With quivering fingers, Jacey checked her phone before shunting it back into the pocket of her white sundress. There was no missed call. No message. Somehow, incredibly, Pamela still did not know.

She looked up to see her mother marching into her room, her sharp features lit with curiosity.

"Why aren't you preparing for the dance?"

"I'm not going".

"Why ever not? You're the one who did most of the organizing. Even last night you were calling around for it".

Jacey searched her mother's face for any sign that she knew. Instead there was a flicker of softness in her dark eyes, a softness that drew the truth out of her, "It was always Pamela's party and on Tuesday, Pamela uninvited me."

"She can't do that."

Jacey just looked at her. Of course she could. Pamela was Seabrook's social queen, the fun finder, the connecter. She brought together all the solitary farmers, the hermits, the old maids and the singletons and meddled until romance emerged. Four marriages were credited to her and Jacey shimmered in her sparkle.

It was the other purpose of the parties she disliked. There always had to be someone admiring Pamela now Dillon Spencer had left town. Someone pursuing her, dancing with her, bringing her drinks, telling her she was beautiful. This time Pamela decided that person would be Mitchell.

When Jacey protested, Pamela merely smirked in reply, her doll-like features taking on a superior air. "I'll be doing you a favour, Jacey. He stopped writing to you, didn't he? He's as bad as Dillion. You can only rely on your girlfriends." Pamela posed like an actress delivering a line, before she dancing off around her stylishly decorated bedroom. Jacey wanted to defend Mitchell, to say he was just a kid when he stopped writing, but she didn't. Instead, she sat there, remembering him.

The first time they had met, she was curled up in the soft green grass of her front lawn. He ran over to her and pecked her on the cheek.

"You kissed me," she accused, flushed and flustered as she got to her feet, aware of all the amused adults watching.

His forehead wrinkled. "Mom said you'd like it. That girls always do."

"Well, I don't," she said, taking in his wild brown hair, rumpled top and cheeky air. "Kisses are for true love and weddings, not cousins."

A roar of adult laughter greeted her words and she ran off into the garden, sulking.

He followed her eventually, holding out a large red rose he'd swiped from a nearby bush.

"Would you like this?"

"No," she said, still remembering the laughter.

His tanned face drooped. "Oh. Flowers always make Mom happier". He let the rose slip through his fingers.

She looked at it splayed on the ground and picked it up, smoothing the ruffled petals as he walked away, down the path to the beach, her beach. She chased after him.

"You're it," she said gleefully, smacking him on the shoulder and dashing off, making it to the lookout at the beach before him.

He soon caught her and the rest of the afternoon passed in milkshakes and games.

Mitchell was eleven years old when he came again, staying for the summer while his mother went travelling around the world with her new boyfriend. They were instant allies, fighting in cubby wars against Jed and Adam who were her neighbours.

It was only when they were forced inside that they battled each other, turning the simplest tasks into competitive challenges. Even the duets they played on her mother's old piano were executed at top speed, so that Jacey had to race her fingers to keep up with him until the song dissolved into a crazy cacophony and they were laughing too hard to continue.

When he left, it seemed like their family was all wrong somehow, even though Mitchell was only a second cousin once removed. At first, he sent postcards every week from his new home in Tokyo. Jacey wrote back but she found copying his Japanese address onto the envelope a gymnastic exercise she never quite mastered. When her letters were returned, unopened, Dad said not to worry, it was usual enough for Mitchell's mother to shift around. As time passed, they stopped talking about Mitchell, filling his absence with a shaggy-haired puppy named Ralph.

Then last Sunday she'd seen a man with tamed curls and a blue shirt sitting in front of her in church. He had caught her staring and gave her a wink, blink, wink. Her breathing stilled as she realised it was Mitchell, giving her their special signal. She returned it and saw him grin, a trace of the boy reappearing. Then she felt a nudge in her side as Pamela hissed, "Who is that?"

What do you think Pamela will do when she finds out who it is?

*******

Thank you so much for reading the first instalment of this story. If you have enjoyed it so far, please vote and comment.