Tilly felt her throat burn. “It does.”

His face softened. “I’m going to go to work, Tee. And you’re going to study. We need the money and the education.”

She held her breath. “We?”

“Yeah.” And then he did something he rarely did—he touched her. He cupped her face in his big, callused hands and dropped his forehead to hers. “It’s all about the we,” he murmured. “Don’t ever think otherwise.”

So Tilly went inside to study. After several hours of that, she got up and stood in the doorway of Quinn’s room staring at her mom’s things, now shoved against one wall.

A small part of her could admit she appreciated that Quinn hadn’t thrown it all in the attic. Or in her mom’s room. Instead she’d left the master bedroom completely alone.

Tilly knew she should be grateful but instead she just felt . . . sad. She didn’t know why she’d lashed out at Quinn about the things she’d moved. The truth was, nothing in this sewing/craft room belonged to her. Not a single thing. She just hadn’t wanted Quinn touching her mom’s things.

Their mom’s things . . .

Her feet took her over to the wall and she nudged a foot against a few boxes. There was one that looked like a small chest. She couldn’t remember ever seeing it before. Dropping to her knees, she pulled the chest to her and opened it.

It was handmade baby clothes—crocheted booties, a small blanket, a lopsided sweater, all things her mom had made.

But not for her. She was sure of it. She had a box of some of her baby stuff and it was mostly hand-me-downs or from discount stores. In fact, her mom had never made her anything. She’d mended the holes in her jeans, but that was about it. She’d taught Tilly to replace her own buttons, and that was the extent of the sewing that had gone on in this house.

Tilly explored the little clothes. The sweater had a homemade label on it.

MADE FOR . . .

And in that spot, someone had handwritten in a name.

Quinn.

These clothes had been made for Quinn, before she’d been born.

And given up.

Tilly shoved everything back in the box, and heart pounding funny and a sick feeling in her gut, took it to her room and shoved it under the bed where she kept her own, very private journal. She flopped onto the mattress and closed her eyes to think.

Sometime later, she came awake to her phone buzzing. Night had fallen and she had a text from Quinn: I turned off your light and left dinner for you in the fridge. Hitting the sack myself. Night.

Another text came in, this one from Dylan.

Meet at the park?

Her heart did a little happy dance. Hell yes, she’d meet him in the park. She tiptoed out of the quiet house and made it to the park in a record-breaking three minutes.

The place was deserted. No one on the swings. So she walked past the swing set to their tree, and the tree house. In the dark, she could see the glow of a phone screen. She climbed up and found a tall, lanky figure sitting there and her pulse sped up even as her smile faded.

He was hiding from the world and that meant he was hurting.

She plopped down next to him. “Hey.”

Dylan lay flat on his back and stared up at the stars. “Wouldn’t mind being an astronaut.”

Her heart caught. He had the grades for it. Or he would’ve had the grades for it if he hadn’t had to work his ass off on top of school. “You could totally do it,” she said, lying down next to him so that their arms brushed. She touched his fingers with hers. “You could do whatever you want.”

He snorted and she wondered what had happened to upset him. She’d ask, but he wouldn’t tell her so she did her best to look him over to see if he had new injuries. Thankfully, she didn’t see any. “You can,” she whispered. “Be an astronaut.”

“Says who?”

“My mom.” Her breath caught. “My mom always told me that.”

He rolled to his side and propped his head up with his hand as he studied her in the dark. “She was trying to be nice,” he said. “Nobody gets to do what they want. When school’s out, I’m going to have to dig trenches for my dad.”

He already worked as many hours a week as he could spare to help his mom cover expenses, she knew. And she hated that for him. “It’s just for the summer. When you graduate, you can do whatever you want,” she said.

“Don’t be naive.”

She pulled her fingers from his and sat up. She hated when he acted like he was so much older than she was. Hated when he made her feel like a stupid little kid. “I’m not naive.” She pulled her knees in and pressed her forehead to them. “But sometimes, you just have to believe in something.”

He blew out a sigh and sat up beside her. She felt his hand brush over her hair and wrap around her and he pulled her in closer. “I’m sorry, Tee. I’m an asshole.”

“You’re not.” She turned her face to look up at him. “You aren’t like your dad, Dylan.”

His expression hardened at the thought. “And I’m never going to be.”

“Good.” She hesitated because he didn’t like to be told what to do. Hated it actually, because so many of his choices had been taken from him. And she didn’t want to make things worse but she really wanted to say something. “And just as you don’t have to be the dick your dad is,” she said carefully, “you also don’t have to follow his chosen profession. You do whatever the hell you want to do. And you’ve got me at your back. You know I’ve been helping out at the café in the mornings and Quinn insists on paying me. I’m going to save every penny in case you need it. Do you hear me?”

A ghost of a smile twitched at his mouth. “I hear you. So do the people in China. But I’m not going to take your money, ever. I’m saving mine too, I’ll be okay.”

“So why would you go be a laborer when summer hits? Why wouldn’t you do something you love? Like work at the rec center and help coach the little kids in baseball?” He’d been a baseball superstar until he’d had to quit the team for his job. “Or you could be a lifeguard. Lots of kids are doing that this summer and they’re hiring.”

“The class to become a certified lifeguard is three hundred bucks,” he said. “The rec center won’t hire me because I had to have a recommendation from my coach and the principal, and though the coach said I would be great in the job, the principal said I had a bad attitude and a temper.”

This pissed her off. “That’s not fair.”

“I trashed his office when he accused me of stealing money from the cafeteria,” he reminded her.

“Wrongly accused.”

Dylan lifted a shoulder. Didn’t matter. The damage was done. And now he would be digging ditches for his macho, sadistic father all summer and she’d be worried for him every single second of every single day.

“Did you study?” he asked.

In spite of wanting to cry, she smiled at him because he cared about her so much it hurt. “Yes.”

“Good.” He stood and pulled her up. “You’ve got to go home before you get in trouble.”

She stood close to him, very close; the toes of their battered sneakers touched. But since he was so much taller than she was, that was about all that lined up and she ached, ached, to be as tall because then she could feel him, thigh to thigh, chest to chest. Her breathing hitched just thinking about it.