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Dean turned his head. “We?”

I nodded as he smiled.

“If this works,” he said, leaning back on his hands, “Side A could be bigger in a year. Not huge, but bigger. Maybe we carry regional releases other stores aren’t getting yet, maybe help bands get records into Milwaukee and Minneapolis instead of everybody driving boxes around in somebody’s backseat.”

“You’d need more storage and another employee.”

“I know.”

“We could use the upstairs back room across from your apartment if you fixed the window.”

I smiled because it was so easy to see it. The store downstairs, the apartment above it, boxes and records, bad coffee, a dog underfoot, and Dean laughing across a table while we built a life out of small decisions.

Then he said, “If Minneapolis works out, you could finally get out of Maple Bluff.”

The breeze moved through the leaves above us. I waited, thinking perhaps he would add something else, but he only smiled as though he’d offered me exactly what I wanted.

“No more club dinners,” he said. “Or your parents planning your future, no more expectations. You’d love Minneapolis.”

The strange thing was that part of me wanted to agree. That version of the future had been the fantasy for years. Dean and me somewhere else, away from the club where Paul proposed, away from my mother’s wedding folder and Patricia’s champagne preferences, away from being the girl who simply smiled and nodded while everyone else planned her future.

But the other half of me thought about my father making pancakes on Sunday morning, my mother sitting by the pool with me, and our house lit up for Christmas.

“I like Madison,” I said.

Dean’s smile lingered. “I know.”

“No, I mean I actually like it.”

He glanced over, puzzled. “I didn’t say you didn’t.”

“You said I could finally get out of Maple Bluff.”

“Wouldn’t you want to?”

The question should have been easy. I’d spent years telling myself that Maple Bluff was the beginning of everything I regretted. But it was also the country club where we always had Thanksgiving dinner, my parents, home, and all the expectations that went along with being a Hale.

“I don’t know,” I said.

Dean studied me, his expression shifting as he realized I hadn’t answered how he expected.

“I thought you hated all that.”

“All what?”

“The country-club stuff. The dinners. Dressing up all the time. The expectations.”

“I hate some of it.”

“You make fun of most of it.”

“That doesn’t mean I hate everyone there. You’re making it sound like I’m locked behind some gate waiting for you to rescue me.”

His face changed. “That’s not what I meant.” Dean frowned. “I guess I’ve only ever seen the version of you that comes into Side A.”

I rested my face on my knee, watching the sunlight on the lake. “I like dressing up sometimes.”

That earned a small smile. “I’ve noticed.”