to stay in Indiana?”

“Why?” I asked, though I wasn’t sure I wanted to know.

“Because if you stay in Indiana, then I can move in here with Ruth,” he said, “when I transfer to Columbia.”

“You’re transferring schools for a girl?Again? Did you forget what happened last time you did that?”

“Shut up, Jess,” Mike said. “It’s different this time.”

“You better believe it is,” I said. “Because if you screw this one up, you’re—”

“—dead. Yes, I got the picture, thanks. So. What are you going to do?”

“If one more person asks me that,” I began in a warning tone. Then I broke off, struck by a thought. “Hey, where’s Skip, anyway? What does he think about how you guys have turned the place into a den of sin? What does he think about what you’re doing to hissister ?”

“Skip’s at the Jersey Shore,” Mike said. “With some girl he—”

“Okay, that’s enough about Skip,” Ruth said, apparently having wrestled the phone back from my brother. “When are you coming home?Are you coming home?”

“I don’t know,” I said, chewing my lower lip. I hadn’t mentioned anything to her about Douglas’s offer of a teaching job at his new alternative high school. Because I wasn’t sure I could stay in this town, knowing that Rob was living in it, too, and not be with him.

As if she were the one with the psychic powers, and not me, Ruth said, “Jess. Just ask him. Okay? Now get some sleep.”

She hung up.

I sat there, blinking down at my cell phone. Then I placed it gently on the nightstand and flopped back down against the pillows. How was it, I wondered, that everyone—everyone I knew, anyway—was getting some, except for me? What had I done wrong? How had I screwed everything up in that arena so very, very badly?

It was kind of ironic that as I was thinking this to myself, a hailstorm of rocks suddenly struck the bay windows in my bedroom. Not hard enough to break the glass, but definitely hard enough for the loud rattle they made to wake me…

…if I’d actually been asleep, that is.

Only one person had ever thrown pebbles at my bedroom window before. The same person who, earlier that day, had thrown an engagement ring at me.

Tossing back my comforter, I went to the closest window and peered down, hardly daring to hope that it would actually be him.

But it was. He was standing in the moonlight in jeans and a black T-shirt, just pulling his arm back to let loose another volley of stones. I hastily flung open the window and screen, leaned out, and whispered, “Hold on. I’ll be right down.”

Then I grabbed a cotton robe I’d thrown into my overnight bag when I’d packed so hastily for the trip home, and slipped it on over my tank top and boxers. I wished I, like Ruth, had given a little more thought to my nightwear, and maybe bought something a little sexier to wear to bed, like her cute camis and matching tap pants, which my brother Mike was apparently currently—ew, that was WAY too gross to think about.

Besides, Rob wasn’t here, I’m sure, because of any romantic feelings he might be harboring for me. Probably his sister had run away again.

Or maybe he just wanted his ring back.

The thought caused me to pause midway down the stairs.

That’s right. He probably wanted his ring back.

And suddenly, I found I couldn’t breathe.

My heart banging ridiculously hard in my ears, I crept the rest of the way down the stairs. The house was in darkness. Both my parents were asleep. Only Chigger was awake. He climbed down off the living room couch—the one Mom had forbidden him from sleeping on, so he only did it when she wasn’t looking—and came to the door to greet me.

“Sit,” I said to him, quietly unlocking the front door. “Stay.”

The dog did neither. He licked my hand, then walked silently back to the sofa and climbed back onto it. So much for knowing over fifteen commands.

I opened the screen door and slipped out onto the porch. Rob was already there waiting in the shadow from the porch roof cast by the moonlight. I couldn’t see his eyes. They just looked like twin pools of darkness to me.

But I could see the place in his neck where his pulse beat. For some reason, a shaft of moonlight fell right across it.

And I could see it was thrumming almost as fast as my own.

“Hey,” he said in a soft voice.

It was a neutralhey . Sort of a questioninghey . Not likeHey, good to see you. More like,Hey…what’s going on here?

Like I knew.

“They have this new invention now,” I whispered. “It’s called cell phones. You can call people now in the middle of the night, if you need to, instead of throwing rocks at their window.”

Rob said, “You never gave me your cell number.”

“Oh.” Well, I never said I wasn’t an idiot.

And suddenly, I knew. I knew why he was there. And it had nothing to do with his sister.

Cold hard fear gripped my heart. I found myself slipping my left hand behind my back.

Because I knew then. I knew I wasn’t giving that ring back. Not unless he pried it off my dead body. I’d never worn a ring before in my life—I’m not exactly a jewelry girl.

But I’d gotten used to wearing this one, and fast. I wasn’t ready to give it up. I didn’twant to give it up.

And I knew, right there on the porch, that I wasn’t going to. Instead, I was going to do what Ruth had told me to.

I was going to ask him.

Unless, of course, I didn’t have to. Because if he held out his hand and went, “Give it back,” that would be a pretty strong indicator that the answer was no.

“Are you missing something?” I asked him, still keeping my hand behind my back. “Something else, besides your sister, I mean? Is that why you’re here?”

A strange sort of expression passed across his face. I couldn’t tell what it was, exactly, because his head was still in shadow. But I saw some of the tension seem to leave his shoulders.

“My sister left this afternoon,” he said. “With her mother. After stopping off at the police station for about a trillion hours. Hannah’s not what I’m missing.”

I held up my left hand.

“Is it this, then?”

He sucked in his breath.

“You have it?” he asked. “God, I thought I was going crazy. I was looking everywhere.”

“You couldn’t wait until morning?” I asked him. “You had to come get it now, in the middle of the night?”

“I didn’t realize you must have taken it,” he said, “until a little while ago. And then I—”

He broke off. I still couldn’t see his face so well. But it was clear he wasn’t exactly smiling.

“You what?” I asked.

“I had to know,” he said, finally, with a shrug, “if you took it. Well, not so muchif. More like…why.”

My heart still banging in my ears, I took a step towards him. I knew the moonlight was full on my face. But I didn’t care. I didn’t care what he saw there.

“Why do you think?” I asked, tilting my chin up.

“I don’t know what to think,” Rob said. “The whole way here, I was thinking I was crazy. I mean, whywould you take it? Unless…”