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  “She’s fine. But she’s the one who’s been bugging me to call, since you won’t pick up when she calls.”

  My heartbeat slowed. Of course. I should have known. Caleb would never have called, let alone volunteered to fly fifteen hundred miles to get me of his own accord . . . not after the way we’d ended things. Or not we, exactly, considering the fact that I was the one who’d packed up my things, handed my keys to his doorman, and left, making me, technically, the one who had ghosted.

  But not really. What else could I have done? What kind of relationship had the two of us even had? Not one I’d wanted anything to do with anymore.

  Now I was heading for the door again—the Mermaid’s side door. A rush of humid, saltwater-scented air greeted me as I stepped out onto the sidewalk, ignoring the glare from Ed as well as the curious looks my fellow servers, Angela and Nevaeh, threw me. Neither of them could imagine what was so important that I’d dare take a call during the morning rush. I hardly ever got calls anyway, so this was a first.

  A first that was probably going to get me fired.

  “Caleb, look—”

  “She’s really worried about you, Sabrina. We all are.”

  It was all I could do to keep from bursting out laughing. A little late for that.

  “You know your mom pals around with all those meteorologists from the station,” Caleb went on. “She says they tell her this one is a real monster. If there were such a thing as a Category Six, this would be it. She says—”

  “Tell my mom I’m fine,” I interrupted, aware that Drew Hartwell was standing only a few feet away from me, his own cell clutched to his ear, having a not dissimilar conversation. I could hear him telling whoever was on the other end of the phone, “Well, for one thing, because I have other things to do right now than restore a century-old window you waited until the last minute to notice needed repairing. And for another, because I’m going to have to special-order the replacement glass, and there’s no way it’s going to get here before the rain does.”

  Except that Drew Hartwell didn’t look particularly worried. He never did. Even now his free hand—the one not holding his phone—had crept beneath his well-worn, sun-faded Little Bridge Island Bocce League T-shirt to scratch lazily at his flat stomach, unconsciously revealing a trail of dark, downy hair that disappeared into the waistband of his cargo shorts . . . the sight of which caused my stomach to give a pleasant lurch, as if I’d just taken a spin on a tilt-a-whirl.

  What was wrong with me?

  Realizing I was staring, I glanced hastily away, remembering the whispered warning my coworker Angela Fairweather had given me on my first day of work: “Stay away from that one. There was a time when that old pickup of his was parked in front of a different house every week. For a while, it was a different house a night.”

  Because apparently Drew Hartwell—with his lean six-foot frame, tousled dark hair, permanent deep-sea tan, and summer-sky blue eyes—was as much of a player as Caleb and his friends, just of a different variety: Drew was the homegrown style.

  Having been born on Little Bridge Island, and—with the exception of a few years spent on the mainland—Drew had never lived anywhere else.

  Whereas Caleb and his best friend Kyle—who’d turned my entire life upside down in a single moment—had been born in New York City, and had traveled all over the world thanks to their trust funds and wealthy parents.

  And yet Caleb, at least, still didn’t know a thing about women. Or at least the one he was currently speaking to.

  “I can tell your mom that you’re fine all you want, Sabrina,” Caleb was saying into my ear. “But she isn’t going to stop calling. She said to tell you that she thinks it’s time you stopped being so stubborn and gave up on this little solo adventure to find yourself, or whatever it is, and come home. And that it shouldn’t take a Category Five hurricane for you to realize it.”

  I smiled wryly. It sounded exactly like something my mom would say. “Well, do me a favor and let her know that I haven’t quite finished finding myself, but when I do, she’ll be the first to know. In the meantime, I’m perfectly capable of taking care of myself. I don’t need help from her, or anybody else—especially you.”

  “Well, that’s just great, Sabrina.” Now Caleb sounded offended. “Excuse me for caring. You know, last time I talked to you, you were mad at me for not caring enough—”

  I felt a different kind of spurt from my gut, far less pleasant than the one I’d experienced at the sight of Drew’s naked stomach. “That’s not what I said, and you know it. There’s a difference between not caring and calling me a liar.”

  “I never called you a liar, Sabrina. I just said that maybe you were overreacting—”

  “Overreacting? Really, Caleb?”

  “Yes, overreacting. You know Kyle gets a little frisky when he’s had too much to drink—”

  A little frisky? I was so mad, I had to force myself to gaze past the harbor, out where the turquoise blue sky met the aquamarine sea, in order to steady myself. Something about the sight of that calm, azure water stretching as far as the eye could see always seemed to help me find my equilibrium. I’d taken to painting it during my time off from work—not, however, when anyone else was around—and it always soothed me.

  “I don’t want to get into it again, Caleb,” I said. “I need to go back to my job, or I’ll lose it.”

  “Oh, wouldn’t that be a tragedy,” Caleb sneered. “Your waitressing job at some beach bar in Florida.”

  I glanced hastily in Drew Hartwell’s direction, fearful that he might have overheard—Caleb could be as overbearingly loud on the phone as he was in person.

  But fortunately, Drew still seemed preoccupied with his own call.

  “At least,” I hissed at Caleb through gritted teeth, “I have a job.”

  “Oh, was that supposed to be a blow to my ego, Sabrina?” Caleb said snarkily. “Because I’ve never had a job, I’m somehow inferior to you? Excuse me for not rising to the bait. Look, if you won’t come with me, at least let me send you a ticket for a commercial flight, since you can’t seem to be bothered to buy one on your own.”

  “Don’t even try it,” I snarled into the phone, “because I’m not leaving Little Bridge Island. And it’s Bree now, not Sabrina.”

  Then I hung up on him.

  About the Author

  MEG CABOT was born in Bloomington, Indiana. In addition to her adult contemporary fiction she is the author of the best-selling young adult fiction series The Princess Diaries. Over twenty-five million copies of her novels for children and adults have sold worldwide. Meg lives in Key West, Florida, with her husband.

  Also by Meg Cabot

  THE PRINCESS DIARIES SERIES

  THE MEDIATOR SERIES

  HEATHER WELLS SERIES

  Overbite

  Insatiable

  Ransom My Heart (with Mia Thermopolis)

  QUEEN OF BABBLE SERIES

  THE BOY SERIES

  She Went All the Way

  THE MISSING SERIES

  ALL-AMERICAN GIRL SERIES

  Nicola and the Viscount

  Victoria and the Rogue

  Jinx

  How to Be Popular

  Pants on Fire

  AVALON HIGH SERIES

  THE AIRHEAD SERIES

  ABANDON SERIES

  ALLIE FINKLE’S RULES FOR GIRLS SERIES

  FROM THE NOTEBOOKS OF A MIDDLE SCHOOL PRINCESS SERIES