We were meeting Tess and Dylan at a snazzy new French bistro that had opened up while I was away. I hadn’t been yet but Tess said that Dylan said that it was really good, and since Dylan was the foodie of our little foursome, I decided to trust his judgment.

I used to date guys who had opinions about French restaurants. Why did that suddenly feel so bizarre to me?

The restaurant was certainly very hip. Trendy lighting and a giant, central open kitchen where chefs bustled around enormous stainless stoves. The servers wore blue aprons, and French sayings in various fonts were painted like wallpaper all over the walls.

“Hey, look.” Boone nudged me and pointed at one quote. “It’s Voltaire. Your favorite.”

“Shut up,” I mumbled, even though I couldn’t help but smile.

The hostess told us our party was already seated and led us over to a table near the bar. Tess and Dylan came into view, cuddled close and studying the same drink menu, and my steps faltered.

“Okay there?” Boone asked, his hand steadying me by the elbow.

I nodded. “There they are.” There they were, my sister and my ex-boyfriend.

This was a terrible idea.

I straightened my spine and walked on. Be beautiful and fabulous and do not let them see they bother you.

“Hi!” Tess beamed. Dylan’s expression was more subdued. He’d trimmed his hair and was back in his glasses, but I noted he was still utilizing my fashion advice, though I wasn’t sure if I was pleased by that. How much better would it be if he’d turned into a total schlub without my help?

“Hi,” Boone said, and held out his hand. “I’m Boone. You must be Tess.”

She shook his hand, and maybe it was my imagination, but her eyes seemed to widen in appreciation. Yeah, Tess. Eat your heart out.

“I’m Dylan,” said Dylan, and shook Boone’s hand next as I slid into a seat opposite him. I racked my brain to think if I’d ever called my ex by name in conversation with Boone. Or was there a chance he remembered Todd mentioning his name that night at Verde? I hoped not.

But if Boone noticed anything odd, he didn’t mention it as he took a seat beside me, close and delicious-smelling.

“Hannah,” Tess said, “your dress is gorgeous. Where did you get it?”

“It’s nice, right?” Boone said and opened his menu, hiding his smirk behind the pages.

“Paris,” I replied.

“Wow.” Tess shook her head, her dark hair bouncing on her bare shoulders. She wore a flouncy flowered sundress. It was perfectly serviceable, but I probably wouldn’t have glanced at it twice had I seen it on a rack. Still, Dylan looked at her like she was the only girl on the planet. “Tell us all about France.”

“Maybe after we order drinks,” I said and studied the menu.

“So, Boone,” Tess asked. “How did you and Hannah meet?”

“In my neighborhood,” I broke in.

“Yes,” Boone agreed, pressing his leg against mine. “Hannah has a really nice pool.”

“They all have really nice pools,” Dylan murmured, his face buried in his own menu.

“True,” Boone said. “But not my mom’s house. They’ll be putting one in next year, I hear, though.”

“Have they hired a contractor yet?” I asked him innocently.

He grinned at me. “Not yet. But I live in hope.”

“Excuse me?” Dylan raised his head.

“Boone’s in construction,” I explained.

“Construction?” Tess asked, her brows furrowing.

The waitress arrived. “Have you decided?” she asked in a thick French accent.

“I had a question,” Dylan said, pointing at the menu. “What is Cassoulet du Bistrotier?”

The woman looked pained at his pronunciation. “I’m not…if you let me—”

I jumped in. “It’s a white bean stew with lots of meats, Dylan. Sausage, pork, lamb, duck confit…” I looked at the waitress and switched to French, asking her about the cooking style.

Relief washed over her features and she responded in French. A lively discussion between us followed, as we went over certain menus items and even chatted about where I had been to eat when I was last in her home country.

“Maybe we should just let Hannah order for all of us?” Tess suggested, impressed, after a minute or two. “Guess France was good, huh?”

“Oui.” I shrugged. “I can order if you want.”

Dylan flipped his menu closed. “Go for it.”

I turned to Boone, who nodded. “Yeah. Go for it.”

I reviewed the menu. “Um… Okay. En entrée nous prendrons une salade de chèvre chaud pour les filles et un velouté de champignons pour les garcons. En plat principal je pensais à un foie gras poêlé, risotto d’orge truffé pour suivre les magrets et casserole de lapin à la moutarde pour rester dans les saveurs de la terre. Je crois que nous verrons pour les desserts après avoir fini tout cela.”

The waitress nodded, took the menus, and departed.

I couldn’t help smiling. The others were in for a treat, and I could finally put those Parisian cooking classes to good use.

“So,” Dylan said, when it was just the four of us again. “Are you going to be a French major now?”

“I think she should be a film major,” Boone said.

“Neither,” I said. “Comp lit is the current plan.”

“Again?” Dylan asked skeptically.

I narrowed my eyes at him. “Yes. Again.” He had some nerve.

Apparently my sister agreed with me. “Dylan! She’s just changing majors. Nothing wrong with that. I switched schools!”

Dylan raised his hand in surrender. “Just wondering. You didn’t like it so much last time.”

“Well, I have a lot of the requirements down,” I replied stiffly.

“And that’s always the worst part,” Tess said quickly. “I hate those requirements. I had to redo half of them when I got to Canton last year.”

“Oh, you transferred to Canton?” Boone asked.

“Yes,” said Tess. “I got a scholarship, and their bioengineering program is the best, so…” she shrugged. “Here I am.”

“At least it gives you and Hannah a chance to finally get to know one another,” he said. “Where did you grow up?”

Tess looked at me, uncertain, and I wanted to drop through the seat. Crap.

“Um, Canton.”

Glory, glory, here was the waitress with our drinks. I started gulping down wine.

After a minute, Tess tried again. “So, construction. Boone, how did you get into that?”

“It seemed like the most lucrative business I could get into without a college degree.” Boone took a sip of his beer.

“You didn’t go to college?” Dylan asked. He gave me a shocked glance. “That’s…unusual.”

Tess looked pained. She nudged him. Noticeably.

“I’m just saying,” Dylan amended. “For your neighborhood.”

“It is, isn’t it?” Boone replied evenly. “My mother and I were just talking today about how nearly impossible it is to believe what I do for a living. Hannah thinks so too, don’t you, Hannah?”

I took a big sip of wine. “Want me to talk about Europe for a while?”

“Please,” Tess begged.

So I did. I told them about my French classes and my cooking classes and that time the tour bus broke down on a very narrow alley in Edinburgh.

“We had to fold in the mirrors. At once point one of the other passengers offered to get out to help the driver steer, but not only could we not open the doors, there wasn’t even enough space to climb out the window. He had to go through the emergency exit on the roof.”

Everyone was laughing and my eyes met my sister’s across the table and for a second, I let myself imagine what it could have been like, if this were all normal. If I were just having dinner with my half sister Tess and our boyfriends and there was no deception or history or baggage involved.

But then I saw Dylan and Tess’s hands touch across the table and I realized it could never be that way.

Thankfully, our server soon arrived with our appetizers and the awkward attempts at conversation slowed to a trickle. Halfway through the first course, Tess started sharing a story about the summer in Denver.

“Wait, you two worked together in Denver this summer?” Boone gestured at the other couple with his fork. “Is that how you met?”

“Actually we met right after high school,” Dylan said. “We just…didn’t start dating again until last year.” He shot me a guilty look.

“That’s really sweet,” Boone said. “How often do people get a chance for a second start?” He looked at me. “Aren’t they lucky, Hannah?”

Tess cleared her throat. “So anyway, after that, we were worried we were going to have to scrap the entire generation and start a new trial—”

“And not let any minor mistakes keep them from what is clearly a very promising relationship,” Boone went on, clearly as tired of hearing about algae as I was. “I think you two are an example.”

“We’re not,” Tess blurted. “Really.”

“She’s right,” I said, and spooned up a bit of the sauce on my plate. “They’re not an example of how anyone’s relationship should go.”

“Ouch,” said Boone. He looked at me quizzically.

“Hannah,” said Dylan sadly.

“Hannah,” said Tess, panicked.

“I’m joking.” I glared at each of them in turn. “Jeez. Lighten up, you two. We can either joke or be awkward about this for the rest of our lives.”

“Awkward about what?” Boone asked.

I swallowed. “Dylan’s my ex-boyfriend.”

Boone practically spit his beer across the table. “You dated him?”

“Yep,” I said gleefully. “For six months. One of those oh-so-manly Canton boyfriends you like to make fun of.”

“Excuse me?” Dylan asked. “What does he like to do?”

But Boone wasn’t even looking at Dylan, Instead, he was staring at Tess. “You’re dating Hannah’s ex-boyfriend?” he asked, disgusted. “What kind of sister are you?”

And there it was again, that crazy impulse to protect her. The one that reared its unwanted head every time my friends called her a slutbitchskank. The one that made absolutely no sense, because, honestly, what kind of sister was she? She claimed she always cared about me, she claimed she wanted us to be friends, and yet—and yet!—Tess knew I existed for years and she still stole my boyfriend. There was a big part of me that just wanted to shout, “Yeah!” and urge Boone on.

But instead, I said, “It’s complicated.”

“It must be!” he said, and turned on me. “Because what were you doing dating your sister’s ex from high school?”

Oh. Well. Yeah, that wasn’t my fault. I struggled for a response.

“Look, buddy,” said Dylan, “I don’t know you, or what’s going on with you and Hannah, but you’d better cool it—”

Boone held up his hand. “Look, buddy,” he echoed, his tone withering, “I’m not about to take advice in appropriate behavior from some bioengineering intern who probably can’t screw in his own lightbulbs and thinks it’s okay to string along a pair of sisters.”

I gasped. Tess dropped her head into her hands and groaned.

“I didn’t—” Dylan looked at me, appalled. “What have you been telling him, Hannah?”

“Go ahead,” I snapped. “Accuse me of lying to my boyfriend. I dare you.”

Tess, still hiding her face, made a strangled sound.

Boone looked at me. “I’m your boyfriend now?”

“Well…” It made a better story than that guy I’ve been screwing.

“Well, what?” he asked. “I’m having a hard time keeping up. With any of this.” He gestured at the table.

“Ah,” said Dylan. “That emotion I can relate to. I went through the same thing last spring.”

Tess raised her head. “So I take it you…don’t know what happened to Hannah?”

“No,” Boone said smoothly. I think she…omitted it.”

Oh, no…

Tess met my eyes. “Don’t blame her for that, Boone. She’s protecting me.”

“What?” He turned to me, questions in his pale eyes. I wanted to dive under the table. What would Boone, who in the name of living truthfully would throw away a fortune that made the Swift family’s look like chump change, think of my concealments? That I was willing to lie for my father so he’d keep giving Tess money? Not much.

“Tess, don’t,” I begged.

“Why?” she asked.

Because it will make him hate me. I shook my head, miserable.

Our main courses came. Even the waitress seemed worried as she interrupted the tension suffusing the table with our meals.

We all stared at our plates. It smelled amazing, but I didn’t think I could eat a bite. I could barely breathe.

“Hannah.” Boone’s hand touched my leg under the table. It wasn’t sexual, just comfort. I looked up at him. Fuck. Fuck. What had I been thinking, to bring him here?

I’d wanted to show him off. I’d wanted to prove to Tess and Dylan that I was just fine, better than ever. Better than them. My sexy designer dress, my smoking hot new boyfriend. And instead, I’d constructed my own doom.

“I have to go,” I whispered.

“No…just…just tell me.”

Instead, I ran away.