“So,” Isaac began a minute later, returning to the living room, triumphantly holding his acoustic guitar in his hand, “do you know how to play?”

“No, genius,” I said, rolling my eyes, “I just wanted to comment on how pretty it was. Yes, I know how to play.”

Ike held up his free hand innocently as he gave the guitar to me. I smiled at him and rested the body of the guitar on my thigh. Just as I reached into my back pocket, Isaac held a pick out to me. “Don’t you want this?” he asked.

“No,” I said, pulling a rounded triangle of plastic from my jeans. “I have my own.” I held it up to Isaac’s pick and made an astounding discovery: “Hey, they look the same. What’dya know?”

Isaac smiled. “Well, they sell this pick everywhere,” he said logically. Then, sitting beside me, he added, “What all do you keep in your back pockets, anyway? A little notebook and pencil, your wallet, a guitar pick? What else is in there?”

I almost said, “Why don’t you take a look for yourself?”, but then rethought it.

Before I could come up with something else to say, Ike added, “Why do you keep a notebook in your pocket anyhow?”

“Just in case I ever meet a guy I think I might like,” I told him. “Supposing we want to exchange phone numbers.” I smiled. “But, of course, that doesn’t really apply when I’m staying at that guy’s house in his bedroom.”

Before he could reply, I turned my attention to the guitar and plucked each of it’s six strings. As the pick passed over each one, I made a face. “Jeez, when was the last time you tuned this thing?” I demanded. Before he could respond, I took the liberty of tuning it myself. A minute later, I looked up at him and smiled, picking each of the strings again. “See? That’s what it’s supposed to sound like.”

“You’re a sarcastic one, aren’t you?” Ike asked with a smile.

I shrugged. “One of my better qualities, I suppose,” I said simply. With a small smile, I turned my attention to the neck of the guitar. The fingers of my left hand formed the G chord and I strummed the strings. I nodded softly to myself, happy I could still form bar chords on an acoustic.

“Are you just going to sit there all day?” Isaac asked.

I looked up at him. “Isn’t patience a virtue?” I replied. Isaac gave a wry smile. I smiled back and began playing.

Now, to remember how this goes, I thought. I hadn’t played in at least a month and I didn’t have the best of all memories. G . . . B minor . . . C . . . D . . . I recited mentally.

After a moment, Ike smiled at me. I knew he recognized the song. If he didn’t, either he had a worse memory than I did, or I was a terrible guitarist. However, neither of these seemed to be the case when Isaac began singing.

“Out my window / A memory / I’m dying inside / I know the way it should be . . .”

It was kind of weird hearing Isaac singing these lines when I was used to hearing Taylor’s voice. Still, I wasn’t complaining. I adored Isaac’s voice, and hearing him sing all the verses of “Madeline” was almost a dream for me.

I looked from the neck of the guitar to Isaac’s face as I played. He smiled each time I glanced at him and I, in turn, smiled at him.

Near the end of the song, Ike abruptly stopped singing. “What?” I asked, resting my fingers over the guitar strings to mute the sound. “Did you forget the words?”

He shook his head. “No. I just noticed that you were playing it wrong. And - you weren’t barring the chord right.”

I looked at him critically. “Is that all, O Guitar God?” I asked sarcastically.

Isaac gave me an equally critical look. “Hey, I think I know what I’m talking about, okay?” he said simply. “I mean, come on.”

I shrugged. “You’re right,” I agreed. “So, what am I doing wrong, exactly?”

He slid over on the couch so that he was positioned behind me and looped his left arm up around mine. Pressing down on the fingers of my left hand with those of his own, Isaac strummed the strings with the thumb of his free hand. “That’s what it should sound like,” he informed me. “You were doing it right at the beginning but then you started messing up.”

I nodded. It was nice having Isaac this close; his hair tickling my cheeks, his breath in my ear. The warmth of his body against my back. And he really did smell good.

And he has soft lips.

“Other than that,” Isaac continued, breaking up my thoughts, “it sounded really good. How long have you been playing?”

I shrugged. “A few years. A little more, maybe. I can’t remember for sure.”

He nodded. “Well, you’re doing a bang-up job, mate,” he said in an Australian accent.

I grinned. “Yeah, that was cute,” I told him.

He cocked an eyebrow at me. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

I shrugged innocently. “What? It’s cute,” I said with a smile.

“No, no,” Isaac said with a slight nod of his head. “Zoë is cute.”

“Then what are you?” I demanded.

“I’m seventeen!” he said obviously. “I think I outgrew ‘cute’ a decade ago.”

I took his chin between my thumb and pointer fingers and tilted his head slightly. “Nope,” I told him seriously, “definitely haven’t outgrown ‘cute’ yet.”

At this comment, Isaac blushed. For a moment, he said nothing. Finally, he grinned. “Jaye? Are you ticklish?”

“No,” I replied quickly.

Isaac kept grinning. “No, really,” he pressed.

“No,” I repeated. “It’s Evie who’s the ticklish one, not me,” I insisted.

He didn’t listen. Instead, Isaac poked my sides. I jumped nearly a foot into the air. “Not ticklish, huh?” he asked, preparing for another attack.

I took the guitar from my leg and set it on the floor, trying to catch hold of his hands. “Clarke Isaac, don’t you dare!” I began.

But it was too late. Isaac’s hands were at my sides once more and I found myself writhing around on the couch, giggling. “Stop!” I gasped. “I can’t breathe!” However, he didn’t stop. Ike just continued to smile, fingers still running over my sides. I gasped for air between giggles and tried to grab his hands. “Stop!”

“Never!” he called dramatically.

“Clarke Isaac Hanson, what are you doing?”

Isaac and I turned toward the voice to see Diana standing in the doorway, Zoë in arms.