He tilted his head over each shoulder as if to shrug. “So, I gotta ask-” He threw a grape above his head and caught it between his teeth. “Given what happened a year ago with this same boy, what’re you going to do when he falls for you? What happens when… this time… you can’t give him up.”

Charley pulled one hand out from under the other, noting James stopped his massage, and Lily stared at her.

Cael nodded once. “And this time… you don’t have to?”

At the end of the four weeks, could she disappear-return to her made-up homeland of New Zealand-and leave Wyatt none the wiser?

Wyatt found her in the cafeteria, surrounded by students. Light danced off her hair, which she had pulled up into a tail. Laughter rang from her entourage. He wanted to run up, scatter the crowd and keep her for himself.

Idiot! You’re hung up on a girl who’s gonna leave.

Instead, he sauntered-not too slow, not too fast-toward the group. A lowly freshman caught his gaze and whispered to another. As soon as Wyatt reached them, the entire group dispersed to other tables. In what used to be the center of the flock, Mira sat, books and bag under her folded arms, relaxed and comfortable.

“Uh, hi!” Wyatt stood, hands in his pockets, longing for a less awkward reunion.

“Hi!” As she tilted her head in his direction, her curls escaped from her band and dropped onto her shoulder.

Wyatt fought the desire to reach out and twirl them, to pull her face right up to his and be the man his friends all thought him. He shook off the fantasy and let himself fall onto the seat next to her.

“So. Um…”

The corners of her mouth turned upward. “Um?”

Idiot! He screamed in his head again. After a number of ‘ahems’ and a few fantastical delusions, he tried a second time. “Sorry, allergies.” The lie worked as well as it could, which he assumed meant not at all. “Uh… so, how’s day number two?”