Page 9

“Okay, well, that’s bleak.” Andrew shakes his head. “Sorry, I’m trying to think of something encouraging to say.”

“Don’t worry about it. Tell me what’s new with you.”

Graciously accepting my desire for a subject change, he starts talking about how exhausted he was by the end of the school year, and how much of a relief it was to make it to summer. His voice is full of pride when he announces that he’s now finally able to achieve a proper crow pose in yoga. Which is funny, because I remember his reluctance to try yoga a couple years ago when his friend Toby was begging him to do it.

And he also tells me how he, Toby, and Brenden won at trivia lastweek and then got so drunk in their celebrating that they had to call Brenden’s boyfriend to come pick them up. I forgot that he’s friends with the owner of the inn.

By the time our breakfasts arrive, Andrew’s in the middle of explaining to me the plot of the newest novel by one of his favorite horror authors, which he knows I’ll never read. If I have time to read, I stick to romance novels.

“All right, I’m running out of updates,” he says as he cuts into his eggs benedict, letting the yolk run out and mix with the hollandaise. “My life is boring compared to yours.”

“That’s okay. I kind of wish my life could be boring,” I admit. I don’t typically complain about my fame, because I realize how ungrateful that would sound, but after everything that’s happened... I don’t know.

Things seemed a lot simpler back when I was a teenager living in this small town, writing songs in my bedroom about the hot senior guy who worked on his family’s farm and probably barely knew who I was.

Then those songs landed me a record deal, and my whole life changed.

“Hey, is Connor Shaw still around?” I ask.

There’s a strange pause before Andrew nods. “Yeah, he basically runs the farm now.”

That’s not surprising. Last I knew, Connor lived with his wife and young son in a house he built on his family’s large property. “Good for him. I can’t really imagine him doing anything else.”

Andrew grunts in response and shoves a bite of food in his mouth.

“It would be cool to see him,” I say, more memories of high school coming back to me. Like how I used to force my brother to hang out on the bleachers with me so I could watch Connor at football practice. “I should go check out the farm store while I’m here.”

“Come on, there’s no way you’re still into him after all these years.”

I wrinkle my brow. “No, of course, I’m not.”

“Then why would you want to go to the farm?” Andrew asks, stabbinghis fork into his home fries with an unreadable expression on his face.

“Um, because it would be fun? There’s only so many things for me to do here in town.”

“His mom’s the one who works the store most of the time. You probably won’t even see him.”

“Okay...”

Letting the conversation trail off, I focus on eating my breakfast souffle. It tastes amazing. It’s light and fluffy, with the perfect amount of spinach and mushrooms. Ireallydon’t want to be on this chef’s bad side. If I end up needing to eat at Reed’s Diner for every meal, I’ll probably gain twenty pounds this summer. Which wouldn’t matter so much to me, except that I don’t want to give the public another reason to pick me apart.

After a couple minutes of silence, Andrew looks up from his plate and says, “Connor got divorced.”

“Oh my god, really?”

“You don’t need to sound so excited about it if you’re not interested in him.”

“I swear, I’m not,” I assure my brother, who’s being annoying for some reason. “And that wasn’t excitement, it was just surprise.”

All I get in response is another grunt.

It’s been so long since Andrew and I talked about Connor that I forgot how weird he used to get when I’d bring Connor up.

In school, we used to tell each other everything about our unattainable crushes. Andrew’s crushes were unattainable because the guys were straight. My crushes were unattainable to me because I was shy and quiet and tended to fall for guys who were the opposite of that. And with Connor, there was also the troubling factor of me being a freshman while he was a senior. Then he started dating Emma, who seemed perfect for him.

Maybe the age difference was why Andrew never really wanted to entertain my crush on Connor. I’m sure he was concerned with the idea of asenior taking advantage of his little sister. Or maybe he was only trying to discourage me from getting my heart broken, because there was no way Connor was ever going to look at me twice.

I always knew I had no chance with him, but that didn’t stop me from fantasizing back then. Now that I’m hearing Connor’s divorced, though, and now that I’m older and more confident—and famous—I can’t help but wonder if there could actually be a possibility. But I let the thought slip away as quickly as it comes.