The front door swung open, taking me by surprise. I sucked in my breath, startled to see him.

To see him with Lily.

I’d just jogged up the Randazzos’ walkway. I hadn’t yet reached out my hand to ring the bell, and there he was.

His green eyes sparkled with recognition. I did everything to keep my lips from curling in a smile. We held a secretive gaze for a moment, before I looked away.

After all this time, it was strange to see him in front of me. No longer just words illuminated on a tiny screen.

“Sara!” Lily cried. She hadn’t been expecting me, but it was a hot day in August and I was bored. It was the kind of day meant for showing up at your best friend’s door “This is great. Mason’s here.”

“Hey there,” I said softly as I shifted my weight uncomfortably.

“Mason’s hanging out with Buddy,” Lily continued. Her little brown dog panted beside Mason’s ankle. Buddy had been Mason’s dog but his mom was allergic, so Lily’s family had taken Buddy in. “His mom dropped him off while she went to the doctor.”

Dr. Shiffer, I wanted to say. He specializes in migraines. Mrs. Meyer has been getting super-bad headaches lately, and Mason has to watch his brother and sister. Mason’s mom heard about Dr. Shiffer from a friend and is hoping he will be able to help her.

But I couldn’t say that.

I couldn’t say that and not say a whole lot more.

“Sara and I’ve spent the whole summer on the beach,” Lily told Mason, not knowing that Mason already knew that. That Mason knew pretty much everything that was going on with me. She pointed to the black Nikon camera I wore around my neck. “She’s been doing this thing where she takes a photo of the same spot on the boardwalk every day at three thirty. Same background but always different people doing different things.”

“Really?” Mason actually sounded surprised. As if he knew nothing about my hobby. As if he didn’t call me “Eye Spy” in our texts. “What are you doing with them?”

“She’s been printing out the photos,” Lily answered. “She’s going to mount them on a large board—”

“Actually, I’m thinking of binding them together and making a kind of flip book,” I interjected. I fixed my gaze on my orange sandals. I couldn’t look at Mason. The flip book had been his idea yesterday.

“Oh, I love it!” Lily’s maple-syrup-brown eyes widened. “You could sell that at one of Stellamar’s souvenir shops, you know. Print a lot of them. Mason, isn’t that totally original?”

“Totally.” Mason smirked. “One-of-a-kind. I can’t believe you thought of that, Sara.”

He thought he was being funny, but he wasn’t. I smiled my biggest smile back at him, playing along. I was confident he wouldn’t dare spill our secret. He knew Lily could never know about us.

If she knew, she’d ask questions.

Questions neither of us wanted to answer.

My stomach twisted. I felt bad. Lily Randazzo was my best friend. She’d be humiliated if she knew Mason and I were playing at barely knowing each other.

I also knew what Lily would think if she found out that we’d been texting almost every day for the last month. She’d think we liked each other. She’d think we were together.

But we aren’t.

We’re just friends. I scratched my shoulder and flinched as bits of post-sunburn skin flaked off. There was no way Lily or any of our other friends would believe me. I didn’t text with any other boys. Plus, Mason wasn’t even from our school. He lived almost thirty minutes away. And he was cute. Really cute. White-blond hair. Tanned skin. Wide-set eyes.

If I didn’t like him, she’d want to know what I was doing. Why I was talking all the time to a supercute guy. Guys and girls our age usually don’t talk all the time unless they like each other. What could we possibly be talking about? she’d want to know.

And the answer to that question was complicated.