“And I appreciate that.” We were in the front yard, which was appreciably quieter—and darker—than the back, lit only by the front porch lamp and the glare from the decorative streetlights, streaming through the branches of the large gumbo-limbo trees that took up most of his aunt and uncle’s lawn. The fragrance of night-blooming jasmine was heavy in the air. “But she’s not here now, and I’m telling you, I’m fine.”

“This your bike?”

Other party guests had chained their bicycles to streetlamps as well, but Drew zeroed in on mine.

“Why do you think that one’s mine?” I asked. “Because it’s purple?”

“That,” he said, poking at the wicker basket, “and the plastic flowers. They’re a nice touch.”

“Yes, it’s mine,” I growled ungraciously, stooping to unlock it. “I happen to like flowers.”

“I’m not saying anything against flowers.” He watched as Socks sniffed his aunt’s fence. It was a white picket, which the Little Bridge Island historic board had deemed was the only acceptable kind of fence for homeowners to install. “The bike just looks like something you’d own, that’s all.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” I snapped, certain he wasn’t giving me a compliment.

“Nothing. It was simply an observation. What are you getting so hot under the collar for?”

“I don’t need people making judgments about me based on my taste in bicycle colors.” There is a segment of the population that feels that anything feminine—such as purple bicycles with flowered baskets, and perhaps even pink salt—is less worthy than more masculine things. I was positive he was a member of it. And this certainty was helping me to remember to dislike him, and thus push him away, despite his good looks, because good-looking men especially weren’t to be trusted. “And I don’t need you to walk me home. It’s nice of your aunt to worry about me, but I’m perfectly capable of—”

“Look.” Drew leaned forward to seize both handles of my bicycle. “I was not making judgments about you—”

“Weren’t you?” I stuffed my bike chain into my basket. We were the only two people on the quiet, moonlit street, so my voice sounded especially loud. “My bike’s the only purple one out here with flowers on the basket, and you knew it belonged to me? That wasn’t a judgment?”

“I assumed it was yours because it’s kind of girlie.” He released the bike handles and threw his arms into the air, walking a few steps away in frustration. Socks, done sniffing the picket fence, trotted after him, thinking they were going somewhere. But then Drew turned back toward me, so Socks followed. “And you were the only person at that party wearing a kind of girlie dress. It seemed like a logical conclusion. So sue me. What is wrong with you?”

A part of me didn’t want to respond. A part of me warned, Just get on your bike and ride away, Bree.

But another, stronger part of me just kept talking. This is another problem I have. Sometimes, I’m Sabrina, painfully shy. Other times, I’m Bree, who can’t seem to shut up.

“The likelihood of my being attacked on my way home is so small that it’s statistically insignificant,” I informed him. “You’re aware that in the majority of sexual assaults against women, the victim knows her attacker?”

Drew stared at me, dumbfounded. “Are you saying that you think I—?”

“No,” I said, instantly mortified. Why couldn’t I listen to the part of me that was painfully shy, get on my bike, and ride away? But I couldn’t. I was as welded to the spot as the streetlamp beside me. “Of course not. I’m just saying that it’s highly unlikely I’m going to be assaulted by a stranger on my way home tonight, despite what your aunt may think. It’s not really her fault. She, like so many others, has fallen victim to Mean World Syndrome, something I know a lot about because my mother makes her living off it.”

His dark eyebrows furrowed. “Mean world syndrome? What—” He stopped and, as if only just registering what I’d said. “Your mother?”

“Yes, my mother. She’s a judge. Judge Justine.”

“Your mother is Judge Justine . . . Justice with Judge Justine from the radio?” His hands went to his dark hair, causing it to stand more riotously on end than usual. “But she’s . . . famous.”

“Yes.” I stuck out my chin. I’d dug my grave. Now I had to lie in it. “Yes, she is. And not only from the radio. She also did that stint on—”

He said it along with me. “Dancing with the Stars.”

He stared at me, as if completely reevaluating who I was—and what to think of me.

I didn’t blame him. I’d have been reevaluating me, too. All this time he’d thought me one person—Bree, the plucky, long-working, pink-haired waitress, living entirely on her own.

And now suddenly I’d morphed before his eyes into this other person, Sabrina Beckham, with a famous radio personality millionaire mother, one who was no doubt always there to help out financially . . . except of course he didn’t know I was barely speaking to her, or that I’d come to this island in the first place to get away from her, because she, like my ex, had broken my heart.

I probably shouldn’t have told him.

But I couldn’t help feeling as if Drew Hartwell, of all people, deserved to know the truth. At least this way he’d stop thinking I was some dumb Fresh Water.

“So what is Judge Justine’s daughter doing here, of all places?” Drew asked, finally, spreading his hands wide to indicate the whole of Little Bridge. “Working as a waitress in my aunt’s diner?”

“It’s a café,” I reminded him, stiffly.

“Whatever.”

“I’m . . . I’m taking a break to work through some things.”

I saw his gaze narrow. “Drugs,” he said, finally.

“I beg your pardon?”

“I’d be thinking drugs if I hadn’t seen you every morning at eight A.M. for the past few months, all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed.”

“See,” I said, slamming the wedge heel of my sandal into my kickstand, then hopping onto my bike. The thought of him thinking about my tail—metaphorical or not—was unsettling. In a good or bad way, I couldn’t tell. “That’s exactly what I’m talking about. That kind of negativity—my mother’s perfected it, all in order to engage her listeners. She uses fear—fear that the world is a much more dangerous place than it actually is, that if a girl takes a break for a while to work through some things, she must be on drugs, or that if she walks home at night by herself that she’s going to get sexually assaulted—to convince others that the world is this dangerous and unforgiving place. But it isn’t. Or at least, for the most part, it isn’t. I mean, yes, bad things do happen. My dad died last year—but of cancer, not from being murdered, or anything. And—and, well, bad things have happened to me, too, but it was because of someone I knew, and thought I could trust. Bad things happen to everyone sometimes. That’s just life. I don’t believe the only safe thing to do now is stay home and put bars on my windows and invest my money in gold coins from the U.S. Treasury—”