Prudence “Prue” Welch lives with her parents in Baysville, where she helps take care of her mother, Julia Welch, who is in the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease. Though Prue gladly takes on the role of caregiver, it frustrates and hurts her to see how much her mother has lost. The woman used to be an artist, which is reflected both in her many paintings and in how the house itself is a work of art. In addition, she was Prue’s role model and best friend growing up.

Despite the personal pain, Prue stays for her mother because she “refuse[s] to give up the truth of who she truly is” (22). Lately, Julia has wanted to get back to painting, which requires cleaning out her abandoned studio. Prue desperately wants to do this, and she starts making plans to give up her own hobbies and sleep less to get it done.

Before Prue’s father, Tom Welch, can object to the amount of responsibility Prue is taking on, Julia enters the room, bright and chipper. She mistakes Prue for her aunt and thinks it’s her own wedding day, which she often does. To avoid breaking the illusion and starting a panic, Prue and her father play along, giving up everything they planned for the day.

Tom gets out the non-alcoholic wine and calls his friend for the frozen wedding cake they keep in reserve for days like this. Prue puts up a sign on the family grocery store/gas station that says they’re closed for a wedding. Since the entire town knows about Prue’s mother, the people waiting for the store to open are understanding.

Milo and Nadia arrive in Baysville on a nearly empty tank of gas. When Milo tries to get gas at Prue’s family store, he encounters Prue, who tells him that the store is closed. At first glance, Milo is drawn to Prue in a way that frightens him, but he’s also very attracted to her and sees similar thoughts in Prue’s eyes. He turns up his flirting game, taking Prue’s irritated reluctance as a challenge until her mother arrives in a wedding dress.

Milo immediately recognizes Julia as his high school art teacher—the only teacher who ever stood up for him and who made him want to be an artist. Julia seems to recognize Milo, but she’s confused about how he can be so grown-up if it’s her wedding day. Milo is dismayed to see her staring at him “as if [he’s] a stranger she can’t quite place” (39). Prue takes her mother back inside, and Milo rushes back to the car.

A few minutes later, Milo pulls into Nik’s driveway, still shaken from what happened with Prue’s mother. Nik; his wife, Sef; and their five kids are waiting on the front porch along with Aleks, a childhood friend and Nadia’s former love interest. After the kids tackle Milo and Nadia in greeting, Milo and Nik catch up. Sef is pregnant with their sixth child, and Nik knows that there is drama between Nadia and Aleks, but he doesn’t know the details. Milo is impressed with the house, and he is glad that Nik got what he always wanted: “A stable, normal, family home” (47).

Milo tells Nik what happened at Prue’s store. Nik tells him that Prue’s mother has Alzheimer’s disease. He asks Milo to apologize for frightening her so that Nik can keep on good terms with the community—he is planning on opening a brewery in town. Nik also warns Milo to stay away from Prue because she’s beloved in the town. Milo promises, but when he sits down to sketch Prue, he realizes that he might not be able to keep his promise.

After Julia falls asleep later that night, Tom tells Prue that he found a home for her mother where she can get the care she needs. Prue feels like her world is shattering, but Tom refuses to let Prue give up her life to be a caregiver anymore. The home will have an open bed in three months, and Prue makes a deal with her father: If she starts having a life and gets some help with the caregiving, he will cancel plans for the home.

As Prue showers and gets ready for bed, her thoughts return to Milo, specifically to how she reacted to him. Prue’s introverted nature means that she always shied away from dating and is still a virgin, and she’s sure that a guy like Milo must be very experienced. At the thought, her whole body flushes, and she decides that she should keep her distance so that she doesn’t get hurt.

The next morning, Milo wakes in Nik’s house to the sound of screaming children. Sef comes to tell him that Nik is getting ready to take supplies to the brewery and catches sight of Milo’s drawing of Prue. She sends him to the grocery store with a list so that he can maybe encounter Prue, and Milo marvels at how smoothly she sets the situation up.

At the store, Milo meets Tom and apologizes for upsetting his wife. Tom accepts his apology and asks Milo to come by again to talk about his wife—he’d love to hear about her from a favorite student. Before Milo can marvel at being called a favorite student, Prue arrives. Though she’s wearing paint-splattered clothes, Milo still finds her attractive, and when he learns that she’s cleaning out her mother’s studio, he offers to help, both to spend time around Prue and because he wants to see the studio. When Prue’s father subtly reminds her that she agreed to find help, she reluctantly agrees.

After Milo spends several minutes looking at the paintings in the studio, he and Prue get down to work, which mostly involves Prue working and trying not to stare at him while he flirts. Despite her effort, her eyes keep wandering to him, and her body flushes when he catches her gaze lowering from his arms to his waist.

Prue focuses on trying to scratch paint off the floor, but she gets nowhere until Milo kneels beside her and easily scratches it away with the side of a credit card. As he leans in closer, Prue has several realizations about him: He’s beautiful, he’s hiding something behind his flirtatious attitude, and she does not want him to be “the man who watches [her] fumble [her] way through what should probably be second nature by [her] age” (80).

Prue escapes Milo’s closeness by organizing a shelf, but she can feel his presence from across the room as he rinses off paint brushes. A few minutes later, he resumes flirting and crosses to where she works, boxing her between himself and the shelf. He asks if he can kiss her, and Prue says no. Milo shrugs and gets back to work, telling her that she knows where to find him if she changes his mind, and Prue decides that she never will.

After helping at the studio for a couple of hours, Milo goes to the brewery. He tells Aleks about his time with Prue but does not admit that Prue feels different from other women he’s flirted with. Nik shows off the new sign for the brewery, which is called MANS Brewery. Milo thinks this is hilarious and makes “He-Man” jokes until Alek points out that it’s an acronym for Milo, Aleks, Nadia, and Sef.

Nik storms away. Milo tries to make excuses that Aleks doesn’t accept. Milo is sure that he didn’t do anything wrong—he just didn’t know. He avoids Nik for the rest of the day, secretly hoping his brother will just drop it. Nik doesn’t, though, and Milo refuses to apologize. The idea makes him uncomfortable after he spent years apologizing to his parents for offenses that he didn’t understand.

At the end of the day, Milo realizes that he never gave Tom the beer he intended to give, along with the apology. Since he refuses to skip two apologies in one day, he goes to the grocery store to deliver the beer. He notices that the wooden sign over the register has loose bolts holding it in place. Milo offers to fix the sign before it falls. Tom says that Milo should go home because he looks exhausted, but Milo says he doesn’t want to go home until he can avoid Nik and his anger. Tom agrees to let him replace the sign and sends him to the studio to get a drill from Prue.