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I can feel the presence of his hand on my lower back once again as we both leave his wife standing in the hall.

“Are you sureyou don’t mind?” I ask Liam for the third time since he’s picked Trevor up from the high school. The car is full of kids now. Dillion and Ben take up the back row, while Trevor is in the middle with Jenna and Talia.

“It’s fine.”

“Hey, Liam,” Jenna calls him.

His eyes find her’s in the rearview mirror. “Yes?”

“Is it possible that you can take Westover Road to my dad’s house?”

He takes a quick look at me before finding her again in the mirror. “Why?”

“Because the lighting is best.” She lifts up her phone, snapping a picture. When she examines it and sees that it doesn’t make her standards, she deletes it and tries again.

“No, Jenna,” I tell her, turning in my seat. “That’s not happening.”

Her shoulders drop. “But it’s the golden hour. Look.” She shoves her phone in my face. It’s a picture of her, brown hair falling into waves over her shoulders. Her eyes, which are normally brown, seem to glow golden in the rays of the late afternoon sun, and her eyebrows are hitched slightly as her lips do a slight pucker. My daughter is stunning, but sadly, by her incessant need for selfies and appraisals from her classmates, I’m sure she doesn’t see her natural beauty.

“I don’t care. That’s rude of you to ask,” I tell her.

“That’s messed up, Jenna,” Trevor pipes in. “He doesn’t need to drive down a certain street because of your need to take the perfect selfie.”

“It’s not that big of a deal, geez,” she whines.

Dillon’s face is buried in his phone, shaking his head. “What about you Dillion?” I ask. “Do your selfies rely on the right amount of sunlight?”

He drops his phone in his lap. “Well, most guys aren’t hung up on selfies, Mrs. James. That’s a chick thing. But hey, if you need a certain light to make you feel better about yourself, have at it. What you look like on the outside doesn’t change how you are on the inside. No amount of sunlight or filters can change the real you.”

Wow, I hadn’t expected Dillon’s response. He seems more mature for his age.

“I can drive down the street. It’s not a big deal.” Liam looks to me and the road.

“No, it’s okay,” I hear Jenna say. When I turn around, I see that she’s not on her phone, but looking out the window.

“Jenna,” Dillon calls from the back, making her turn around. “For what it’s worth, I wasn’t referring to you. Filter or not, you’re as pretty on the inside as you are on the outside. You just need to see it for yourself.” He gives her a wink, and when she turns back around, she continues to look out the window, but with a smile on her face.

When I turn back around, there’s a satisfied look on Liam’s face. “He takes after his old man,” he says proudly.

“I think he does.”