I personally hate beer. Obviously Petra loves it. She’s a walking fantasy, and I’m a librarian who actually does wear a lot of buttons and tweed.

From behind the office door comes a frustrated shriek-groan. Not an outright scream, but a sound loud enough to cause kids gaming at the computer bay to spin toward the desk in unison.

“It’s fine, everything’s fine!” I tell them with a wave.

Behind me, the door flings open and Ashleigh, five foot nothing with a topknot the size of a melon, storms out. “Never make friends with moms,” she tells me before stomping over to her rolling chair.

“You’re a mom,” I point out.

She whips toward me. “I know!” she cries. “And that means I have basically one night, every two weeks, when I can do something fun with other adults, except all those other adults I used to call are also parents, and in many cases partners. So half the time, the plans fall through because someone’s puking or fell off a trampoline or forgot they have to build a fucking volcano for science class by tomorrow!”

“Ashleigh!” I hiss, jerking my head toward the row of teenage gamers.

She follows my gaze and greets their stares with a blunt, “What?”

They spin back toward their screens.

“I want to get out,” she says. “I want to look hot in public and drink alcohol and talk about something other than Dungeons & Dragons.”

And as she’s saying it, I’m picturing myself at home, alone, watching happy couples shop for or renovate the homes of their dreams on HGTV, just like I did last Friday night, and the Friday night before that, and basically every night since the breakup, barring my drunken MEATLOCKER escapade with Miles.

Meanwhile, Peter’s and Petra’s social media feeds are an in-real-time documentation of her and Peter kissing, hugging, and selfie-ing their way through our old haunts, with our old friends in Arbor Park.

His haunts, I correct myself. His friends. Just like Arbor Park is his neighborhood.

I’d thought we were building something permanent together. Now I realize I’d just been slotting myself into his life, leaving me without my own.

I feel the words rushing up my throat, and then they’re splatting out between us: “I’m free tonight.”

Ashleigh stares, wide-eyed. Like I just threw up on her shoes. Or like I threw up a whole shoe.

I search for a graceful way to take it back.

I’ve landed on something along the lines of, Oh, shoot, I forgot! I have plans to organize my e-reader, when she gives an abrupt shrug and says, “Why not? Text me your address, and I’ll pick you up on the way to Chill Coast.”

“Chill Coast?” I’m sure my face just went from tomato red to milky white.

Luckily Ashleigh is looking at her phone. “It’s a brewery,” she says, typing. “In Arbor Park? My friend who just bailed said it’s super cute, has a big patio.”

There is absolutely no way I can go to Chill Coast. Waning Bay is small enough without me wandering directly into the heart of the Peterverse.

“Unless . . .” Ashleigh reads my hesitancy. “You had somewhere else in mind?”

Of course I don’t have somewhere else in mind. I don’t foresee Ashleigh loving MEATLOCKER.

But I have to say something, so I blurt the first place—the only place—that springs to mind: “Cherry Hill.”

Her dark brow lifts appraisingly.

“It’s a winery.”

“Is that the one with the hot drug-dealer bartender, or the one down the road from that one, where they only play Tom Petty?”

“Um,” I say. “I really only know . . . about the wine.”

In that I know they have wine.

After a protracted pause, she says, “Okay. Cherry Hill.”

“Great!” I say.

She goes back to scanning books in. “Are you going to dress like that?”

I look down at my brown high-necked button-up. “No?”

“A coworker and I are going to stop by Cherry Hill tonight,” I tell Miles from the doorway as he’s brushing his teeth in our tiny, pink-tiled bathroom.

He meets my eyes in the mirror, toothpaste foam spilling out of his mouth. “Why did you say it like that?” he asks.

“Like what?”

“Menacingly.” He spits into the sink and knocks the faucet on. “Like, Me and my friend are gonna pay you a little visit, and we might have a baseball bat with us.”

“Because me and my friend are going to pay you a visit,” I say, “and we might have a baseball bat with us.”

He thrusts his head into the sink, under the running water, to rinse. When he straightens up, he grabs his towel from the rack and buries his whole face in it.

“I just thought it might be weird for me to show up without mentioning it,” I say.

He faces me, one hand and hip propped against the sink. “I’m flattered you remember where I work.”

“I needed somewhere cool, to impress Ashleigh, and it leapt out of my subconscious,” I admit.

“Was she impressed?” he asks. “Does she like our wine?”

“No idea,” I say. “But she thinks one of your bartenders is a drug dealer. Or plays a lot of Tom Petty.”

He frowns. “She must not have tried the pinot.”

I laugh in surprise. “Are you offended?”

“A little,” he admits, shrugging. “It’s a double gold winner. Make sure she tries it tonight.”

“I’ll do my best,” I say.

For a second, we just stand there.

He waves toward the doorway, which I’m blocking.

“Right!” I step aside, and he breezes past, his warm, vaguely spicy scent hitting me. “I’ll see you later,” I call over my shoulder, shutting myself in my room to continue my—so far unproductive—outfit selection.

Wool, tweed, satin posing as silk, every piece of it easily matched to every other piece, and all of it a bit stodgy professor, even my casual summer clothes. Sadie used to say my look sat at the intersection of Personal Style as a Statement About Personality and Don’t Look at My Body, which is essentially accurate.

A quick Google search of “what to wear to a winery” reveals a plethora of the kind of bright and airy clothes that could be plucked from an Elin Hilderbrand novel. My own wardrobe is mostly creams, tans, camels, browns. I could just go with a pair of jeans and a T-shirt, but I suspect that between showing up overdressed and underdressed, the latter would be the greater sin to Ashleigh, and I want to make a good impression.

So I swallow my pride, and put on the slinky backless black dress I bought for Peter’s and my engagement party.

I haven’t worn it since, which is stupid, because it cost way more than I would ordinarily spend (Peter bought it) and it’s extremely flattering.

Fifteen minutes after seven, someone knocks on the door. I’m not surprised she’s late. I am surprised she came to the door. I thought I’d have three flights of stairs to get over my hanging out with someone new nerves before I was face-to-face with her.

It’s been years since I made a new friend. I mean, actually made a new friend, not just inherited one from Peter, or from Sadie, who’s always been more of a social butterfly than me.

I smooth the front of my dress, a nervous sixteen-year-old about to find out whether she really scored a date to the prom, or if the other kids are about to dump pig’s blood on her.

When I open the door, Ashleigh jumps a little, because she’d been looking at her phone.

“You didn’t have to come up,” I say. “You could’ve texted me from the car.”

“I drank a Pedialyte on the way over here, and my bladder’s bursting,” she says. “Plus I know basically nothing about you, so this was a good chance to find out if your house is full of surveillance equipment.”

I blink. “Surveillance equipment?”

“Landon and I have been taking bets on whether you’re in the FBI,” she provides helpfully.