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“I want you there.” He gives nothing away, but the words come out like he’s been holding them in for a while. “About what I said in the van⁠—”

“Don’t.”

He stops, but the tightness in his face suggests he wants to say more.

Without another word, he runs up the stairs, leaving the door ajar. Not sure if it’s an invitation, but I take a few tentative steps inside. What spartan cave does Nick Valzera inhabit? Down the short hallway is a small kitchen with a breakfast nook, and through an archway, there’s a living room with a modular couch, a big flat-screen over the fireplace, and gaming controllers scattered on the coffee table. The only things lining the bare walls are a pair of dark wood shelves stuffed full of books.

I poke around the kitchen. It’s tidy and clean. Nothing unusual here. He strikes me as a buttoned-up neat freak. I’m about to snoop inside his fridge and find out what Nick considers food when the floorboards creak, and he clears his throat behind me. I jump away, smacking my elbow on the quartz counter.

Dressed in his usual jeans, T-shirt, flannel combo, he watches me rub my elbow like it offends him.

“Um, so if I could grab that box, I’ll get out of your way.”

“What else is on your list?”

“What?”

“The list. What else has Mom got you doing?”

“Er.” I pull it from my pocket, but he snatches it from my fingers. “Hey!”

He scans it. “Easy. We can do this in an hour or two.”

Ten days of long silences, and now he wants to spend an afternoon with me? Whatever he’s doing, it doesn’t change what he said. He hasn’t apologized. I didn’t let him, but he hasn’t.

“We? No, these are mine. Get your own.” I reach for the paper, but he holds it in the air. No, he doesn’t get to enjoy this. We’re not slipping back into teasing and small gestures and comfort. He broke that.

“I’ve been roped into working this event every year since I was six. I could do this in my sleep.”

“Well, Marthe didn’t ask you. She asked me. Now hand it over.”

He ignores me and heads down the hall to the front door, taking my list with him, pausing only to grab a jacket from the rack and pull on some boots, giving me no choice but to chase after him.

Outside, he opens up the garage, where the sleek van sits next to the vintage red pickup Luca drove to come rescue us when we broke down. I watch from the driveway, hands on my hips, as he gets into the truck.

He leans out the window and lifts the black sunglasses he’s now wearing. Dark hair falls across his forehead. “You coming or what?”

“No. We are not doing this.”

He sits there with the engine rumbling.

I open the passenger side like I’m getting in, grab my crumpled list off the dash, and shut the door on him.

Then I fold my arms on the window frame. “I can do this on my own.”

I’m three paces down the driveway and he’s in front of me, blocking my escape. “Ellery, wait.”

“What?” I snap.

He takes half a step back. “Let me help. Please.” When I don’t budge, he puts the sunglasses back down. “Most of it’s at Mom’s place. You know where that is?”

I do not know where that is.

Apparently, I’m going to keep letting Nick Valzera yank me around because I get in with a grumble and make a mental note to order a voodoo doll from Amazon.

We drive past the edge of town. I’m still seething. Nick’s elbow is out the window as he taps along to a pop-punk song on the radio. Medium lots turn into small farms until we bump down a gravel driveway lined with birch to a sprawling ranch house. Dark timber and pale stone under a charcoal steel roof. Solid double doors, a wraparound porch, and a meticulous garden. A red barn sits beside a paved fire pit ringed with log seats.

We park next to the barn and he’s out, pushing aside the heavy doors and vanishing into the gloom. Lights flicker on overhead when I get inside. Where I thought there’d be stalls filled with straw and majestic ponies, or maybe a pig or two, there are rows of white fold-up chairs facing a low wooden platform. Strings of fairy lights, boughs of dried flowers and silver birch, a wrought-iron arch woven with gauzy linen, magnolia leaves, and dusty pink blooms. It’s a gorgeous events space. Somebody gets married in here every summer, I’d bet money on it.