We spent Monday at Chase’s apartment, and then Tuesday after I worked at Blondie’s, he followed me back to my apartment, since my mother had Izzy. On Wednesday and Thursday, we went back to his place.

On Friday, Diane stopped by work to find out what the hell was wrong with me.

She followed me around the back of the restaurant as I pulled together the ingredients for a vegetarian chili.

“There’s nothing wrong with me.” I wiped my forehead with my forearm. It was unseasonably warm for late September.

“A week ago you were ready to jump off the Landing Lane Bridge. Now you’re spending every night with Chase.”

And I thought I was the dramatic one. I frowned and shook my head. “I wasn’t ‘ready to jump off a bridge.’ And I thought you liked Chase.”

“I do. My ovaries explode every time I look at him, and I think you two would be great together. But shouldn’t you give yourself a little time to breathe?”

“She’s right, Rain,” my mother said, darting into the kitchen for another bag of hoagie rolls.

I frowned at her as well and gave her a thumbs-up. “Thanks for the support, Mom.”

“Just saying. You need to figure out what you want.”

The chopped onions, celery, and peppers sizzled in the hot oil when I dumped them into a large Dutch oven. I gave them a quick stir and then waved my spoon at them.

“Did it ever occur to either one of you that maybe I’ve been developing an interest in Chase over the past few months?”

“No,” they said in unison.

“Well, that just proves you don’t know anything, because I was. I saw him a couple times, and I realized there was something special about him.”

I lowered the heat under the veggies so I could focus on the conversation.

“In fact, I felt something the first time he touched my hand.” I turned to my mother. “Remember how Daddy said he knew that man was going to die when he shook his hand?”

“Oh, dear god!” My mother made the sign of the cross and clutched her chest. “Rain! Don’t say things like that. You think Chase is going to die?”

“No!” I shook my head vehemently. “Jeez, Ma! But I felt something like low-voltage electricity running through his hands into mine. That’s never happened before. And it’s gotten stronger since then. And warmer.” It was hard to explain how it felt, and judging by the way they were looking at me, it wouldn’t matter what I said.

Diane rolled her eyes. She believed in my psychic abilities when it suited her purposes, like whether it would rain on her wedding day—it did, but the sun came out by the time she came out of church, which I predicted—or whether she would pass Algebra I even though she didn’t study—she didn’t, which I also predicted. But when she didn’t like what I had to say, she didn’t want to hear it.

After years of listening to my father’s predictions, and that he hadn’t seemed to know about his own death, my mother wasn’t interested either.

“Would you just trust me to know what’s right for me?” I asked.

My mother looked at me thoughtfully.

“You know, I hate to encourage this psychic crap because you know how I’ve always felt about it, but what you just said reminded me of something.”

“That you should trust me to know what I want?”

She waved her hand, aggravated. “No, not that. What you said about electricity. Remember? Your father used to say something like that about me. I can’t remember exactly what it was, but he said the first time we touched, he knew. He’d felt it, some vibration or electricity or something, and he said he knew we’d be together the rest of his life.”

Her eyes filled. “See what you made me do?” She dabbed at her eyes angrily and gave me a look that was meant to come across as annoyed.

I could see right through her. I set down my spoon and put my arms around her. My father may not have been here to explain to me what the feeling I had when I touched Chase meant, but my mother, without realizing it, had just delivered the message for him. Loud and clear.

“Daddy always said he knew from the very first moment. And he was right, Mom. I hope I might be just as lucky.”

“Okay.” She gave me a quick pat on the tush and stepped away. “That’s enough. I can’t be waiting on all these people with mascara running down my cheeks.” She picked up the bag of rolls. “Just be careful, Rain. Promise me. I don’t want to see you hurt again.”

I nodded, feeling a little too emotional to say anything else.

But while my mother might have understood, at least a little, Diane wasn’t convinced.

She grabbed my hand before I could turn up the vegetables again. “Listen, Rain. I don’t want you to get hurt again either. Wally says Chase just went through a really bad breakup before moving here, and he might be doing the same thing you are. You might just be his rebound, you know?”

“I know all about it. And he knows what I’ve been through, so we both have our eyes wide open.”

At least, I knew my own eyes were open. When he knocked on my door last Saturday, I’d been certain I hadn’t wanted it to be Preston, and that had shocked the hell out of me. When it turned out to be Chase, I’d been so relieved I couldn’t stop crying.

But did that mean I wanted Chase, or was I just happy it wasn’t Preston?

And what if Chase really was on the rebound? I was twenty-three and had only been in two relationships, and both had nearly destroyed me in different ways. Jeff had taken my youth, and Preston, my self-esteem.

The smart thing would be to let a relationship develop naturally. See what happened. Take it slow.

I turned up the heat on my vegetables, gave them a stir, and let them sizzle.