As soon as she was standing in front of him, he wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her in for a tight hug. She didn’t even know what to say. She stood there stiffly for a moment and then leaned into his chest, circling his waist. She breathed out heavily and tried to hold back the tears.

“It’s going to be okay,” he murmured.

She panicked for a split second, wondering how he knew what was going on.

But then he spoke again, “Your mom mentioned your breakup to me when I came in.”

“Oh. Right.”

She wished that were the real issue. That might be bearable compared to what was really going on.

Ian didn’t have to say anything else though. They had known each other long enough for words not to matter. She had been there for him when his parents were going through issues. He had always been there when Lydia outshone Trihn and brought her pesky boyfriend on vacation. It was an easy friendship that Trihn appreciated more than ever at the moment.

Just as she was about to pull away, Lydia’s door popped open, and Preston walked out of the room. He eyed them standing there in an embrace and raised his eyebrows. Whether from surprise or interest or jealousy, she didn’t know.

Trihn quickly stepped away from Ian, her face burning. She couldn’t even place the emotion hitting her head-on. She couldn’t even look at Preston.

Thankfully, Ian stepped in. “You must be Lydia’s new boyfriend.”

He extended his hand, and Preston firmly shook it. Was that too firmly? Could he be jealous? Of Ian of all people?

Hypocrite.

“That’s right. I’m Preston,” he said. “And you are?”

“Ian Peterson. We live next door during the summer.”

“I see.”

Lydia stepped out of the room next. “Ready?” she asked, oblivious to what was going on in the hallway.

“Yeah, babe,” Preston said. He put his arm around her waist and pulled her closer.

Trihn tried not to gag. Dinner was starting to sound like a horrible idea. Maybe she could just hang out in her room for the rest of break and pretend Preston wasn’t here.

“You know, on second thought, I’m not really feeling that great. I’m going to pass on dinner. Sorry, Ian.” Trihn started backing into her room.

“What?” Ian said. “No, come on, Trihn. You can’t stay, locked away, in your room all night because some idiot broke up with you.”

Before she had a chance to respond, Ian hauled her back out of her room and started forcing her down the hallway. She opened her mouth to protest but knew it wasn’t going to work. Ian rarely put his foot down with her, and if he thought all that was wrong was some breakup, he wasn’t going to change his mind.

“There you are!” her mother said when they walked into the dining room.

It was set for six, and her mother was already arranging dinner onto some fancy-looking china.

“Lasagna! Score!” Ian said. He took a seat next to her father, who was seated at the head of the table, reading on his iPad.

“Your favorite, if I remember,” Linh said.

“Definitely.”

Trihn bit her lip and slid into the spot next to Ian. For a split second before Preston took the chair in front of her, it’d felt like every other summer with just Trihn, Lydia, and Ian joking around and having a good time. Then, a pair of big blue eyes met her eyes from across the table, and that image disintegrated.

Trihn hastily looked away. Making eye contact was a bad idea.

Linh took her chair across from Gabriel with a smile. “Okay. Dig in!”

Food was passed around, and everyone filled their plates with Linh’s amazing home-cooked food. Trihn stared down at her helping of lasagna. It was one of her favorites, too, but she didn’t even have the stomach for it. She poked at it, swirling it around on her plate, before taking a small bite.

“So,” Linh said, “are you two excited to start college in a couple of weeks?”

“Yes! I’m so ready to be back in the city,” Ian said enthusiastically.

Trihn nodded halfheartedly. “Yeah. NYU is going to be…different.”

“NYU is going to be wonderful,” Lydia cried. “Just think, I’ll be there, and Preston will be there! Renée and Ian will both be just uptown. I don’t see how it could get any better.”

“I guess.” Trihn tried to imagine what college would look like next year, and all she visualized was static. “I was offered a job,” she said, just to see what everyone would say.

“That’s wonderful,” Gabriel said.

“You won’t have time for that!” Lydia cried.

“Another modeling gig?” her mother asked, brimming with excitement.

“No. Dancing,” she said flatly.

“Dancing?” Lydia asked. She almost looked offended that Trihn would continue to pursue dance when Lydia never had. “With a company?”

Trihn let her eyes travel to Preston. He smirked when she glanced at him, and she remembered the recent night he had seen her perform at Slipper.

She swallowed hard. “You could say that.”

“Well, as long as it doesn’t interfere with school, it sounds like a good idea. Tell us more about it,” Linh said.

“I don’t have all the details yet,” Trihn said.

“Look at my two daughters. Both motivated and independent young women.”

Trihn tried not to roll her eyes, but Lydia just beamed across the table. After a minute of silence where everyone was digging into their food, Lydia glanced around and then finally settled on Trihn.

“So, what happened with your boyfriend?” Lydia asked.

Trihn met her gaze and just wanted to call her out for being a heartless bitch. Clearly, Trihn was fucking upset. What the hell?

“Lydia,” Gabriel warned. Their father only butted in on rare occasions.

“What?” Lydia asked, acting all innocent. Loving, carefree Lydia would never be anything but a pleasant, caring, wonderfully meddlesome older sister who liked to stick her nose in other people’s business.

“I really don’t want to talk about it,” Trihn ground out.

“You’re just going to leave us hanging?”

“I said,” Trihn snapped, dropping her fork, “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Okay. Fine.”

Linh cleared her throat and turned her attention away from the drama unfolding in front of her. “Ian, dear, you aren’t dating anyone at the moment, are you?”

“No, ma’am,” he said.

Trihn noticed how pink his ears were, and she just wanted to bury her face in her hands. This was even worse than she had expected, and Preston hadn’t said a fucking word.

“And you’ll be in Manhattan next year!”

Her mother’s pretend innocent routine wasn’t fooling anyone. It was clear what she was insinuating, and that was not going to happen.

“Mother!” she snapped. How embarrassing!

“Geez, Mom,” Lydia piped in. “She’s only been single a couple of hours, and already, you’re trying to hook her up with the neighbor.”

“I said nothing of the sort,” Linh responded.

“I can’t hear any more of this,” Trihn said. “I can’t even believe this is a topic of conversation.”

“Well, this lasagna is delicious,” Preston said, speaking up for the first time. All heads swiveled to him. “Thank you so much for the invitation, Mrs. Hamilton.”

Trihn saw red. Thanks for the invitation? Yeah. Thanks for the invitation to ruin my life.

“Please call me Linh,” her mother insisted.

“Mom, Preston is a marketing genius working for Glitz right now!”

“I didn’t know you worked for the magazine,” Linh said, clearly intrigued.

“Yeah. Well, I didn’t realize you were related until very recently.”

“Is that so?” Trihn asked. She leaned forward. “How recently?”

“What does it matter?” Lydia chimed in. “What matters is that he’s so amazing that he should be leading the marketing team down there.”

Trihn snorted. “He’s entry-level for the summer.”

“How do you know?” Lydia asked.

Trihn froze. Oh, yeah. “Some people can infer things, Ly. You’re both doing work study.”