The service came and went. Riley, of course, had roped Nolan into participating. He hadn't even been surprised when she'd grabbed him a plate and a yellow marker, fully expecting him to make his own mask.

After the service was over, he'd tried to recycle it. What did he need it for? But Riley had shot out a hand before he could drop it into the recycling bin. "If you throw it out, we can't be lion buddies!" she'd cried.

So, basically, now he had a lion mask.

He turned it in his hands now as he rode in the backseat of Mr. Sison's—Nathan's—car, Nora at his side. It was, to say the least, a piece of crap. Sporadic scribbles of yellow, because he was too lazy to color the whole thing. Some orange to create a mane. Different sized googly eyes because that's what Riley had handed him. Some whiskers. And a frowny face, this added by Riley, because she wanted it to look more like him.

"You know," Nora joked, "I think the mask looks just like you."

He held the mask to his face. She laughed.

"I can't even tell the difference."

He dropped the mask onto his lap, smiling.

"Though, a smiley face would have worked just as well," she said. His smile grew.

"You have your camera, right, No-No?" Willow asked from her place in the front seat.

He nodded and held up his camera bag.

"You're not going to fall asleep in the pool, are you?" Nathan said to Willow. "I kind of like you alive."

"You know she's a mermaid," Nora said.

"Crap. I forgot."

"And that fact was supposed to be a secret," Willow said, side-glancing Nolan dramatically. "Gosh. I can't tell you guys anything."

Soon enough, they pulled into Willow's driveway and hopped out of the car. A white, two-story home with an attached garage waited for them as they ambled up the pathway, toward the front porch. It was nice. The red front door reminded Nolan of Chris's house.

His stomach twisted.

"You okay?" Nora asked.

"Yeah," he said. "I'm fine."

He followed Nathan inside. In the foyer, Nathan and Willow kicked off their shoes and then set them neatly in a line on the wall. "Food!" Willow called, and disappeared into the dining room.

"Water!" Nathan said, throwing his fist in the air and following his daughter out of the room.

Nolan took off his shoes and set them next to Willow's. He was just about to follow them when Nora caught his hand.

"You sure you're okay?" she asked.

He glanced down at their hands. He was surprised and slightly terrified by the want to pull her closer. "Yeah," he said. "You?"

She smiled, and any trace of her troubled expression from earlier was gone. "Yeah."

The door burst open, and they dropped their hands.

"The party's here!" Andy shouted, entering with Erin and Max in tow. He spotted Nora and Nolan still standing by the shoes. "Oh. I yelled for no damn reason."

"Swear jar," Nora said.

Andy stuck out his tongue, then kicked off his shoes. "Last filming day!" he shouted. "Let's do this!"

✝

Setup was quick: Nolan placed the camera a safe distance from the pool and connected it to his tripod. All he had to do now was wait for Willow, Andy, Max, and Erin to gear up and get into the pool.

"It's kind of bittersweet, isn't it?" Nora asked. She had settled on the grass, at his side.

"What?" he asked.

"That today is the last day of filming."

"You and I still have to re-film your scenes," he reminded her.

"True." She smiled. "But as a group. This is it."

He nodded. It was. While there was a sense of accomplishment with nearing the finish line, he was disappointed that this phase was coming to an end. It had been a lot of fun. "Maybe we can make another one sometime," he said.

She smiled, but didn't answer.

"Woo!"

Andy and Max burst from the house and across the patio, straight for the pool.

"Mind the camera!" Nolan shouted.

They slowed. Nolan and Nora laughed.

Willow and Erin emerged from the house at a much more leisurely pace. Before getting into the pool, Willow dragged out a large unicorn float from the pool house and announced, "I have deemed this a prop. It'll represent my having entered a brighter phase of life and my utter exhaustion from having stayed up too late."

"Beautiful," Nora said.

"I approve," Erin said.

Willow grinned.

"Okay, guys, remember you're all having fun with your friends," Nolan said.

"Question," Max said. "Can we splash each other?"

"Yes."

"Nolan, I love you, but that upsets me," Willow said.

They laughed.

"At this point, I think it's safe to be yourselves," Nolan said. "Just think back to the barbecue."

The barbecue. How was that only a few months ago? He had to have been friends with them for years now.

"Ooh, this is gonna be good." Max wriggled his eyebrows.

"Oh no," Erin and Willow said.

Nolan turned his attention to the camera, hovered a finger over the Record button, and counted down from three with his fingers. "Action!" he called.

As they splashed and laughed and swam, he panned the camera across the length of the pool. He did this a few times, shifting angles and levels of zoom. He was lucky the volume would be shut off, because when Willow kicked water at Andy, and he sent her float soaring, a loud snort escaped before he could stop it, which only made Nora laugh loudly.

"Cut!"

Max got one more splash in, slapping water right into Willow's face. She swiped water from her eyes. "Pretty sure he said cut," she said.

"Rules are made to be broken."

She kicked water at him, and he coughed as he caught a mouthful.

"Okay," he said. "Willow, the focus is going to be on you now, okay?"

Willow gave him a thumb's up. "Any notes?"

"You're doing good," he said. "Just channel that feeling you have when a burden has been lifted from your shoulders."

"Got it."

She shifted her shoulders and adjusted her bathing suit's straps. With another thumb's up, he zoomed in, drawing Willow closer to the edges of the frame. He edged a little to the left, positioning her in the rightmost third of the frame.

"Action!"

Willow smiled, laughed, and looked totally happy and at peace as she splashed around. He let the camera roll for about five minutes, just capturing as many moments he could with as much variety as he could.

"Cut!" He looked to Nora. "Is there anything else?"

She scrolled through her phone. "Nope," she said.

"Maybe we should get shots of them getting out of the pool," he said.

"Ooh, that could be good."

"Okay, guys," he said. "We're gonna get some shots of you getting out of the pool."

"Okay!" they chorused.

"That means I have to get off the float, doesn't it?" Willow said.

"I'll help you," Max said.

Nolan pressed Record.

"Don't you d—"

Max grabbed the base of the float, and with one great heave, flipped it over. Willow screamed as she toppled into the water.

"You got that on camera, right?" Nora whispered.

"Of course, I did."

She laughed and held out her hand. He slapped it.

Nolan zoomed in as Willow emerged from the water, not unlike the shark from Jaws and the girl from The Ring. He pressed his lips together to keep from laughing as she flipped her hair away from her face. "Max?" she said.

Max's laughter cut short. "Yeah?"

"You're so dead."

She pounced.

✝

"That's a wrap on the fine fam from alabam!" Nora shouted.

Cheers melded in the air, and Nolan smiled. A wrap.

While bathing suits were being replaced with clothes, Nolan flipped through the footage they'd captured. Nora peered over his shoulder, and he angled the camera so she could see, too.

"You're so talented," she said.

"Thanks."

"I'll calculate how much I owe you for the week tonight," she said.

"Okay," he said. Just in time for the next round of bills.

"And when you get into editing, just keep a tab on how many hours you've spent, and send me the total," she said.

He nodded. "Sounds good."

She was so trusting. If he was a different person, he could take advantage, saying he worked more hours than he had.

Andy poked his head out the screen door. "Yo, let's eat!" he shouted. "I'm starving!"

Soon enough, they were all lounging on the back patio, chips, cookies, pretzels, and crackers between them.

"I can't believe we're done," Andy said through a mouthful of chips. "What am I supposed to do with my life now? Start an acting career?"

They laughed.

"I need music," Erin said. She tugged her phone out of her pocket. "Any requests?"

"You do you," Max said.

"Ah!" Nora said as the first song started playing. It was one Nolan recognized, but couldn't place. "I love this song. Seriously, it comes on every time I need it to. It's amazing."

"I love it when that happens," Willow said, bobbing her head to the beat. "God has good taste in jams, huh?"

"How do you know it's Him?" Nolan didn't even plan to ask. It just happened. "Couldn't it just be a coincidence?"

The girls shrugged. "Could be," Willow said, "but I don't think so."

"Why?"

"For me, it's this gut feeling," Nora said, grabbing a potato chip from a plastic plate. "I just know God is there, and He had something to do with what just happened."

"How do you know?"

"It's a feeling." She scrunched her face, then shrugged. "Like, I can just feel His presence. I don't know how else to describe it. Sorry."

Willow nodded. "Same here."

Nolan bit into a chocolate chip cookie. He'd never had that sort of feeling before. He'd heard of something similar, like when a loved one was hurt, and you just knew something was wrong. He hadn't felt a thing the night his parents had died.

"For me, the signs come with hearing something right when I need to," Nora said. "Whether it's By Your Side by Tenth Avenue North, or when Ryan says something that just really hits home for me. Or when I really want to hear someone's voice and they call, like, two seconds later."

He straightened. That night, when he randomly decided to invite her to play Twister...

Was it really random?

Of course, it was.

"When I really want to hear someone's voice and they call."

Coincidence. It had to be. Besides, she wasn't talking about him.

"For me, it's looking out at my yard or the street or whatever, and having it click that, wow, God made all of this." Willow bit into a pretzel. "I can't even make an origami crane."

Nora laughed.

"For me, it's this clarity I get sometimes when I pray," Max piped in. "Like a calmness just washes over me."

Nolan looked out at the yard, at the pool, with the unicorn float abandoned in the water, at the grass, which was due for a mowing. At the large oak tree.

If he did believe, he would have to admit: it was an amazing thought, to know that someone had actually built all of this. Humans could plant trees, grow grass, build houses and massive machinery. But, if He was real, He built the sky. He built the atmosphere. He built the earth.

"Who wants to watch a movie?" Willow asked.

"Depends," Andy said. "Are you going to talk through the whole thing?"

"Come on, Candy Cane," she said. "Don't you know me at all?"

He sighed. "Fine. But...I call picking the movie!"

He scrambled from the table. Willow raced after him, shouting, "Nuh-uh! My house, my movie!"

Max snatched the bowl of cookies and hurried after them. Erin followed, laughter on her lips.

Nora stood, but Nolan remained sitting, lost in thought.

"You okay?" she asked.

"I don't know if I believe in all of this," he said.

"I know."

He looked up.

"I think what you need to figure out is if you don't believe in Him," she said, "or if you're angry with Him. Once you do, things might be a little clearer."

He wasn't quite sure he believed that, either. What difference did it make? But even though he didn't trust this maybe-God, he did trust Nora. "Okay," he said.

She held out her hand. "Okay then," she said. "Let's go watch a movie."

He smiled a little, took her hand, and allowed her to pull him out of his chair. He didn't let go of her hand until the door slid shut behind them.