Your father hadn't spoken since the town limits. Your mother kept smoothing her skirt, watching the sprawling estates roll by like something out of a magazine.

Then the car slowed.

Iron gates. Wrought and black, parting automatically as your father pulled up to the intercom.

The driveway was long—lined with maples, leading to a house that looked like it belonged in a film. White columns. Wide windows. A fountain in the circular drive.

And on the front steps, a figure.

Tall. Broad-shouldered. Leaning against a pillar with his arms crossed, a lacrosse stick propped beside him. He was watching the car approach with an expression you couldn't quite read—half boredom, half something sharper.

He pushed off the pillar as you stepped out.