“Miles,” I say. “I just recounted what my whole life looks like, and I watched a piece of your soul die behind your eyes.”

“That’s not what happened,” he says.

“It is,” I say.

“What about your job?”

The ember in my chest flares. “What about it?”

“You’re constantly, like, teaching kids to make bird feeders and running costume contests. It clearly means a lot to you.”

“It does mean a lot to me,” I allow. “Sometimes when I’m running Story Hour, I literally remember partway through that I’m getting paid to do something I love, and it feels like I’m dreaming. Like I might wake up and realize I’m late for my shift at the Dressbarn.

“And there’s this girl Maya, who comes in once a week. Twelve or thirteen. Perfect little weirdo. She reads everything—goes through like five books a week. And we have an informal book club, where I pick something out I think she’ll like, and it goes in the stack, and then she comes back a week later and we just talk about it for an hour while I’m doing admin stuff. She’s supersmart. Has a hard time at school, but you can just tell she’s going to be some great novelist or, like, film director someday.”

“You love it,” Miles says.

“I love it,” I admit. It’s the piece of my life that still feels right, even with Peter excised from the picture.

“Then don’t give it up,” Miles says. “Not for him.”

“Of course, there are also days when I have to spend an hour on the phone with one of our regulars because he wants me to look up a love poem and spell every single word of it for him,” I say.

“Why?” Miles says.

“Sometimes the job of a librarian is to simply not ask. Anyway, I’m keeping an eye out for job postings in other cities, but I can’t leave for eighty-five days.”

“That is . . . extremely specific,” he says.

“It’s when the Read-a-thon happens,” I explain.

“Ah.” He flashes a teasing grin. “Read-a-thon Prep Meeting: Tuesdays from two to three p.m.”

“Do you have a photographic memory?” I ask.

“Sure,” he says. “Also, it’s been a standing appointment on your calendar since you moved in.”

“You’ve been reading it,” I say, unable to hide my glee.

“Of course I have. What’s a Read-a-thon, anyway?”

“A fundraiser,” I say. “An all-night reading thing for the kids, with contests and prizes and that kind of thing. Basically an event to fund other events, because we don’t have any money. Waning Bay’s never done one, but I went to one as a kid, and it was a lot of fun. I’ve basically been working on this since I got here.”

His brow lifts. “And it’s at the end of summer?”

“Mid-August,” I confirm.

After a moment, he says, “Okay, here’s what we’re going to do. I’m going to be your tour guide.”

“I’m not doing acid with you, Miles,” I say.

“Good to know,” he replies, “but not the kind of tour guide I’m talking about. I’m going to show you around Waning Bay. We can go out on Sundays, when we both have work off. Starting next week. And then if, by the end of July, you still want to go play Golden Girls with your mom—”

“Do you even realize how cozy Golden Girls is?” I interject, reaching the giggly phase of being high. “If I could move to the set of Golden Girls, I would.”

“That’s what you say now,” Miles says, “but by the end of the summer, you’re going to be head over fucking heels for this place, Daphne. Just wait and see.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” I say.

“I’m serious,” he says.

“Oh, you’re serious?” I say. “You’re serious that you’re going to spend all summer ferrying a near–perfect stranger around so that she won’t move away?”

“You’re not a stranger.” He knocks his leg into mine. “You’re my serious, monogamous girlfriend, remember?”

I chortle, the high seeming to explode through my veins from the force of it.

His face remains deeply, painfully earnest. “I don’t want you to move away. I like you.”

“You like everyone,” I remind him. “I’m highly replaceable.”

He rolls his eyes. “You really think you have me figured out, don’t you?”

“Am I wrong?” I ask.

He holds my gaze, not quite smiling. We both flinch when his phone chimes in his pocket. He slides it out, his face lit as he reads the message onscreen, a divot etched between his brows.

“Everything okay?” I ask.

His teeth worry at his lower lip. “Petra.”

“Seriously?” I say. “You two still talk?”

“Not often.” He scratches his jaw.

I think about the tense call I overheard behind his bedroom door, wonder if it’s possible he was talking to her, and what Peter would make of that.

“Apparently Katya told her that we were together at Cherry Hill,” he says.

I shift uncomfortably. “And she messaged you about that?”

“She’s happy for us,” he says, voice quiet and flat.

“Well, that’s good,” I say. “Petra’s happiness has always been my utmost concern.”

He looks over at me, slowly starts to laugh.

The weed has my heart feeling like softened butter even while my stomach boils over with anger. At Petra and Peter both, not just on my behalf this time, but on Miles’s too. This ridiculously nice man who let me move into his place, no questions asked—didn’t even charge rent my first month—and comped my food tonight and bought me a milkshake and brought me to a beach I’d never been to and lent me his jacket.