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her composure.
    He chuckled. “Neither can I, but I think it could still be fun.”
    “With me?”
    “Yes, Quinn. With you. I want to go to the Valentine Dance with you. Actually dancing is optional.”
    A strange fluttering feeling filled her stomach. Shoving her hands under her legs to stop them from shaking, she gathered up whatever courage she had. “Okay, sure.”
    “You’ll go with me?”
    “Yes, I’ll go with you.”
    Zander’s face lit up with a smile that did strange things to her insides. She had to work to catch her breath as she watched him shift the truck into drive.
    They were both silent for the short trip, but the grin on Zander’s face didn’t diminish. By the time he pulled into the driveway in front of her house, she was smiling too, suddenly a little giddy.
    “So … I’ll see you at school on Monday?” She was unsure how this whole process worked. Did his asking her to the dance change other things between them?
    “Um, no, actually. Next week is the senior football ski trip. We leave early Monday morning, and won’t be back until after school on Friday.”
    “Oh, right.” She’d never thought about any of the senior football players at school before; she was surprised to discover that the thought of them being gone on Monday was a little … disappointing.
    “I can text you, though,” he said as he climbed out of the cab. A second later she was grateful that she was still too much in shock to remember how to open the door and get herself out, because she would have felt awkward when he showed up to do it for her.
    He walked her up to the porch, and they stood there for a minute. She could feel her cheeks turning pink, and it wasn’t just from the cold.
    “Do you want me to text you?” he asked, sounding a little nervous again.
    She nodded, slowly coming to understand that she very much did .
    “All right, then …” He hesitated, and then quickly brushed his lips against her forehead. Heat flashed all the way to her toes, and she had a hard time catching her breath as she watched him walk back to the truck, grinning the whole way.
    By the time she let herself into the house, she couldn’t contain her own grin. She took her coat off slowly, arranging it carefully on a hanger as she tried to process what had just happened.
    “So, how was it?” Her mother’s voice from behind her startled her, and the hanger clattered noisily to the floor.
    “It was fun,” she said, once her heart had started beating again.
    “Did anything interesting happen?”
    Her heart nearly stopped again at the inflection in her mom’s voice. “You knew?”
    “I knew that Zander wanted to ask you something.”
    She let out a heavy sigh. “Oh my gosh, Mom. You and Maggie …”
    “Are no different than you and Abigail.” Her mother smiled.
    Quinn felt a stab of guilt at those words. Lately she hadn’t been telling Abigail much of anything.
    “Now,” her mom started, sitting down on the end of the couch, “I want details.”
    “Mom!” She rolled her eyes, but sat down next to her, the excited, fluttery feeling returning to her stomach. “Tell me what you know first.”
    “I want to hear it from your side.”
    “No deal. You first.”
    This time it was her mother doing the eye-rolling. “Well, I know that Zander was going to ask you to the dance.”
    “You and Maggie were in on that?” Quinn was mortified.
    Her mother laughed. She didn’t even have the courtesy to be embarrassed at being caught. “Why wouldn’t we be?” she teased. “Maggie and I have been joking about the two of you getting together since you were toddlers and one of you would cry whenever it was finally time to separate you. Zander used to kiss you on the forehead and call you ‘my best fwiend Quinn.’ How could we resist being in on it when he finally got up the courage to ask you to a Valentine dance?”
    Her heart was racing. She didn’t think she was ready for this to be quite such a big event. “Mom, it’s