“I won’t ask you to trust me today,” Brandon said.

“I wouldn’t trust me in your position.”

That answer almost unsettled me more than a sales pitch would have.

I remembered Paige standing in this same doorway eight years earlier, awkwardly asking whether I minded if she stayed for supper.

Ryan had introduced her as his girlfriend and blushed like a schoolboy.

She brought a packet of store-bought cookies because she was afraid of arriving empty-handed.

I told her she could come to my table without gifts.