Sadie’s stomach did a strange rise and fall like she’d raced down a huge dip on a roller coaster. Butterflies swarmed her belly. She tried to hold back a nervous smile, but failed. She couldn’t help it. She’d been on other first dates—too many of which never turned into a second date—but this one with Rory felt different in a good way. In a way that she didn’t quite get. Maybe because she didn’t quite get Rory, but it still felt right. He felt right. “There’s your guy. You look real pretty, honey.” Her father stared up at her from his favorite chair in the living room, a celebrity news program on the TV. “You look so much like your mother.” Sadie smiled, remembering her mother leaning over the counter toward the mirror, putting on lipstick to go out on a date with her father. She’d pressed her lips together and made a funny popping noise, then smiled down at Sadie. She’d kissed Sadie goodbye that night and Sadie made that same popping noise as her mother waved goodbye and left her and Connor with the sitter to go out with their dad.
