Page 119 of High Season

“Give me your phone,” she says.

“Tamara—”

“Give it to me.”

Reluctantly, he reaches into his pocket. He holds the small silver device out toward her. Tamara flips it open and thumbs into the picture library.

“Tam,” Blake is saying. “I swear I wasn’t doing anything. Not like that. She turned up here hammered. You saw what she was like earlier. She’d obviously been drinking to psych herself up or something. And she must have had more drinks since then, and… and I was just going to put her to bed for a bit, I swear. Let her sleep it off. And then I thought… I don’t know. I just wanted a bit of leverage, you know? Something to make sure she wouldn’t talk to Cordelia…”

Tamara can’t quite look at the pictures. She can only focus on small, specific details, the bare skin, the black lace. The slope of Hannah’s breasts. The tilt of her thighs.

“Tam, I love Cordelia,” Blake is saying. “I fucked up.”

Tamara snaps the phone shut.

“You don’t love Cordelia,” she says. “YouneedCordelia. You need her family, and her connections, and all the other bullshit that comes with dating her. And you don’t understand the difference.”

Tamara means what she says. In that terrible, dizzying moment, she is not sure that her brother is capable of loving anything.

“OK,” he says. “OK, so IneedCordelia. You understand then; I can’t risk Hannah telling her. It would ruin everything.”

“So you thought you should blackmail her instead?”

“Tam,” Blake says. “I—”

Tamara stands. She can’t meet her brother’s eye.

“You’ll have to help me,” she says.

“Help you?”

“I’m going to put her to bed in my room. She can sleep it off there.”

“Tamara, I—”

“I’m not leaving her here with you.”

There’s a beat of silence. Blake blinks, stunned.

“Are you serious?” Blake says. “You seriously think I would do anything to her? You actually think she’s not safe here?”

“You already have done something to her, Blake.” Her voice is thick, knotted with the threat of tears.

“They’re only pictures.”

“Jesus, Blake, stop,” Tamara says.

She bends down, loops her arm beneath Hannah’s shoulders to pull her upright. Hannah lets out a soft groan, her head lolling to one side.

“If you won’t help me, I’ll do it on my own,” she says. “Where are her clothes?”

She lets Hannah’s weight rest against her shoulder. She’s whispering to her, the way that she does with Nina when her little sister is hurt or upset.It’s OK. You’re going to be alright.

“Here.”

Blake is holding up a dress. Pale blue satin, a color the exact shade of the sky on a hot summer’s day. Of all things, this makes Tamara’s heart ache the most. She imagines Hannah buying the dress especially for tonight. Carefully applying makeup, doing her hair. Looking at herself in the mirror. Wanting to look perfect, for a boy who will break her. Tamara eases the dress over Hannah’s head.

“Let me take her,” Blake says. “I can carry her.”