Page 26

Her voice kicks my heart into the next gear, like nitrous oxide injected straight into my blood.

Tossing the half-inflated tube to the ground, she bends and grabs a plastic grocery bag and throws things inside.

“Franky, honey.” She looks over to find him in the shallowest section of water.

She knows precisely where it’s safe out here, and where it isn’t, because she spent seventeen summers in this lake, just like we did.

“Come out of the water, okay? The tube is broken, so let’s go back to town and get some ice cream. ”

“Problem solved.” Eliza releases a breath of relief. “She’s doing the right thing.”

“No.” I unsnap my seatbelt and flick her hand off when she tries to grab for me, then shoving the truck door open, I move so much fucking faster than I intend.

Around the back of the truck to sweep up the cooler, then over the sizzling dirt that turns to sand, which turns to patchy grass right where Alana set up camp, dappled shade from the massive tree growing above. “Don’t leave.”

She ignores me, filling her bag with random things and mixing soda cans with sunscreen. A hair scrunchie with the boy’s shirt.

“Franky? You have to get out of the water now.”

I grab her wrist and yank her to a stop, though I know she’d rather sprint straight past, scoop her kid up, and escape. I inhale her panicked exhale and hate that her eyes flare with fear.

Not nerves. Not anger. Not even confusion.

Straight-up fear.

“Stay,” I repeat, licking my lips and glancing down at my fingers wrapped around her wrist. I see the outline of my grip on her pale skin. “It’s a big lake, Alana, and it’s hotter than Hades out here today.”

“Hi, Chris!” Franky remains in the water, waving with his arm above his head so the gesture moves his whole body. He has a cute little outie belly button and ribs I can count. Though it’s not the same as when I was a kid, and my ribs were visible, too.

Franklin Page isn’t hungry. He’s just… small.

“I don’t want to stay.” Alana gently peels her arm from my hold, swallowing so her throat bobs.

She tries so hard to tamp her emotions down, but she can’t stop the tears burning in her eyes.

And evidently, she’s forgotten the sunglasses perched atop her head.

“We’ve already had a swim, so fair’s fair. It’s your turn to have the lake.”

Godddddd, why is she so pretty? So tempting? So fucking perfect in all the wrong ways. “That’s what they say about love and war, right? All’s fair.”

“Tommy—”

“You were the love, and I was the war. Anything we did in the pursuit of either was fair.” I set two fingers on her trembling hip and turn her, just a few inches, until I see again the ink on her back.

The date we fell in love, and with a messily drawn heart to go with it.

“I had such bad handwriting back then. It’s insane, actually, that you let me put something permanent on your skin. ”

“I don’t want a trip down memory lane.” She steps backward, forcing my hand to fall from her body. “I can’t.”

I look down at my chest instead, littered with ink. All but one of them were penned by a professional. “You drew on me, too. That’s how we justified it. All’s fair in love and war.”

“Please stop.” She brushes her knuckles beneath her eye. “Enjoy your day at the lake. Franky!”

“Chris and Eliza are gonna swim with us, Mom!” He splashes in the shallow end, waiting as Chris drags his shirt off and tosses it to the hood of the truck. Then he backs up in the water, waiting for the others to join him.

But we know—all of us—that there’s a ledge in the water. A drop-off in just a few more feet. He’s oblivious to what’s behind him, which makes Alana’s heart pound faster, and Chris’ feet move quicker.

“Careful, Franky.” Alana turns to go to him.

She can’t know that I’m thinking about his safety, too.

Or that Chris and Eliza are likely thinking the same.

No doubt, she probably assumes we all hate him since he’s the only newb in our group, and if I concentrate too hard on the details, I might be left to wonder if he’s the reason she left.

“You’re going to fall, baby. You have to?—”

“I got it.” Chris dives through the shallows, scooping Franky off his feet just inches from the edge. Spinning back this way, he tosses the boy and laughs when he lands with a splash, resurfacing with a squeal of happiness.

“You can’t leave now.” I set the cooler on the ground and inch forward, my chest almost touching Alana’s back.

“He’s having fun. Take him away, and you’ll have to explain why.

Mommy used to be friends with these people, but then she stopped for no apparent reason isn’t a very pleasant story to tell.

He’ll start asking questions, and you’re not real keen on answering those. ”

We spent so much time together in our youth, I could touch whenever I wanted. I could taste. I could wrap myself around her body, and never once, ever, did I fear rejection.

My heart and brain know I can’t do that anymore. But fuck, my body needs reminding. Because my fingers itch to touch. My hands beg to stroke. My chest aches to have her resting upon it.

“I’m sorry we ruined your plans today.” I drag my hat lower over my eyes to shield them from the glare of the sun. Or, at least, that’s my excuse. “It wasn’t intentional, I promise.”

“It’s fine.” It’s clearly not fine, but she’s had a lifetime of saying things are okay when they’re not. Her mother practically branded the words on her tongue.

Frustrated, she stalks across and grabs the tube she was working on, and moving a full ten feet away, she shakily spins, spins, spins the rubber in search of the air hole. “We’ll stay for twenty minutes so Franky can play with Chris. Then we’ll get out of your way.”

I pick up the plastic bag she dropped and poke through its contents in silence.

I pull Franky’s shirt out so it doesn’t get wet from the condensation of her drink, then the sunscreen tube—not closed—before it makes a mess.

“I’m gonna put your drink in our cooler, okay?

” I don’t wait for her approval… it’s not like she’d give it anyway.

I kick the lid open and set her drink in with the ice, then I shut the box again and set the end of the bag beneath so it doesn’t whip away in the wind.

That is, if there was any.

There isn’t.

“Want me to blow that up for you?” I keep my movements slow. My hands by my sides instead of, well, on her body. Or more likely, circling her delicate neck, since that Watkins blood still sprints through my veins.

I wouldn’t actually hurt her, not like my daddy used to hurt my mom and everyone else he could reach. But that doesn’t stop the desire from simmering just below the surface of my thoughts.

I grab the pathetic inflatable and tug until the mouthpiece pops from her lips. “You look like you might pass out if you keep going.”

It’s not like I’m twelve anymore, drinking soda from her can just so I can pretend that pressing my lips to the same spot is basically as good as kissing. But I’ll be damned if my heart doesn’t beat a little faster when I take the mouthpiece between my lips.

“You’re still as pushy as always.” She folds her arms, hiding her succulent body from my gaze and cocking her hip. It’s the best defense she’s got while standing out here half-naked and showing off a stamp on her back that makes her mine.

Mine.

“You just do whatever you’re gonna do, no matter what it is I want to do.”

Sure. That’s why you left town without so much as a fuckin’ Dear John letter. But I’m trying to make nice, so I smile around the rubber stopper and inflate the very same tube she and I floated on back in the day.

A poor kid who never had much of anything knows a bright yellow and green inflatable toy when he sees it.

“You don’t really have to blow that up,” she mumbles defiantly. “We’re leaving in a few minutes.”

“You’re not leaving.” I jam my thumb against the stopper to keep the air inside, and refilling my lungs, I look to the trio in the water. Two of them are playing. The third casts daggers this way.

Eliza Darling will protect her flock to the death.

“He’s having fun. And Ollie’s on his way, too.

He’s bringing a grill so we can cook up some lunch.

” I look down at the wet valve and know I haven’t changed all that much since high school.

Because now her spit and mine are mixed, and my brain can’t help but obsess about it.

“He makes a mean margarita. Kind of a girly drink, I know. But tequila is so much fuckin’ fun, and we’re all secure enough in our masculinity not to care that our drinks have umbrellas in them. ”

“Alcohol, swimming at the lake, and ultimately, driving home. Sounds like a tragedy waiting to happen.”

“Nah.” I wrap my lips around the valve and empty my lungs into the tube.

“We always have a designated driver, and it’s not like we’re out here getting smashed the ol’ Watkins way.

Two drinks. Three, maybe.” I inhale as deeply as I can, then exhale into the tube, blowing until my head swims and my toes tingle.

“Just enough to have fun. Dance a little. Think we can sing. No one ever drinks so much that they’re falling over, and in all these years, we’ve never had an argument among us.

Not the real kind, fueled by alcohol and bred by the asshole who came before us. ”

I push the stopper into the valve and seal all that love-and-war oxygen inside the tube, forcing it to co-mingle.

There will be no escape. Then I present my achievement with a smile.

“Eliza’s been our sober one the last five years, since she was old enough to drive but not old enough to drink.

Now she’s twenty-two, so we take turns between all of us. ”

“She seems…” She casts her gaze toward the lake to find what I know is waiting for her. “Homicidal.”