“Yeah?”

“You had on a shirt with mushrooms on it, and your hair was pulled back. Silver earrings. Pepperoni slice. No lollipop.”

I just looked at him, confused. Layla was walking toward us now.

“The first time you came into Seaside,” he said. “You weren’t invisible, not to me. Just so you know.”

I didn’t know what to say. I just stood there as Spence drove off, beeping the horn, and Layla climbed in where I’d been sitting. “Let’s go,” she told Mac, then looked at me. “See you tomorrow?”

Mac cranked the engine, and our eyes met again. Layla was digging in her bag, already distracted, so she didn’t notice that it was to him, and really only him, that I replied. “Yeah. See you then.”

Chapter 15

I TRIED to stay away from Mac. I really did. But it was hard when Layla was always pushing us together.

“I just feel bad,” she said at Seaside one afternoon about a week after she’d brought Spence to meet her dad and, in doing so, made their relationship official. He wasn’t volunteering in the afternoons as much anymore—Layla claimed he’d overcommitted and decided to ease back, but I wondered if he’d just served out his hours—so I saw her only on days he had other obligations. “I never wanted to be the girl who dumps her best friend for her boyfriend.”

“You haven’t dumped me,” I said. “We’re here now, aren’t we?”

She nodded, then picked up a piece of her pizza crust, considering it for a moment before returning it to her plate. “But when I’m not, you can ride along with Mac. He said you liked doing that.”

“Layla.” I put down my pencil. “You don’t have to arrange babysitting for me. I’m fine.”

“I know, I know,” she said, putting her hands up. “I just—”

There was a beep as her phone lit up. She scanned the screen, smiling, then typed a response. Funny how just a couple of words from someone could make you so happy. But I got it, especially lately.

Since Mac had told me he remembered seeing me for the first time, something was different. Before, the thought that we might get together was a far-fetched fantasy, the most ludicrous of daydreams. But now, with Layla immersed in Spence, us hanging out more, and what had almost happened in the truck, there was a sense of inevitability about it. No longer if, just when.

* * *

“That’s twenty-six forty-two, charged to your card,” I said to the frazzled-looking woman in the doorway wearing sweatpants and a rumpled cardigan. Behind her, several children were jumping on the couch in front of a TV showing cartoons.

Wordlessly she reached out for the two pizzas I was holding. As I gave them to her and she tipped me, one of the kids tumbled off the couch, hitting the carpet with a thud. There was a pause. When the wailing began, she shut the door.

“Five bucks,” I said to Mac as I climbed into the truck. “And I was right: only cheese pizzas means kids, and lots of them. You missed one doing a face-plant into the carpet.”

“Bummer,” he replied. He shifted into reverse. As I went to slide the bill into the plastic cup that sat in the console, he said, “You keep that. You did the work.”

I just looked at him. “I walked to the door.”

“It counts,” he told me. I put it with the rest anyway.

After a few days of delivering together, we had worked out a system: Mac drove and kept up with the orders waiting at Seaside, and I did the legwork, running in to get the food and taking it to customers. He claimed this was efficient, that his time was better spent coordinating the next stop and our return trips to pick up more orders. But I was pretty sure he was just indulging my interest in seeing what was behind each door.

“Sorority girls,” I reported from the next stop, at a big yellow house right across the street from the U. “Should have known it from all the salads.”

“Look at you. You’re like the order whisperer.”

“There is a science to it,” I agreed, sliding the tip in the cup. As I sat back, I realized he was looking at me. “What?”

“Nothing,” he said, smiling and shaking his head.

It was only a couple of hours every other afternoon or so, but no matter: this time had quickly become the best part of my week. Layla might have felt she needed to apologize for falling so hard, so quickly. She didn’t realize I was doing the same thing.

Just then, my phone beeped. It was the latest text from Jenn, one of several we’d exchanged while trying to work out a time to get together. With her after-school job tutoring and activities and my new routine with Mac, we’d gone from seeing each other at least once a week to hardly at all.

Frazier at 5? she wrote now. Off at 4:30. Mer can come late.

I looked at my watch. It was four p.m., which left me with another two hours with Mac before I was due home. I thought of Layla, all her apologies, and felt my own guilt for putting my friends second to a boy, especially one who wasn’t really mine. But then I did it anyway.

No can do. Tomorrow?

Gone till Monday, she replied. Next week for sure.

Which meant two more full afternoons without any other obligations. Jenn was a good friend, even when she didn’t realize it.

Definitely, I wrote. XXOO.

The last delivery of the day was in the Arbors, right inside the front entrance. It was for two extra-large pepperoni and sausage pies with extra cheese, and I’d had it pegged as guys for sure, probably ones drinking beer. Instead, the door was answered by a small, very tan woman in tennis whites who called me “hon” and tipped me ten bucks. I was thinking I’d lost my touch until I was heading down the driveway and noticed a sign on the truck we’d parked behind. BASSETT CARPENTRY, it said. DECKS OUR SPECIALTY. When I glanced into the backyard, I saw a group of guys digging into the pizzas. They were drinking beer.