“Well, you’re kinda stuck with me now, so …” Beau squeezed her knee again. “I liked it, what I saw when we were out there.”

Granted, Northern California was practically an entirely different world from the southern half of the state, but still.

“Hey, Kar?” she asked suddenly, because it was something she’d been wondering vaguely for a while anyway. “Do you think your friends would — I don’t know, I guess it doesn’t really matter, but would they, I don’t know. Approve of me?”