"I don't know," Annie admits, slipping into honesty far earlier than she expects to. She'd anticipated at least another playful remark, but she finds herself sighing, shrugging one shoulder and quickly clarifying her initial noncommittal answer.

"I mean, everyone I met was really very nice, on the whole," she adds. "I just - I guess a part of me was waiting for that spark, you know? That moment, the way it happened with Ben, where you just look at someone and - " She glances up, her eyes finding his face, and there's this knot in her stomach that she dutifully goes on to ignore before she can finish.

"You just know," she murmurs, quickly averting her gaze. "Maybe I'm just being silly."