They talked for two hours. Then they met again the following week. And the week after that. Eli never asked her to explain Tyler. He wanted to know why she’d chosen nursing, which books she loved, why she hated raisins, and why she always checked a restaurant’s health-inspection grade before ordering.

Maddie learned that Eli woke at six every Sunday to make breakfast for his mother, Diane. He loved minor-league baseball, old jazz records, and repairing broken furniture he found beside the road.

He had kept every community-college textbook, because he still meant to finish what he’d started.

Their first kiss did not happen in the ballroom. It happened four months later, in Frank’s driveway, after Eli spent six hours helping replace the transmission in the service van.

Frank watched from the kitchen window and pretended not to.

Tyler made three payments toward the wedding expenses, then stopped. Maddie’s attorney filed suit. When Tyler accused her of humiliating him, she replied through counsel that consequences were not humiliation.