“Sorry,” Frank said, and while I had a feeling he was trying to sound contrite, this was undercut slightly by the fact that he also looked like he was on the verge of cracking up. “I got your cell number and address from the school directory. I didn’t mean to wake you up—I guess I figured that if you weren’t awake, you wouldn’t . . . you know, come outside.”

I nodded, like this was a normal conversation. But part of me was still reeling at the fact that this was happening at all. I honestly couldn’t understand how I had gone, in the course of a week, from not speaking to Frank Porter, to knowing he had a sneaky hot body, to standing half naked in front of him.

“So,” he said, glancing down at my feet with a smile, “is this the barefoot running trend I keep reading about?”

“Oh,” I said. My face felt hot, like it was on fire, and I had a feeling it was bright red, which probably looked just fantastic with the white zit cream. “Um, no. Ha ha. I just . . .”

“Emily?” I turned and saw my dad standing behind me, wearing his robe and slippers and carrying his laptop, his glasses perched on top of his head. I truly hadn’t thought this could get any worse. But apparently Frank Porter was going to see the entire Hughes family in their pajamas this morning.

“Dad,” I said, hearing how strangled my voice sounded.

“Have you seen my glasses?” he asked, not, apparently, thinking anything was strange about the fact that his daughter was awake at eight a.m. and standing in the doorway in her pajamas, talking to a boy he’d never met.

“They’re on your head, sir,” Frank supplied from the porch.

My father reached up and patted his head, then nodded and put them on. Then he squinted out at Frank. “Do I know you?”

“That’s Frank,” I managed. It was possible to die of embarrassment, right? The expression had to have come from somewhere. “We were just, um, going running.”

“Oh,” my dad said. He stared at Frank a moment longer, then looked at me and frowned. “Well, be sure to put some shoes on.” Then he continued on inside, no doubt heading to the dining room to start working.

“Okay,” I managed. “I’ll just go upstairs and put on something to run in. And then I’ll be back.”

“I’ll be here,” Frank said, and it looked like he was trying—though not very hard—to suppress a grin.

I nodded but, not wanting to turn around, backed up until I reached the doorway, then took a big step backward and shut the door. I leaned against it, closing my eyes, wondering for just a moment if I was actually in a nightmare. Surely this qualified.

Ten minutes later, I’d washed my face and put on a long-sleeved T-shirt and long leggings with my running shoes. It was already getting hot outside, but I felt that I needed to balance out the accidental half-nudity that had started my morning. “Ready to go?” I asked as I joined Frank outside, iPod in hand. I was hoping that if I was brusque and businesslike, he’d forget all about the state I’d shown up in.

“Sure,” he said, walking to the end of the driveway with me. I could tell that he was trying to catch my eye, but I busied myself with selecting my new playlist and adjusting the volume, not putting in my earbuds yet or pressing play, since I still wasn’t sure what the etiquette with that was.

“Ready?” I asked. Frank nodded, and we started running, me on the outside like before. I kept the pace slower, knowing that I certainly needed a warm-up, as my muscles were cold.

“So I guess I surprised you this morning?” Frank asked after a few minutes of silent running, and I got the feeling that he hadn’t been able to keep this to himself any longer.

“A little bit,” I said, realizing now that I was surprised—I hadn’t expected him to want to keep running.

“I said we should do it again, and you said anytime,” he said. “I remember you did.”

“I thought you were kidding,” I replied. “It didn’t look like you’d really had a good time.”

“Nothing worth doing is easy,” Frank said. “Especially not in the beginning. But I’m not about to give up.”

“Wow,” I said, shaking my head. We ran in silence for a few steps, just the sound of our sneakers hitting the pavement, occasionally finding the same rhythm and landing in sequence, then falling out of it once more.

“Wow what?” Frank asked, a defensive note I hadn’t heard before creeping into his voice.

“No,” I said quickly, wishing I’d never said anything. “Nothing. Never mind.” Frank nodded and looked straight ahead, his mouth set in a thin line and a dull flush of color in his cheeks. Oh god. Had I just insulted him? If Sloane were here, I could have asked her this question with my eyes, and she would have been able to answer me in the same way. But of course, if Sloane were here, I wouldn’t be running with Frank Porter at all. “I didn’t mean anything bad,” I started, wondering even as I spoke if I should have just let this go. “I just meant that it makes sense.”

There was a low-hanging branch in front of us, and we both ducked in unison to avoid it. “What does?”

“Just that you’d have that attitude,” I said, trying to articulate what had been an instantaneous reaction. “It’s understandable. I mean, because of who you are.” Frank looked over at me, and from his expression, I hadn’t cleared anything up, but had just made things worse.

“Who I am?” he repeated, his voice quiet.

“Yeah,” I said, now really wishing I’d let things go and not tried to explain anything. I didn’t even know Frank Porter; why was I attempting to tell him who he was? I had the distinct feeling like I was not awake enough to handle this conversation. “You’re Frank Porter. You’re good at everything.”

“Not at running,” he pointed out. “I’m terribleat that.”

“But you’re not giving up, like you said. So you probably will be soon.”

Frank looked straight ahead, and we didn’t speak for a few minutes, and I wondered if I’d overstepped, made things worse when I was trying to make them better. I was on the verge of trying to figure out how to apologize when Frank asked, “So how’s the list coming?”

“You got my e-mail?” I asked, and he nodded. Even though I told myself it was a long shot, I could feel my hopes start to rise. Maybe there had been something in the list I’d just been overlooking, and the answer was right there, had been there all along. “Did you find anything?”

Frank shook his head, and I felt my hopes deflate. “But I’ve just started to look,” he said, shooting me a quick smile. “And in the meantime, I had some ideas.”

I looked over at him, then had to do an awkward skipping movement over a rock that had shown up in my path. But I was glad for the distraction; it allowed me to try and process how strange it was to hear Frank talking about my list like it was just ordinary, when it had been my secret, something I’d been turning over and over in my head but not ever talking about. “What do you mean, ideas?”

“For finishing your list,” he said, like this should have been obvious. “I can help you, if you want.” I looked back at the road ahead, trying to sort through how I felt about this. It was one thing to go running twice with Frank Porter. This would be something else. “I’m seriously in need of a project,” he went on. “I mean, even Collins has a summer project.”

“He does?”

“He decided he’s going to have a girlfriend by the end of the summer. Or, as he insists on putting it, a steady hang.”

“And how’s that going?”

Frank laughed. “About as well as you’d imagine. And I get to hear about it every day at work.”

We ran in silence for a while then, but it didn’t feel uncomfortable, and when I looked back at Frank, he held up his iPod, like asking if it was okay if we turned them on. I nodded and slipped my own earbuds in, listening to the same mix I had run to before. It was actually nice, running next to Frank but not feeling the pressure to say the right thing or keep the conversation going. It looked like he was occasionally laughing as he ran, which I didn’t get, unless he was listening to someone like They Might Be Giants, which was about as far into the nineties as I ventured. We had gone farther this time, and we were almost at the entrance to the town beach. I pointed ahead at it, and Frank nodded, and maybe it was because we’d raced to the end before, but we both started sprinting. My muscles weren’t protesting quite as loudly this time, but it was still a struggle to pick up my pace. I reached the carved wooden sign indicating the beach entrance before Frank did, but not by much. We both just gasped for breath for a few seconds, then Frank took his earbuds out and smiled at me. “Nicely done.”