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“Forever gleaming with the shine of good character.” I turned and tossed a dish towel at his head. He caught it with a smile and lobbed it back in my direction. “Just being Mormon is enough reason to go over there, right? Isn’t that all you people need to fall in love?”
    “Very funny.”
    “Besides,” Lilly added. “You have a reason. Your bishop said to welcome him to the ward. So go welcome him.”
    “At nine o’clock at night? I should make him cookies or something. Cookies could be my reason.”
    “Did Elliott serve one of those mission thingies? With the bikes? Name tags? All of that?” Trav asked.
    I nodded. “In French Polynesia.”
    “Seriously? Tahiti? I bet that was a rough two years,” Trav said.
    “Ask her something else,” Lilly whispered, leaning over the table. “Emma’s a fan.”
    “I’m not a fan. I’ve seen his videos. He’s talented. But it’s not like that.”
    “Where did he grow up?” Lilly asked.
    Denver.
“I . . . don’t know.”
    “Where’d he go to college?”
    He didn’t.
“No idea.”
    Lilly rolled her eyes. “How many siblings does he have?”
    “Okay, I really don’t know that one. Come on. I read the news. I know the basics. Maybe I’m a fan, if that’s what you call occasionally enjoying his music, but that doesn’t mean I’m a fanatic.”
    “Then go meet him.” Trav spoke with a gleam in his eye.
    “Right now?”
    “Yeah, right now,” Lilly said.
    “Without cookies?”
    “Emma, you don’t need cookies. Just be nice. ‘Hey . . . you’re a Mormon; I’m a Mormon. I’m your neighbor. Welcome.’ I’m sure you can handle that much without saying anything stupid. Just go knock.”
    Trav stood up. “Come on. I’ll go with you. And I promise not to mention how much you like him.”
    I lunged across the kitchen and pushed Trav back into his seat. “No, no, no. You’re not going anywhere.”
    “So you’ll go by yourself?”
    I left my water on the counter and walked to the door, pausing briefly to check my appearance in the mirror that hung in the living room. My primping was only fuel to Lilly and Trav’s fire, but after the day I’d had, I could look like Medusa, for all I knew. I pulled my dark hair out of its ponytail and shook it out over my shoulders. I didn’t look half bad. Two points for running into my ex-boyfriend looking not quite ravishing but still totally acceptable. My blue eyes looked bright against the green of my shirt , and thanks to the lower humidity levels of fall, my hair was actually kind of awesome—no frizz to be seen. I maybe looked a little tired, but there was no helping that, not without reapplying makeup, and there was no way I was giving Lilly that kind of satisfaction.
    “You look great, Em,” Lilly called. “Go knock him dead.”
    “I hate you,” I called over my shoulder.
    “You don’t, and you know it,” she sing-songed.
    I slipped on a pair of navy flats by the door, better than the tennis shoes I’d been wearing all night, and crossed the small entryway to Elliott’s door. I could hear the piano, just a few keys here and there, like he was puzzling out a melody. I leaned forward and listened. He repeated the same three notes, added a chord, and then suddenly it was a song . I stood with my fist inches from his door, completely mesmerized. I was a professional musician. I knew my strengths and had worked hard to build a career around them, but I’d never even attempted to compose. My brain wasn’t cut out for that kind of creativity—that kind of freedom. Listening to him build something where there had been nothing before was captivating.
    The music stopped, and something shifted, then footsteps sounded toward the door. I panicked, not wanting to get caught eavesdropping, and pounded on the door with a little more than friendly force.
    The door swung open, and there he was with the hair and the eyes and the long, graceful fingers. He stood barefoot, wearing dark jeans and a T-shirt that