When I was a little girl, I thought my daddy was the handsomest, most amazing man in the world. He’d pick me up from my after-school program at St. Brigid’s still wearing his dark suit with gold braid, his stiff cap with its shiny brim and matching gold braid, and his black shoes buffed to such a shine that I could see my face in them when I looked down.

“Your daddy must be really special,” breathed my friend Deanna the first time she saw Daddy. “He wears such fancy clothes. Does he wear them all day, every day?”

I told her that he did.

“What does he do?”

“He helps some very important people,” I said, and I named several celebrities who lived in the Upper East Side high-rise where he worked as a doorman. I didn’t say that he was a doorman, though, because I didn’t understand how a job title that sounded so mundane could apply to my dignified, well-dressed daddy.

When he walked inside the candy shop, my heart gave a few erratic thuds and I almost swallowed my gum—a giant flavorless gob of Hubba Bubba that had grown steadily bigger since the beginning of my shift. I coughed and let my dark hair curtain my face, as if it might hide me altogether.

What was he doing here?

I blinked down at the massive psychology book I was forced to lug up and down Bascom Hill every other weekday and tried to focus on Freud and the Oedipus complex. But what had intrigued me moments before no longer kept my attention. The words blurred into psychobabble. I couldn’t believe he was here, in my mom’s candy store.

Mom would be appalled if she saw me hiding from a customer. She would grab my arm and tell me to go offer my assistance. But I couldn’t help it. It was him. ECB. Eye Contact Boy. Not his real name. I got that fluttery, warm feeling every girl gets when they think a hot guy is staring.