“We could be. I was just trying to be friendly.” But the twinge in Sawyer’s voice wasn’t convincing even to herself.

“No one’s friendly in high school.”

Sawyer grinned and flipped on her blinker. “Up on the left, right?”

“Right, left.” He laughed, paused. “What about Mr. Hanson?”

Sawyer’s stomach did an eleven-story drop, and she swallowed bitter saliva. “What do you mean?”

“He can be kind of a jerk, huh?”

Sawyer’s eyes went wide, and she felt that now-all-too-familiar prick of heat climbing her neck.

“He threatened to fail me just because he didn’t like my accent.”

Sawyer wished her accent was the only thing Mr. Hanson was interested in. “This is your stop, right?”

Logan glanced up as Sawyer pulled the Accord to a stop in the Cassini Market parking lot.

“Oh, right.” Logan hiked up his backpack and looked Sawyer over hard, as if trying to be certain that she was really there, that she had indeed offered to drive him—and driven him—to work. “Thanks a lot, Sawyer. I’ll see you at school tomorrow.”

Sawyer pressed her lips together and gave him a finger wave before pushing her car into gear and veering off toward the new stretch of highway that led to Blackwood Hills Estates. The sun was bleeding over the horizon, casting long shadows over her car as she finally pulled into the housing development. What remained of the setting sun lit the windows of the finished models, giving them a homey glow and lived-in appearance that seemed to counter the howl of the wind kicking up, the snap of the New Homes This Way! flags.

Andrew Dodd was standing at the granite counter, chopping celery into precise little C’s when Sawyer walked in. He fixed Sawyer with a grin.

“Well, there’s the big sister!”

Sawyer licked her lips and tried to smile, tried to force the memory of Mr. Hanson into the deep recesses of her brain.

She was making too much of it.

It didn’t mean anything.

She would have to face him tomorrow.

Sawyer’s stomach lurched at the last thought, and her father’s smile slipped from his face. “Something wrong, muffin?”

Sawyer shook her head and cleared her throat. “No, no. It was just—just a long day today.” She snagged a piece of celery and nibbled it slowly. “So where is our little incubator, anyway?”

Andrew jutted his chin toward the French doors, where Tara, pregnant, pink-cheeked, and hands full of fresh-cut herbs, was walking in. Sawyer’s stepmom had clear, ice blue eyes rimmed with ultra-long doe lashes and a pixie-like nose that turned up at the rounded end. Her shoulder-length hair stood in a perfectly tousled golden halo that made Sawyer reach up and self-consciously smooth the knotted rope of her own hair, mousy, thin, a “before” picture brown.

“Hey, Tara.”

Tara’s lips broke into a face-brightening smile. “Sawyer! I’m so glad you’re home!” She crossed the kitchen with a waddling stride and dropped the herbs on Andrew’s cutting board. “Your dad and I want your input on girl names.” She rubbed her bulbous belly, still smiling. “My students have already been giving me their ideas.” Tara was a professor of environmental biology at Crescent City College.

“But their name list basically reads like the cast of one of those housewives shows,” Andrew broke in. “Is David really a girl’s name nowadays?”

Tara’s grin was still wide, unaffected. “Can you believe we’re going to have another girl in the house?”

A rush of something tore through Sawyer—annoyance, jealousy—she wasn’t sure what. She wanted to turn and run, to slam her brand-new bedroom door, and pull her covers up over her head. She knew she’d be comforted by the familiar industrial laundry soap smell; Sawyer did her own laundry with the same brand her mother had left behind, refusing to use Tara’s ultra-organic, made-from-sunshine-and-hippies crap. The clean chemical smell comforted and soothed her; curled up in her blankets with her eyes squeezed tightly shut, Sawyer could almost believe that her mother hadn’t left.

“I can’t wait to buy all those sweet little pink things.” Tara beamed.

Sawyer swallowed hard, trying to bite back the bitter taste of the words caught in her throat. She looked at Tara’s earnest face and her father’s lovestruck, adoring one; pressed her lips together into a flat but convincing smile; and nodded her head. “Sure. That would be fun.”

“Dinner will be ready in thirty,” Andrew said.

“You know, I’m not really that hungry.”

Tara’s face fell. “Isn’t today your long run day? You really need to eat, Sawyer.”

“Track practice was canceled because of the rain.” She pointed a thumb over her shoulder. “I think I’m just going to hop in the bath. I’ll come down and grab something later, okay?”

Tara opened her mouth to answer but closed it promptly. She nodded, a pasted smile that Sawyer had flashed all too often crossing her face.

FOUR

Sawyer did her best to scrub the memory of Mr. Hanson’s touch from her skin. She was pink and raw and strawberry scented, but somehow the imprint of his touch, the cloying scent of his musky aftershave still clung to her and made her shudder.

She slipped into her bathrobe and was elbow deep in a box marked “bathroom,” rifling through half-filled bottles of lotions and body splashes when she heard the first plink! Sawyer straightened immediately, her hands slipping from the lotion bottles. There was a beat of deafening silence before another plink! rattled her bedroom window. Sawyer pulled the window up, then ducked before being pelted with another handful of pebbles.

“Chloe? What are you doing?”

Chloe stood in the driveway, hands on hips, illuminated by the headlights from her mother’s car. “Finally!”

“Why didn’t you call me instead of throwing”—Sawyer picked a pink blob from the windowsill—“jelly beans at my window?”

Chloe’s exasperated sigh was loud enough to reach Sawyer’s second-story perch. “Because I was trying to be romantic.”

“Aw!”

“And your choice of habitat lacks essentials, like cellular service.” She wagged her phone.

“Sorry. I’ll be right down.”

Sawyer pulled open the front door, pinching the collar of her robe against the late autumn chill. “What are you doing here?”

Chloe grinned. “Rescuing you. Put some clothes on. We’re going out.”

Sawyer began to shake her head. “No, no, I’m in for the night. My dad and stepmom are already in bed.”

“All the better. There’s a party at Evan Rutger’s house and you’re going.”

“Definitely not in the party mood.”

Chloe cocked her head, hands on hips. “Didn’t your shrink say that you needed to get back into doing regular, teenager-y things? What’s more teenager-y than red party cups?”

“Somehow I don’t think Dr. Johnson was referencing underage drinking when he said I should engage in common teen activities.”

“You don’t think that’s what he meant. You don’t know for sure. Come on,” Chloe snapped Sawyer on the butt. “Upstairs. Get dressed.”

“Fine,” Sawyer said. “One hour.”

“Whatever. Just be my date so I don’t look like a loner.”

* * *

Cars, red party cups, and the errant student littered Evan Rutger’s family’s well-manicured lawn.

“Where are Evan’s parents?” Sawyer asked as Chloe nudged her car in between two others.

“Don’t know. I just heard they were gone.”

“Word travels fast around here.”

“You bet. Ready to party?”

Sawyer sighed. “Not really. Hey, Chloe—”

Chloe paused, her blue eyes catching the streetlight. “What?”

Sawyer thought about Mr. Hanson, thought about his hands trailing over her bare skin. A shiver rippled over her skin. “Never mind.” She linked arms with her best friend. “Let’s go get our party on.”

The din inside the Rutger house was deafening—a thudding bass combined with shrieking laughter and the general cacophony of students shouting over one another, over the cranked up stereo. A couple sped between Chloe and Sawyer—she was screaming and laughing; he was yanking at the bottom of her skirt. Someone shoved a cup into Sawyer’s hand and beer sloshed out of it, the cold liquid washing over Sawyer’s wrist and soaking the bottom of her jeans.

“Oh, I’m sorry.” Cooper’s eyes were wide and fixed on Sawyer’s dripping wrist.

Suddenly, Sawyer was happy to be there, happy to be a part of the throbbing mass of students swaying in the packed living room. She sucked some beer from her wrist and grinned at Cooper. “All better.”

“Well you’re a good sport, aren’t you?”

Sawyer sipped at her beer; once the icy liquid passed her lips, she tipped the cup and gulped the whole thing down.

“Rough day?” Cooper asked.

Sawyer held up her cup. “You don’t know the half of it. Do you know where this came from?”

Cooper took Sawyer’s empty cup in one hand and slid his other hand into hers. His touch sent something electric up Sawyer’s arm, and a warmth started low in her belly. She liked it.

Cooper and Sawyer looped through the crowd, coming to a stop at the edge of the kitchen, where a throng of students clogged the doorway. “Should be just a sec,” Cooper said over his shoulder. He didn’t let go of Sawyer’s hand, and she wasn’t sure she wanted him to.

“Here you go.” Cooper handed her a full cup.

“And I thought you didn’t want to party!” Chloe appeared in front of Sawyer, clinking her plastic cup. She had one arm slung around the neck of a guy Sawyer recognized from her Spanish class.