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Becca: I mean it. You better not make this awkward.

Corbin: You always say I’m too sweet for my own good. Now you think I’m going caveman on my best friend.

I chuckle. “Let’s take a picture with you beating your chest and send it to her.” She needs to not overanalyze this and clearly, she is if she thought she needed to warn off her brother.

Extending my arm, I take the selfie. I point to him as he beats his chest. When I look at the image, I have a goofy smile on my face. I tap send.

When we get back to the resort, the girls are on the beach, reading. Becca is lying on her stomach. Her sunburn has turned into a golden tan, but I notice her shoulders are peeling. I rummage through her tote bag, finding some lotion. She startles and whispers, “How was Corbin? Did he really go caveman on you?”

“Let’s go to the cabana so I can put the lotion on your shoulders. Plus, lunch is supposed to be ready inside.” She swings her feet around and squiggles her toes into her sandals. We hold hands and hear a bunch of “Aww, it’s love,” coming from behind us.

It is.

The cabana offers some much-needed shade for me after it beat down on me for three hours while fishing.

“So?” she asks impatiently.

Squeezing the lotion onto my hands, I rub them together, then lather her shoulders with silky cool aloe-based lotion. “Hewas quiet at first. I wish I knew you had told him about how you feel. I could have been prepared.”

“He’s been my best friend my whole life. I thought he would take it better coming from me.”

I kiss the skin under her ear, and she giggles like a schoolgirl. “I’m pretty sure he’s known how I felt all along but tried to ignore it.”

My phone vibrates against my leg and when I pull it out, a string of unread messages stacks up on the screen.

Dad: Call me now.

His name flashes on the screen, but I let it buzz until it sends him to voicemail. It’s the fifth text and fourth voicemail I have from him. Ignoring him works better than talking to him.

Dad: Pick up.

Dad: Don’t push me, son.

Ha. He’s got to be kidding, thinking he can still call me son.

Dad: If you don’t answer me, you’re forcing my hand.

I feel utterly betrayed, and I won’t let him force me into reconciling with Stella. One, I don’t love her. Never did. Two, what man in his right mind would stay with a woman who slept with his dad?

Not me. It cemented that I knew I was taking the easy road with Stella. She was there, and I had recently gotten Becca’s message, rejecting me.

As I’m staring at the phone, Becca says, “You have to talk to him sometime. You deserve a chance to tell him to … to go to…” She balls her hands into fists.

“Hell. Tell him to go to hell?” I ask.

With a vigorous nod and an encouraging smile, she says, “Yeah. That.”

“So, you can say you want me to fuck you, but you can’t say ‘Go to hell,’” I mutter into her ear where no one else can hear.

She smacks my arm in jest. “You love embarrassing me.” It’s true I do; that’s when she’s the cutest. “But John, you need to talk to him. I know you’re hurting.”

“I’m fine.”

“He had sex with your girlfriend. Your dad is worse than Oakley’s, and that’s saying something.”

I shake my head, jaw tightening. “I don’t want you to think this is about Stella. It’s not. I promise it’s not. I just can’t b-believe he would think that’s okay. First, she’s thirty years younger than he is and?—”

She circles my waist with her lean but strong arms. “I know you don’t want her back.”