I close my eyes. “Mama’s not here, right?”

Aunt Clara puts down a nearly demolished bowl of mac and cheese and eases in, always ready for a conspiracy. “She’s at the Piggly Wiggly; then she’s getting her tires rotated and oil changed.” Her eyes flare as she watches the video. “What on earth were you thinking, Giselle!”

Mama knows about the fire. I called her the next day, but she doesn’t know I went back for the pearls, and she doesn’t know I’m staying with Devon. I haven’t mentioned the guy from Walmart to her, because Devon is private and asked me not to.

“You’re staying with Devon,” Topher announces, and I gape.

“What? How did you—”

He nudges his head toward the huge window in front of the salon. “For someone so smart, you forget I see all. Might start working at a psychic hotline.” He holds up a finger. “First, you drove Red here.” A second finger appears. “Second, and most telling, last night a black Hummer whizzed through town. There’s only one vehicle like that I know of and only one hot-as-heck wide receiver who drives it.” A third finger springs up. “Next, I saw you in the passenger seat. Windows down, music blaring as you swigged a beer.”

I shake my head. We did have to drive past his new rental because there’s only one road into Daisy. “Geez, I really hate small towns. Why were you even awake?”

“Out walking Romeo. He’d had too many cucumbers and had to go.”

Romeo is Elena’s small pet pig, and Topher and Mama are alternating babysitting while she’s in Hawaii.

I sigh. “My car is still in the shop from the busted window, and Devon was sweet enough to let me borrow his.”

His eyes dance. “His superexpensive baby. Where did you say you were staying since the fire?”

I forgave him too easily. “I didn’t.”

“Giselle?” Aunt Clara asks, lips curled. “Are you shacking up with Devon?”

Shifting my feet, I adjust my glasses.

“Giselle?” Topher waggles his eyebrows. “Where are you sleeping at night?”

I throw my hands up. “At the penthouse! But there’s nothing going on.” I cover my face. “Just let me be the one to tell Mama.”

“Oh Lordy, Cynthia can take it. Jack is going to flip,” she says.

I stiffen, recalling Jack’s warning to the players. “It’s my life. Jack just worries because of Preston.”

Topher grimaces.

“What?” I ask, sensing a shift in the air.

He bites his lip. “Preston is dating Shelia Wheeler. I’ve seen them at the pizza place a few times.”

“Oh.” Shelia was in Romeo and Juliet with me. Gorgeous girl.

He flicks his gaze to Aunt Clara, and they share a look.

“And?” I ask.

She shrugs. “Her aunt Birdie says it’s serious between them. She comes in every week with the lowdown.”

A sting hits me, yet there’s something flat around the edges. “Well, we all know he moves fast. He jumped from Elena to me in a heartbeat.” I plop down in the seat Aunt Clara vacated and stare at myself in the mirror.

“The usual today?” she says, and I grimace. I come in every third Friday for a trim, predictable and boring as usual.

My mind churns as I glare at myself. “Not cutting an inch today, Aunt Clara. We’re gonna do something crazy.”

Her eyebrows arch. “Spiral perm with loose curls? Lots of volume . . . yes, yes, yes . . .”

I roll my eyes. “I don’t want to revisit the nineties.”

Topher jumps in. “I’m thinking red. Dark and mysterious, à la Devil’s Angels.”

“That’s Elena’s color.”

“We can add some depth with some lowlights?” Aunt Clara says, lifting a blonde lock and twirling it around. She’s disappointed about the perm.

If I’m going to be cliché and change my hair after a breakup, I’m going to make it worth it. A curl of excitement makes me smile.

“Giselle. I don’t know if I can!” Aunt Clara says after I describe the vision I have, bringing up a few pics from my Pinterest board to show her Kate.

“You are amazing, the best stylist in town—”

“I’m the only one in town besides your mama,” she replies. “You have your birthday coming up and—”

Emotion clogs my throat, feelings I think I’m in control of, yet apparently not. “I want to be different.” A badass who knows how to drive a spaceship. “Just do it. Before Mama gets back.”

A long sigh comes from her. “Never change for anyone except yourself.”

“It’s not for anyone. It’s for me.” I’ve decided it really is.

“You’re sure?”

A while later, she’s rinsing the color from my hair as we discuss my book, when Topher brings my cell over. “It’s been going off straight for the past five minutes. Someone named ‘Corey From Class.’ Thought you might need to get it.”

After sitting up, I wrap my hair in a towel and call him back.

“What’s going on?” I ask.

Corey breathes heavily, his voice low. “Ms. Riley, I really hate to bug you. I know you study all the time.”

I look around at the Cut ’N’ Curl. “Um, yeah. It’s cool. Just wrapped up some research.” On my romance book.

“Class was bad. Me and . . . say hi, Addison!”

I hear her voice in the background. “Hey, Ms. Riley!”

“We had a terrible fu—freaking teacher today, one of those TAs, only we didn’t understand a word he said. Talked in fu—freaking circles about relativity and black holes for an hour, and now he wants a summary of what we learned emailed to him by tonight. I can copy straight out of Wikipedia, but you know I really want to understand.” He huffs. “The jerk ruined one of the coolest things in space.”

“Black holes are still awesome,” I assure him.

Aunt Clara pops an eyebrow. “Are they?”

I shoo her.

Another huff from Corey. “To me, black holes are the vacuum cleaners of the universe, and when I said that, he nearly flipped a table. He also said they’re invisible and don’t even suck everything!” He exhales. “In Zanthia, it’s a swirling black spiral that you can clearly see, and it destroys a whole fleet! All the good space movies are ruined. It’s okay when you do it, but not him.”

Annoyance at my cohort makes me frown. Why stifle a kid’s imagination and dismiss a somewhat fair analogy? It’s not really a vacuum, but it’s a common misconception. “What he meant is that black holes don’t really suck; they have a gravitational pull, just like everything does, plus an event horizon, and once matter passes that point, it will be pulled in. Also, event horizons appear to emit a light when accelerating matter passes the boundary, so invisible is not quite accurate. What was his name?” I usually pay attention only to my teaching schedule and not everyone else’s.

“See!” he calls to Addison. “Dude was a dick. I don’t know his name. He never told us.”

I close my eyes. Why couldn’t he try to be personable with these kids? “Back to the vacuum and the idea that it sucks everything—you ever watch Sesame Street and see Cookie Monster devour cookies?”