I hurry downstairs and put my shoes on, after which I stand with my nose pressed to the front window like a kid waiting for the ice cream truck. And when my phone buzzes with Felix’s text that he’s out front, I text him a thumbs up—like I haven’t been watching the whole time, like I didn’t see him narrowly miss our mailbox because it’s leaning wonky again.

It’s a perfect day, but I’m too nervous to pay much attention; I make my way down to the street where Felix is parked, taking a second to set the mailbox upright first and then opening the car door. I have to climb inside a bit more carefully so I don’t flash the entire street—or is it moon the entire street? Is there a difference?—but I make it all right, pulling the door shut behind me.

“Hey, Sunshine,” Felix says, shooting me a brief glance as he digs for something in the middle compartment. He returns his attention to whatever he’s digging for?—

Until his hand freezes. His entire body freezes, actually, and his head jerks back up toward me, his eyes widening as they drink me in.

And look. I’m not particularly vain. But that double take?

It feels good.

His gaze skates over me, starting at the top of my head and darting this way and that—from my hair to my face to my dress and occasionally back again.

Finally a faint laugh leaves his lips, and the hand that was searching for something comes up to pinch the bridge of his nose instead.

“You’re not making this easy on me, you know?” he mutters.

I blink at him. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

He exhales long and slow, his gaze darting toward me and away again. “Good question,” he says with another little laugh. Then, sounding disconcerted, he goes on, “I…don’t even know.” He clears his throat and jerks his chin at my seat belt. “Shall we?”

“Oh,” I say, turning my head so he won’t see the flush that’s risen to my cheeks on top of the blush I’m already wearing. “Yeah. Let’s go.” I buckle in and then ask, “What movie are we seeing?”

When he names the action movie I already saw with Jules and Aurora, I just nod. It’s an older one anyway, and I don’t think this outing is as much about the movie as it is about the theater.

“I want to ask you a few questions about the other places we’ve been, too,” he says. “Which was your favorite?”

“As far as a romantic spot?” I say. My mind flashes back to the moment we had in the bookshop. “Probably Pretty Page, because I’m a bookworm. But Crow Point was really beautiful.” I hesitate and then add, “I’m not sure I’m a movie theater gal, to be honest. This will probably be my least favorite. I do think it’s a cool place to visit, though, and especially to highlight.”

“That’s fair,” he says. “Let’s see what we think, Sunshine.”

And I turn out to be right. The movie is fine; the theater is lovely and historical but still just a theater. My mind pays almost no attention to the actual screen. It’s too focused on the man next to me, and more specifically on what I’m going to tell him later.

I don’t remember the last time I confessed my feelings for a guy. I’m not particularly excited—except I know it needs to happen in order for me to move forward.

No matter how much I build myself up, though, part of me is still stuck on the way he laughs, on the twinkle of his eyes in the light of the movie. How stupid is that? I really and trulylikehim, and I have no idea how it happened.

“You idiot,” I mutter to myself as a car explodes on the screen.

“Huh?” Felix says, turning to look at me.

“Nothing,” I say with a sigh. “It’s—nothing.”

He shrugs and gives his attention back to the movie, and I don’t speak for the rest of the film. I barely speak when Felix asks me what I thought, in fact, and I nod when he asks if I’m ready to go home. My nerves seem to have rendered me temporarily mute.

“You’re being weird,” he says, shooting a glance at me as we pull out of the parking lot and onto the main road. “Why aren’t you talking? You’ve said almost nothing for the last twenty minutes.”

“Ah,” I say as I rub my queasy stomach. “Did you notice that?”

“Of course I did,” he says with a snort. “So out with it. What’s up, Sunshine?”

“Not much,” I lie. “Just—yeah. Tired, I guess?”

The look he shoots me is skeptical, but he doesn’t press the issue. He just glances over at me every now and then, all the way back to my house, and when I unbuckle, it’s with shaking fingers.

“Go in and get some sleep,” he says, his expression faintly concerned. “Call me tomorrow with proof of life and return to normalcy.”

“Wait. I—wait.” Forget about the bees buzzing in my lungs from earlier; I don’t think Ihavelungs anymore. They’re gone, and I’m left trying desperately to suck in air that won’t come. “Wait,” I say again.