David’s and Tamani’s faces seemed to float before Laurel’s eyes, the Academy looming in the background. She shrugged and forced the images from her mind. “Then maybe it was the wrong dream.”

Ryan’s house was vibrating with music when Laurel and David pulled up on Friday night. “Wow,” Laurel said. The three-story, bluish-gray house had a slate roof and bright white shutters. A large set of picture windows adorned the front and looked out onto a beautifully landscaped yard with dogwoods lining a rock-paved walk and ivy crawling up the south wall. The house was right up against the rocky shoreline, and Laurel suspected they had an incredible view off the back deck. “This is really beautiful.”

“Yep. It’s nice to be the only child of the town cardiologist.”

“I see that.” They walked hand-in-hand up the walk and through the front door. Since it was a small town and a big house, the party wasn’t too crowded, but it was full enough. And where people didn’t fill the corners, music did. Laurel already felt a dull ache in her ears.

“Over there,” she said, raising her voice over the music and pointing toward Ryan and Chelsea. Ryan looked fairly normal in a bright red T-shirt and Hollister jeans, but Chelsea had outdone herself. She had pulled her curls up in a high ponytail and was wearing long, swinging gold earrings. Dark blue jeans with cute black sandals and a black tank top with shiny beading set off the tan she’d gotten that summer.

Probably on the deck of Ryan’s pool.

“Look at you!” Laurel said as they approached. She pulled Chelsea into a hug. “You look awesome!”

“You too,” Chelsea said.

But Laurel was already wishing she hadn’t had to wear the long, empire-waist, tie-back blouse with a rather large bow that covered up the bump from her blossom. It was warm, and she was already starting to feel confined.

“Don’t you just adore this house?” Chelsea exclaimed, pulling Laurel a little off to the side.

“It’s gorgeous.”

“I love to come here. With three brothers under twelve, we can’t have very many breakable things at my house,” Chelsea said. “But here? They put statues on the coffee table. At dinner the glasses are made of—would you believe it—glass.”

They both laughed.

Chelsea turned her head to watch David and Ryan talking and laughing together. As if feeling themselves being observed, they both turned to look over at the girls. Ryan winked.

“Sometimes when I see the two of them together like this I wonder how Ryan could have been there for so many years and I never saw him.” She turned to Laurel. “What was I thinking?”

Laurel laughed and put her arm around Chelsea. “That David was hotter?”

“Oh yeah, that’s right,” Chelsea said, rolling her eyes. “Come on,” she said, pulling Laurel toward the back of the house. “You have got to see this view.”

FOURTEEN

BY ELEVEN LAUREL WAS THOROUGHLY EXHAUSTED from dancing and the rather distinct lack of sunlight. She smiled in relief when David elbowed his way through the crowd and brought her a plastic cup with some kind of red punch in it.

“Thank you,” Laurel said, taking it from him. “Seriously, I am parched and exhausted.”

“Your knight in shining armor comes through again,” David said.

She brought the cup up to her mouth, then made a face. “Yuck. Someone totally spiked this.”

“Really? What is this, a fifties sitcom?”

“No kidding.” Laurel couldn’t even sit at the same table with her parents when they had wine without growing nauseated. The smell of any kind of alcohol made her queasy.

“Well, I guess I’ll do my date-ly duty and drink them both,” David said, taking Laurel’s cup from her.

“David!”

“What?” he said after taking a long swallow.

Laurel rolled her eyes. “I’m driving home.”

“Fine with me,” David said, after taking another drink. “Means I can go back for seconds.”

“You’re going to get totally sloshed.”

“Oh, please. My mom serves wine with dinner at least once a week.”

“Does she really?”

David grinned.

“Give me that,” Laurel said, taking her cup back.

“Why? You can’t drink it.”

“I most certainly can,” she said, reaching into her purse for a small bottle she had taken from her Fall faerie kit.

“What is that?” David asked, scooting close to her.

“Water purifier,” Laurel said, squeezing one clear drop into her cup and swirling the contents gently.

“Did you make that?”

“I wish,” Laurel said darkly. “They gave it to me at the Academy.”

Laurel looked down into her cup. The red punch had turned clear. “Huh,” she said. “I guess the dye is considered an impurity as well.”

David tilted the cup in his direction and sniffed. “You know, most people pay to add alcohol to their beverage, not the other way around.”

“I march to my own beat.”

“So what have you got left? Sugar water?”

Laurel shrugged and took a sip. “Yeah, basically.”

“Appetizing as that sounds, I think I’m going to grab my refill at the punch bowl, thank you.”

“Lush,” Laurel called teasingly after him.

She wandered into an empty hallway with her cup of sugar water. It was nice to get away from the stifling crowds. If she were being completely honest with herself, she was ready to go home and go to bed. There was at least another hour—probably two to three—of the party left and she knew David would want to stay for the whole thing.