Boone and I pulled into driveways side by side. I gave him a questioning look when I got out of the car. “You do realize that’s my neighbors’ property, right?”

“Force of habit,” he explained. He looked up at the Gardners’ house and frowned. “Hannah…”

“Yes?”

“Nothing. I think…um, as long as I’m here, I’ll poke my head in and see how they are doing.”

“Okay,” I said, shrugging. Who was I to question Boone’s interest in drumming up more handyman work? “I’ll just go get my bags.”

“You sure you’ve got it on your own?”

“Positive. The suitcases have wheels.”

He gave me his million-watt grin and headed up to the Gardners’ front door.

This was good. If he didn’t come in the house, I wouldn’t have to introduce him to my mother yet. Not that I minded, I just didn’t want to go through the whole song and dance with her. I’d rather just move into my apartment and finally get some alone time with Boone. In a place with air-conditioning. And running water. And a real bed.

I practically ran into the house and started gathering up my suitcases, laptop bag, toiletries and other items I was taking with me to my apartment.

“Hannah!” Mom appeared at the door as I came back from one trip. “Are you moving already?”

“Hey, Mom,” I called as I sailed past. “Yep. I have everything loaded. Just need to get it in the apartment.”

She looked out the door at Boone’s pickup, piled high with my belongings. “Did you hire some help?”

“No, I’ve got a friend giving me a hand,” I replied vaguely, disappearing into my room for the next load. Maybe I should have said yes, and I’m paying him in sex.

“Oh.” She followed me. “Well, I’m glad I caught you. That fundraiser last night was fun, huh?”

“Sure was.” Not a lie. There had been insanely good and entirely unexpected sex. The kind that I hoped I’d soon be repeating, except without all that awkward ending stuff this time around.

Boone and I may have gotten off to a rocky start, but I wasn’t going to let any stupid misgivings or misunderstandings screw things up this time. He’d been through hell—it was only natural he had a few trust issues. And who was I to judge? I, too, was loaded down with baggage after all my experiences with Dylan and my father.

That was a story I wasn’t looking forward to telling him. I dreaded it almost as much as how, as soon as school started, it was inevitable that I’d run into Dylan—and Tess—again.

“I met Suzanne Gardner’s son Ronnie,” Mom was saying now. “Ronnie Nesbit? I wanted to introduce you but I couldn’t find you.”

Oh, right. Of the Newport Nesbits or something. Mom had been nagging me about him for a while. “No more setups, Mom, remember?” Okay, toothbrush, make-up bag, hair stuff…was I forgetting anything?

“I just wanted to introduce you,” she insisted. “And Suzanne did, too. You know, Ronnie’s new in town and doesn’t know a lot of people.”

“I thought we’d decided I was supposed to be concentrating on school work.” Okay, I’d packed my laptop, my Wi-Fi router, my printer…

“Where did you disappear to, anyway?”

I blew a strand of hair out of my face. “When?”

“Last night.”

Oh. Then. “Um…I don’t know, Mom. I was there the whole time. We had dinner together.” I lugged my printer out to the car and wedged it between the front seat and the dash. Mom met me when I returned to the front door.

“Well, anyway, I know you said no more setups, and I would agree with you, but I actually think you and Ronnie would get along. He’s kind of like you, you know. Still figuring himself out.”

I grimaced. “I’m figured out. You and Dad figured me all out. Comp lit major, finish Canton. Game, set, match. Remember?”

“You know what I mean, Hannah,” she said. “And he’s really cute, too.”

I shuddered to think what Mom considered really cute on a guy named Ronnie. Probably preppy to within an inch of his life. I wondered what she’d say if I told her I had a boyfriend, also really cute, but had no name or pedigree to recommend him.

“I have to go, Mom,” I said. “I have someone waiting for me…”

“I don’t think it would kill you to have coffee with the guy. Doesn’t even need to be a date. Just help him get to know some young people in town. He seemed so alone last night. I felt bad for him.”

Oh God, some loser named Ronnie, no less. He had to have been pathetic in the extreme to rouse my mother’s sympathy for a man from as exalted a family as the Newport Nesbits. “Fine, Mom, whatever. I just have to go.”

She clapped her hands. “Fantastic! I’ll tell Suzanne then?”

“Sure.” I slung my laptop bag over my shoulder. “Whatever.”

I couldn’t wait to be back in my own space, where I didn’t have my mother breathing down my neck all the time. One last coffee date with some starched suit was possibly more than I could handle.

Of course, I could probably avoid it all if I just introduced her to Boone right now. Hey Mom, sorry, but I can’t go out with your neighbor’s dorky son. I’m dating your neighbor’s hot handyman instead.

After loading the last of the bags and sundries into wherever they would fit in my car or Boone’s truck, I stood back to make sure everything was firmly fastened in. The last thing I needed was for a suitcase of clothes to fly out of the back of Boone’s truck and decorate the highway with designer duds. But it all looked pretty secure.

I checked my watch, then looked at the door of the neighbors’ house. I hoped Mrs. Gardner wasn’t putting him to work already. The sooner we got on the road, the sooner we’d be moved into my apartment, the sooner we’d set up my bed, the sooner we could use my bed… I blushed just thinking about it.

The door to the Gardners’ house banged open and Boone strode out, his face like a storm cloud.

“Hey!” I waved.

“What the hell, Hannah?” he cried, stalking toward me.

I backed up a step. “What?”

“You’re dating other guys?” He shook his head in disgust, and his face looked like a stranger’s. I’d never seen him like this.

I blinked at him. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

He kept coming toward me and I backed up another step, until I could feel the warm metal of his truck against my back. “Not three hours ago you told me you wanted—” he stopped. “Oh, shit. You didn’t, did you? You let me do all the talking and you never came out and said you wanted to be my girlfriend. How convenient. I’m an idiot.”

“No!” I reached for him. “I mean, no, you’re right. I guess I didn’t say it, exactly. But I meant it. I do want to be your girlfriend—”

He jerked away. “I’m not the most educated man on the planet, Hannah, but where I come from, that means you don’t go out with other guys. And apparently, not five minutes ago, you made a date with one.”

My gaze flashed to the house behind him. “She told you?” Mom must have called Mrs. Gardner the second I left the room. “It’s not what you think. My mom was nagging me. It’s nothing. I’m not interested in any other guy. I just wanted to get her off my back…”

He didn’t look like he believed me, though. He wasn’t even looking at me anymore. And I was babbling, making excuses. It’s not what you think. I wondered if my father had ever used that line on my mom, all the nights and days he spent with his mistress, all the secret payments that went to her and Tess. I thought of how many times I wanted to believe it myself, last year. My eyes began to burn.

I’m the thing you do in the dark, the one you can never let anyone know.

“It’s not a date—it’s coffee with some guy who is new to town and doesn’t know anyone. I’m being nice. I’m being civilized.”

“Oh, and I’m not civilized?”

“Honestly?” I said. “No. Right this instant, you’re kind of acting like a possessive jerk.”

The words fell like a thunderclap. He winced, and the anger drained from his face, replaced with anguish.

“You’re right,” he said abruptly. He reached a hand into his short hair, grasping the strands in frustration. “I’m so, so sorry.”

“No, I’m sorry. I should have cut my mother off. She always pulls this setup shit. I should have just told her about you.”

He looked up at me, his eyes raw. “I shouldn’t have yelled at you. I can’t believe what that brought out of me. I almost sounded like…”

I pressed my lips together. Was he thinking of his father, too? “It’s okay,” I said. Neither one of us wanted to be our dads.

“It’s not okay,” he went on. “It was completely out of line. And it wasn’t about you, either. It was about me. About thinking I’m not good enough…that the life I’m trying to build is nothing.”

“You are,” I insisted, but he looked unconvinced. “Look, I don’t want to go out with anyone else. Certainly not Mrs. Gardner’s dorky son.”

He blinked at me. “Dorky son.”

“Yeah.” I shrugged. “I mean, I’m just assuming. Why, have you met him?”

He covered his face with his hands. “Hannah,” he murmured. “Hannah.”

“What?” I said.

He sighed, then raised his face to mine. “Don’t you get it?” he said, agonized. “I’m her son.”