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“Yes… I don’t know. We haven’t talked about it.”

“Amelia’s not a tourist passing through town. She’s not going away. You can’t just stop calling her and hope not to run into her again.”

“I know.”

But really, I haven’t thought it through that far.

“Do you? Because things are bad enough as it is. We’re losing the group. We already can’t hang out any more without things being awkward, and you’ve just gone and made it ten times worse!”

“We hung out just fine tonight,” I say in my defense.

“So that’s it," Bryce says. "It was a one-time thing and you’re going to leave her alone?”

“Sure,” I answer.

But my gut churns, because it’s not until he asks me that I realize what I want. And it’s not to leave Amelia alone. It’s the opposite of being alone.

I want to touch her. I want to make her scream with pleasure. I want to make her laugh.

“I know you and Ethan have this weird competitive thing going on, but this is taking it too far,” Brody says, in agreement with Bryce.

He’s right.

Because I want to pursue her until she professes her love for me. Until she swears that she never wanted Ethan in the first place. Until she admits she’s always wanted me.

Sick, sick, sick.

“Leave her alone!” Bryce repeats. “Find someone else to play with. Amelia is off limits.”

Bryce should know me well enough to know that you can’t say things like that to me. Because I can’t help myself.

And later that night as I lay down in bed, I grab my phone. I know she can’t talk when she’s with Chase. But I only need one message.

Goodnight, Amelia.

I’m stroking myself to the memory of her bare ass in the air when I get her message.

Goodnight, Blake.

I wake up early. Henry is retired and likes to be up with the sun.

I drive to Bryce and Brody’s house to pick up Rusty, then drive down to the Youngs’ farm, whose western edge borders our property.

Henry and Coco come to greet us as I park the car. I grab the folder of documents from the passenger seat and get out.

Rusty jumps out and chases Coco into the fields.

“I swear she recognized the sound of your car. She ran out of the house the moment we heard you pull in.”

Henry leads me toward the house.

A curtain opens inside and Martha, Wyatt’s mother, glares out at me. I wave. She moves back and pulls the curtain shut.

I haven’t seen Martha since Wyatt’s funeral. Scarlett says she doesn’t come out of the house.

I feel a new kind of sympathy for Henry.

“We’ll sit out on the patio,” he says, pointing to a table large enough to sit eight on the patio on the back side of the house, facing the gorgeous view of the mountains.