I was helping Mom set the kitchen table for dinner. Dad was picking Haley up from the camp and they’d be home any minute. I had just put down all the silverware when the door connecting the kitchen to the garage opened.

“Hey, Mom? Is it all right if we have one more for dinner?” Haley asked, popping her head in.

Mom was too busy stirring spaghetti sauce on the stove to turn around. “Is Larissa coming over?” During the school year, Haley’s friend Larissa joined us for dinner when she and Haley worked on homework together. I think she liked my mom’s cooking more than she liked her own mom’s.

But that night it wasn’t Larissa. Haley stepped into the kitchen with a boy. No, not a boy. A…guy? He was tall—taller than my sister but not baseball-pitcher tall. His dark brown hair was spiky, and he had an eyebrow ring. And was there something sticking out of his mouth—a lip ring? Were they having a sale when he went to get his eyebrow pierced?

“Zack’s grandma is out of town, so Dad and I invited him over for dinner. Is that okay?”

It looked like Zack hadn’t even washed his hands after camp, unless he’d painted his pinky nail on purpose.

“Sure,” Mom said. “There’s plenty of food to go around. Quinnen, can you set a place for Zack, please?”

At least Mom remembered about me. Haley didn’t introduce me to Zack. I’d never even heard of him before, and I knew all of Haley’s friends.

Our kitchen table wasn’t very big. If I’d known we were going to have five people, not the usual four, I would have set the dining room table. That’s what we always did when Larissa stayed for dinner. I grabbed a fifth plate and silverware and squeezed in a spot at the kitchen table for Zack.

“I’m going to change real quick before dinner,” Haley said. “Quinnen, you can keep Zack entertained, right?” She scooted out of the kitchen before I had a chance to reply.

Zack gave me a little wave. The nail paint had to be on purpose because it was on both of his pinkies. “Hey,” he said. “I don’t think we’ve officially met yet.”

“Hi.” I couldn’t stop myself from staring at his lip ring and wondering how it felt. Did it get in the way when he was eating? Or brushing his teeth? Did it ever get stuck on his clothes when he was getting dressed in the morning?

“So you’re Haley’s little sister.”

“I’m Haley’s only sister.”

“Right.” He caught my mom’s eye. “Is there anything I can do to help?”

“We’re just about ready to eat, so grab a spot at the table. Make yourself at home. Can I get you something to drink?”

Zack sat down in the seat that Haley usually sat in. Haley came back into the kitchen. She’d changed into one of her polo dresses and smelled like citrus perfume. She’d put on earrings, too. They were so big and dangly I wasn’t sure if they were earrings or Christmas tree ornaments. You couldn’t pay me to let someone poke a hole through my ears. No thanks.

Haley sat right down in the chair next to Zack and tucked her hair behind her ear, like she was hoping he’d notice her earrings, too.

“Hey, that’s my seat,” I said. I always sat there. It was the closest to the fridge, in case I needed seconds on milk.

“I’m sorry. Did you want to sit next to Zack?” Haley raised her eyebrows at me. She shot me a look that said, What is up with you?

I shook my head and slid into the seat next to Mom. It felt like we were playing musical chairs. When Mom served the spaghetti, I didn’t get as much as I wanted since we had to make one more serving for Zack. And was I the only one who noticed there were just four rolls? Mom cut them in half so it wasn’t as obvious. But I could still tell. It’s more than a little rude not to give advance warning when you’re bringing someone over.

“This is Zack’s first summer working at the camp, too,” Haley said.

“How do you like it so far?” Dad asked as he buttered his roll.

Zack finished chewing a mouthful of spaghetti before answering. “I love it. The kids are great. They have so much energy, and they love all the different art projects we’ve been doing. We’re working on a mural this week.”

“I always wished Quinnen would give that camp a try,” Mom said. “It’s nice having a camp with an arts focus so close by. They’re hard to find these days.”

“We still have some spots for sessions later this summer.” Zack smiled at me, and I wondered what would happen if he got a string of spaghetti stuck in his lip ring. Casey would totally do that if he had a lip ring.

“What do you think, Quinnen?” Mom asked.

Did I really have to remind her again? “Mom, I have baseball. Practice and games and, if we keep winning, the tournament—remember? In Indiana? I don’t have time for art camp.”

“I wasn’t suggesting it instead of baseball but in addition to, honey. It doesn’t hurt to be well rounded.” She turned to Zack. “Maybe next summer,” she said.

I’ll have baseball next summer, too. Mom didn’t catch me shaking my head. Sometimes I wasn’t sure she really got it: how important it was to focus on the one thing you really wanted. That’s what all the big leaguers did. They lived and breathed baseball from before they were my age.

Haley twirled some spaghetti on her fork. “You know how I was telling you about that amazing book by Junot Díaz that I was reading last week?”

Mom nodded.

“Zack lent me the book. He’s super into Junot Díaz. Díaz is, like, one of your favorite authors, right?” Haley looked at Zack as she said that last bit, and popped a bite of spaghetti in her mouth.

“That’s fantastic,” Mom said, leaning the tiniest bit toward Zack. “It’s always been so important to me as an English instructor to expose my girls to all kinds of literature. Now, tell me, Zack, what other authors have you been enjoying lately?”

Zack was chewing his roll then, so he couldn’t answer right away.

I didn’t know how he could do it. Just jump right in, squeeze his way into this table, and fit in like he’d been here forever. He even had Mom swooning over him. And that’s not easy. Trust me, I’d tried.

“I read a book by her, too. By that Juno lady,” I piped up.

Haley stifled a laugh and looked at me funny. “Really?”

It felt like everyone was staring at me. Mom and Dad and Haley and Zack and his dumb lip ring. Somehow he was still chewing on that bite of roll. I didn’t think it was humanly possible to chew a roll for that long. “I read it at the school library one day.”

Mom stood up to clear the plates, and Zack got up to help her.

“It’s okay if you don’t know what we’re talking about,” Haley said to me quietly.

“But I do know,” I said. “You and Mom aren’t the only ones who read!” I pushed my chair—no, not even my chair, because Haley was in my chair—back hard. It squeaked on the floor.

“Quinnen!” Mom sounded annoyed.

“Sorry.”

Haley whispered. “If you had actually read it, you’d know that Junot Díaz is a guy.”

I saw Zack turn his head when she said it.

I could feel my cheeks growing redder and redder as I put my plate in the dishwasher. It scraped against the little poky things that held in the dishes. Just because I don’t get an A+ in ELA doesn’t mean I’m not a reader, I thought. How can they know everything I’ve read? They can’t prove it.

Even though Mom and Zack had the dishes under control, Haley and Dad stayed to hang out in the kitchen. It seemed like Mom and Dad were playing Twenty Questions with Zack—only Zack didn’t seem to mind. Nobody asked: Hey, Quinnen, do you have any questions for Zack? Nobody asked: Hey, Quinnen, how was baseball practice this afternoon?

So I shouldn’t have been surprised that none of them noticed when I grabbed my glove and ball and went out through the garage into the backyard.

It was that point in the summer when the days were still super-long. Even after dinnertime, the sun wasn’t close to setting. I tossed some balls high into the sky to warm up my arm. I loved the thwump the ball made when it hit my glove. Steady and predictable. No matter what, baseball was always there. Okay, sure, it disappeared in the winter, but it came back every spring. Like clockwork, Dad said.

I could see into the kitchen through the window over the sink. It looked like they had mostly finished cleaning up. Now it was just Mom in the window. She gave me a little wave. I nodded to let her know I could see her, but I didn’t take my hand out of my glove. When I got bored with tossing pop-ups, I dragged out the backstop to practice pitching at a target. Blam. Blam. Blam. Three strikes. You’re out.

My arm felt a little stiff, so I sat down on the grass to try some of the new stretches Coach had taught us. Upstairs, the light in Haley’s bedroom turned on. I guessed someone had already come by to get Zack. I reached my right arm over my back and tucked the other arm under and around, locking my hands together. I could do this stretch easy at practice, but some of the other kids on my team needed a strap.

My hands were still all locked together like that when I looked up at Haley’s window again.

I was wrong. Nobody had come by to get him. Zack was in Haley’s room. Zack was alone with Haley in her room.

And they were kissing.

Right in the window, where anybody—okay, I—could see.

He was kissing my sister. Zack with his dumb lip ring was kissing my sister.

And until today, I didn’t even know about him.

I thought Haley told me everything. I knew about every quiz she took in school and how she did on it, every time Larissa said something that hurt Haley’s feelings, every time Haley was upset or worried or sad or happy or mad. I thought I knew my sister, inside and out.

But I didn’t know about Zack.

Haley hadn’t told me.