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He’s got about six different facial piercings and is wearing a Metallica t-shirt over a bathing suit. He looks as confused as I am about why Shal is holding his arm.

I lift up the lock and then crack the door open enough for Shal to speak to us.

“You guysssss!” she shrieks, swaying a little on her feet. “I’m gonna finish the bucket list! This is my new best friend, um…”

She turns her head and blinks at him. He looks back and forth between me, her, and Naomi like he’s hoping someone will tell him what’s going on.

“Uh, my name is Bones,” he rumbles in a deep voice.

“Yeah, Bones!” Shal shouts. “He’s hilarious. Like, his name is Bones. That’s so funny. So yeah, I decided he’s my new friend. Checking that off the list! Also, I decided if Priya is allowed to count falling in love with the potential of love or whatever the hell she was talking about, then I am allowed to count being in love with myself.”

She beams at us like she’s just announced she’s found the cure to cancer.

“Oh! That’s, um, really nice, Shal,” Naomi says after a moment.

“Isn’t it? So yeah, checking that off!” Shal draws a giant check mark in the air with her Solo cup, beer sloshing over the rim to land on the deck boards.

“Well, thank you for telling us that,” I add. “Maybe you should come inside and let Bones go back to—”

She ignores me and presses her face into the gap between the sliding door and the edge of the doorframe to shout, “We need to jump in the pool!”

Naomi and I glance at each other again.

“We do?”

“Yes! Priya, me, you two, and Bones! We need to have a big end of summer moment!”

“Um…” I say before turning to Naomi for some backup.

Instead of trying to lure Shal inside with me, she stands tapping her chin for a second before she shrugs.

“Okay. Why not?”

I gawk at her, but she just grins.

“I think we should do it.”

We shouldn’t. What we should be doing is shutting this party down before someone really does call the cops or another several thousand dollar statue gets smashed, if that hasn’t happened already, but then she reaches for my hand and whines, “Pleeeease?”

I can’t help thinking back to my first few days here, when she’d literally tuck and roll just to avoid having to speak to me in the house.

We’ve come a long way since then.

“Okay,” I say, mirroring her grin now, “but we have to go around the other way so I can keep this door locked.”

Shal frowns and starts shouting protests when we try to explain the plan to her, but we get her to stop trying to shove her head inside long enough to lock the door. We both shriek with laughter as we sprint out the front door and race each other to the backyard. By the time we get to the pool, Shal is standing at the edge with a baffled Bones on one side of her and a reluctant Priya hovering a few feet back from the water on the other.

“Oh no,” Priya groans once we’ve fought through the crowd to claim a spot beside her. “Has she tried to rope you into this too?”

Naomi laughs and grabs Priya’s hand before taking hold of mine too.

“She’s succeeded. Come on.” She pulls us both up to the very edge of the pool. “Shal has a point. This is a pretty great end of summer moment.”

Priya gives a pointed look at the heavy metal fans all headbanging to whatever hardcore anthem just started booming through the speakers, and Naomi laughs again.

“Okay, yeah, it’s weird,” she says, “but what about this summer hasn’t been?”

Priya can’t argue with that, and neither can I. Shal waves her arms around to get the crowd’s attention as she begins to count down from ten. By the time she’s reached the last few seconds, the entire party is shouting along with her.