“Is it just me or is it a little . . . weird having Hawaiian night in a Mexican resort?” I say to Brooke as we walk to the dinner buffet that night. Folksy ukulele music is tinkling through the room, the servers are wearing flowery leis, and half of the dishes in the spread involve some sort of pineapple.

Brooke shakes her head. “This one was my dad’s request. ‘You can’t have a tropical vacation without a Hawaiian theme night!’ We figured we’d indulge him.”

“As a good daughter should,” Mr. Tanner says in his usual expansive voice from behind us. He winks at me, and Mrs. Tanner, who’s coming along beside him, gives him a tolerant look. “Ruby, we’ve barely had a chance to catch up with you since we got here. What’s new down in Hollywood?”

“Oh, you know, chasing after clients, enjoying the warm weather, dodging film shoots.” I was over at the Tanners’ house at least a couple nights a week when Brooke and I were teens, but I don’t think they’ve ever quite understood why I—and then she—uprooted from unpretentious, down-to-earth Philly for LA’s superficial glitz. Neither of us has yet been able to convince them that you don’t have to scrape too much to find the earth underneath the glitter.

“And have you been seeing anyone special?” Mrs. Tanner asks. My least favorite question—and it only took her, hmmm, forty-two seconds. A new record.

“Oh, you know, I’m so busy with work I don’t have much time for dating,” I say.

“You don’t want to put off that side of things for too long,” Mr. Tanner says, waving the pineapple salad tongs at me. “You have your whole life to work.”

“And she’s got her whole life to find a guy,” Brooke puts in. “Come on, Dad.”

“That’s not true,” her mother says. She hops the line to grab some of the pineapple-glazed ham, so now I’m boxed in by Tanners on all sides, like a singledom hazing line. “Especially for women. We do have a limited time window on starting a family. Assuming you want children, Ruby?”

She peers at me sternly, in case I declare myself gleefully childfree for life.

“I think that’ll depend on how the rest of my life comes together,” I say tactfully.

“It is better to have them younger, you know,” Mrs. Tanner goes on. “At first I was worried about the loss of freedom, but you know raising Brooke and Lucille has been the greatest joy of my life.”

She pats Brooke’s cheek, and Brooke rolls her eyes—and Will appears by my shoulder, so suddenly I almost drop my plate. He reaches out to steady it, giving me a gracious smile I know not to trust because of the wicked glint in his eyes.

“Last I heard you were still playing the field, and now you’re making plans for motherhood, Ruby? You move fast.”

My face heats. “No plan-making,” I say quickly.

“Don’t you think it’s a shame Ruby hasn’t found herself a proper partner?” Mrs. Tanner says to him. “I mean, just look at her.”

They all turn to stare.

I cringe. Is there a transporter somewhere that can beam me out of this conversation?

“She is a lovely specimen of humanity,” Will says agreeably.

“A young woman like that needs more in her life than her job,” Mr. Tanner puts in.

“It does seem to take up a lot of time.” He agrees with a wicked smile. “Maybe I can talk her into a shift in priorities.” He fixes his dare of a gaze on me. “Sit with me?”

“Well, I—” I want to say no, but I’m afraid that will set off an even longer chain of concern and scolding from the Tanners, who are gazing at Will right now as if he’s their dream guy. I do a quick calculation. Will on his own is better than Will plus parental-ish concern. “Fine. Sure.”

I grab some of the ham and a skewer of grilled chicken, peppers, and, of course, pineapple. Will tips his head toward a nearby table. I follow him in step with the Imperial March of doom that’s playing in my head.

“You should just be glad they don’t know you well enough to lay the same treatment on you,” I mutter as I sit down.

“Don’t worry,” Will says. “I get plenty from my own parents, and my grandparents, and . . .” He waves his fork in a way that implies unending generations of unsolicited life counseling. “Although I’ll give you that no one seems to worry about ‘child-bearing windows’ on my behalf.” He pauses, studying my face. I devote my full attention to spearing a slice of the ham. His voice drops. “Have you been avoiding me?”

“What? I— No.” I’m pretty sure my flaming cheeks are declaring me a liar.

“If last night was—”

“These restaurants are starting to become a real threat to the possibility of my wedding dress fitting,” Brooke says cheerfully, setting her heaping plate down next to mine. I exhale in relief.

Will chuckles, thankfully distracted. “Should I tell the chef to take a holiday? We could scale back to self-catering PB&J tomorrow.”

“Oh, no,” Brooke says. “I complain because I love it. But thank you for the offer.”

Will’s gaze slides back to me, but then Maggie drops into the seat across from Brooke. I have a whole rescue squad, apparently.

“So what’s on the schedule for tomorrow?” Maggie asks Brooke.

“You’re going to have to fend for yourselves,” Brooke says. “I’m sorry. Trevor and I still need to practice our first dance, and there’s the playlist selections, and so on. Four more days!” She makes a face of mock panic.

“Well, I—” Will starts, and my alarms blare. I gesture my fork at Maggie before he can jump in with any helpful suggestions that would put us in closer contact.

“Why don’t the two of us take a little tour of the area?” I ask her hurriedly. “I haven’t done much exploring off the resort yet.”

“Perfect,” Maggie says. “It’s a deal.” And just for a moment I feel I’ve managed to avert certain destruction.

* * *

The whiskey sours are so good I don’t really mind when a bunch of us young’uns end up gravitating to the bar together after dinner. Brooke, Trevor, and Brad are sitting between Will and me, so I’ve got a decent buffer. And one should never underestimate the power of alcohol to take the edge off potential disaster—even when the talk strays back to college memories.

“And then,” Colin says, finishing his tale of his most awful roommate, “I come back in to find out he’s somehow managed to turn my entire bed upside down so it’s standing on the posts. And he and the girl are still going at it underneath.”

“You can’t underestimate the crazy ideas that can seem totally genius when you’re that drunk,” Brooke says with a wave of the little umbrella that came with her Mai Tai. “Not that I know anything about that.”

“Yep,” I say. “I definitely don’t remember any stories involving three gallons of neon paint and a—”

“Stop!” She holds up her hand. “I’m invoking the Girl Code. You are sworn to silence.”

“Damn,” I say with a grin. “There goes half my maid of honor speech.”

She shudders in mock horror. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard this story,” Trevor says, nudging her, and she grimaces.

“Believe me, you don’t want to.”

“Man,” Brad says. “Speeches. How do you even figure out what to say?”

“Are you telling me you haven’t started on your best man toast?” Trevor kids. “I’m counting on you to make me look good here.”

“I don’t know.” Brad rubs his mouth. “I feel as if I’m supposed to capture your epic romance somehow, but that’s not really my strong point. I could throw in something like, ‘Sometimes a person comes along who makes you think all the clichés and fairy tales could be real,’ but that’s all I’ve got.”

My body goes as cold. Did he really say what I think I heard?

Everyone along the bar is looking a little startled by Brad’s moment of sincerity. Maggie’s eyebrows have leapt up. “That’s actually impressively heartfelt,” she says.

“You can’t really take credit for that line,” Will laughs. I can’t look at him. Under the chill I’m burning up. Are we really going to do this here in front of everyone? I can’t believe Brad of all people still remembers—

“You’ve got me there,” Brad says with a chuckle. “But, you know, it’s probably the most romantic thing anyone has ever said to me.”

Hold up. Which with the what now?

My head jerks up, so abruptly Brooke glances at me, but I’m staring at Brad in disbelief.

“Someone said that to you?” I repeat, the question slipping out before I can catch it.

“I know, right?” Brad says. “Weirdest thing. Back in college, I come home to my room one night and find some girl’s slipped a letter under my door, talking all like that about how she’s fallen for me.” He scratches the back of his neck. “I never did figure out who ‘Deanna’ was. I wouldn’t have thought there were any girls around who saw me that way. I wish I’d at least had the chance to talk to her.”

You are talking to her, I thought. Right now. But it wasn’t your letter.

How could he possibly think, with Will’s name on the top—I pause, suddenly feeling sick to my stomach.

I did write Will’s name, didn’t I? Like normal-type people generally do when composing a letter?

I think back, but as hard as I search, I don’t have a specific memory of doing it or seeing it there.

Fuck.

It is possible I was so tipsy—on both the alcohol and the adrenaline of finally spilling out those feelings—and maybe so nervous about who I was writing it to, that knowing it’d be going under his door seemed like enough. Except apparently it didn’t go under his door. That dopey freshman I asked must have pointed me to the wrong room.

Brooke’s mouth has fallen open. Her eyes dart from me to Brad and back again. She’s obviously connected the dots. I give her a quick shake of my head, but my mind is spinning.

“Didn’t anyone see who left it?” I can’t help asking.

“No one who’d been sober enough to remember the next day!” Brad snorts, with Will nodding along. “Man, we had some times.”

The whiskey has turned doubly sour in my stomach. I’m not sure I can sit there joking along with the others through another round, but thankfully Brooke steps in to save the day. “What about you, honey?” she asks Trevor quickly. “Any college misadventures?”

I clutch my glass as the talk veers off to some college adventure of one of Trevor’s other biking buddies.

I was wrong. I was wrong.

“I’ll be right back,” I mumble. I slip off my stool and hustle away. In the elevator, I tip my head back against the wall and blink at the tiled ceiling. I feel as dizzy as if that one whiskey sour had been five.

I thought Will had thrown my feelings in my face, turned them into a joke. I thought he’d not just broken my heart but done it gleefully. But he didn’t have a clue. He didn’t even recognize the Star Trek reference I signed off with? Your Deanna, as in Counselor Deanna Troi, because he’d said I was his Troi.

I should be glad I decided in my semi-drunken state to be clever instead of signing it with my real name. Imagine if Brad had thought I’d confessed my love for him. Yikes.

But if I had told the truth, then Will and I could have stayed friends. Maybe he would have realized the letter was for him.

Maybe . . .

The elevator stops at my floor. I walk down the hall on shaky legs. In my room, I kick off my sandals and flop on the bed. This ceiling doesn’t offer any additional answers, only those lovely brass light fixtures.

Gradually, my heart stops thudding. I close my eyes and draw in a deep breath.

It doesn’t matter, really. Not now, at least. I was totally infatuated with Will, and he didn’t have the slightest clue about that either, did he? He never thought about me that way—or anyone else. He was a player, through and through. He even laughed at the things I wrote in the letter—that was his response to romance, back then.

It was for the best, I tell myself, trying desperately to believe it. He would have ended up breaking my heart, one way or another.

Now I’ve just got to keep that idea inside this thick skull of mine for the next four days.