Reggie looks up at me, eyes wide, mouth open, completely shocked. I’m shocked, too. More than a little. Anger surges through my chest and courses hot through my veins, crashing over me like the water over the falls, relentless. It’s the same anger that welled up and spilled over when I found out my dad was cheating on my mom with that whore nurse. I couldn’t swallow it down then.

I can just barely swallow it down now. I look up at the patches of sky through the trees and force myself to take in a breath, and then another.

“This…” I shake my head. “I can’t talk about this half-naked.” I flip my shorts up from where I dropped them on the rock and try to step into them, only my legs are still a little bit weak from fucking Reggie. It wasn’t a timid orgasm I had. Even thinking about it is starting to make me hard again, but even that can’t compete with the bitter, disappointed feeling flooding my gut.

Reggie lets out a laugh that sounds a little nervous and reaches for her capris. They’re damp, and she struggles with them a little, eyes glued to the fabric fighting against her legs.

“Let me help you.” I reach a hand down to help her up.

She shakes her head. “I can do it.”

“Oh, for God’s sake, Reg, don’t be a stubborn ass.”

Her eyes flick back up to me, and she hesitates once more before taking my hand. The last thing on earth I want to do is to put her pants back on, but I also can’t leave this hanging between us, this bitterness that she’s been carrying like a talisman all these years. I reach down and tug them up her legs, realizing only at the last moment that she’s not wearing any panties. She never has been. When my hands meet her bare skin, I can’t help but grin at her. “You’re sly.”

“I’m—” Her cheeks go a little pink. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Then she steps back and folds her arms over her chest. “Are you pissed at me?”

I run a hand through my hair. “Is it that obvious?”

“Yes.” Reggie lifts her chin. “I have no idea why you think you have any right to be—”

“You should have told me,” I repeat again, struggling to keep myself under control. Things could have been so different. So different for both of us. All she had to do was say something to me. Anything. Instead… “I could have helped.”

Reggie opens her mouth to argue, but I see the realization dawn in her eyes. It’s a slow awakening, like the way she so gradually leaned into me at the reunion the other night.

I can’t let the silence linger. “There was a lot I could have done. I could have—” The options would have been practically limitless. The one thing my dad was good for was handing out money. I used that against him more than once after the divorce with a sharp anger dancing behind my heart. It was never worth it, in the end, because even getting things out of him didn’t make up for the humiliating life he wrapped up in a bow for my mother and me and delivered like a bomb. “I could have done a lot. There was no reason for you to miss out on college just because of that stupid shit in the chapel.” I’d have asked my dad to pull some strings for Reggie the moment I’d known. By the time I was done with my junior year of college, I had two separate businesses running–one for t-shirts, like the kind sororities order by the thousand, and one for drop-shipped condom packages so that dudes didn’t have to go to the drugstore. Joke shit, ways to spend my dad’s money out of spite, but they made a real profit.

Reggie would have put up a fight if I offered her help, but she’s not that good. I’d have made up a fake scholarship. I’d have made it look real. I’d have fixed this situation. I’d have—

Reggie smiles at me, and I pretend not to see that it’s forced, that there are tears pricking the corners of her eyes. She does a slow blink that she clearly thinks I don’t notice. “It’s really not a big deal.”

“It is.”

“It’s not, because I don’t care about all that.” She waves her hand in the air, but the timing is all wrong. She’s lying through her teeth. “I built a new life for myself. All that’s in the past.” Her chin is inched high in the air, like if she lets it down at all she’ll burst into tears, and there’s no way she’s going to do that. “It doesn’t matter now. I have a lot going on.”

I want her close to me. The anger in my chest dissolves, replaced with a yearning so fucking pure I could bottle it up and sell it as cologne. “So tell me about it!” I leap across the gap between us and pull Reggie in. She can’t help herself. She might be trying to hold herself away, but it’s only a second until she gives in. I’m sorry, I try to say, giving her a squeeze. I’m fucking sorry. “I want to hear about all of it. What do you have going on?”

She breathes in, laughing a little, and wriggles out of my grip. “I can’t talk when you’re holding me that tight.” But she doesn’t pull all the way away. “Come on, you’re soaking wet. Let’s head back.”

I catch her hand in mine and thread my fingers through hers. I lean down to her ear. “You’re wet,” I joke, just to make her snort, which she does. Then I straighten up. “Fine. We’ll go. But you’re going to talk. Tell me what’s going on.”

We start back down the trail, and neither of us mentions the fact that we’re holding hands. Neither of us mentions how easy it feels, how right. I don’t dare say a word about it. I feel like I could spook her at any second, and then she might run off and never come back again. Even though, I guess, that’s supposed to be my gig.

Reggie flicks her gaze across to me, and I make a show of looking down at the trail to pick the best footholds. “Well,” she says, and her voice is carefully neutral. She used to sound this way when she wanted to tell me something really important but didn’t want me to know it was. It’s a dead giveaway. “I’m doing a triathlon.”

I can’t help the laughter that bubbles up and rings out over the woods around us. “Oh, shit. Those are hard as hell!”

She’s smiling. “Why are you laughing, then, if it’s so impressive?”

“Because I tried to save you from the lake like a jackass. You were probably training. You’ve probably put months into this, right? Gone all out?”

I glance at her. Reggie seems surprised, and her face is glowing, like this is the first time anyone’s been excited about this for her. It breaks my heart more than a little.

“Yeah,” she says finally, admitting it. “I’ve been working really hard. I want to—” She cuts herself off, then decides to plow ahead. “I’m hoping to maybe place in my age group.”

I squeeze her hand. “That’s fucking amazing, Reg.”

Reggie turns to face me, stopping dead in the middle of the path. “It is amazing. Triathlons are really hard.”

“I know!” I grin at her. “That’s what I just said. Should I say it louder?” I turn back to the path and shout. “Triathlons are really hard! Reggie is amazing!”

She laughs out loud and yanks on my hand. “God, stop,” she says, but she can’t stop smiling. “Anyway, between my job at the Indigo and some shifts at the Country Club, plus school, I’ve been training for that nonstop.”

We move down the path together, sunlight dappling on our shoulders. A strange pride comes over me. I can’t believe she’s doing a triathlon on top of everything else. She’s resilient as fuck. “When is it?”

Reggie picks her way over an exposed root in the path. “When’s what?”

“The triathlon! I want to come watch.”

“No way.” She shakes her head. “Nobody even knows I’m doing this.” So it is the first time anyone’s been excited for her. This is her big secret, and she told me.

“Not even your parents?”

“No.” Reggie presses her lips into a thin line. “I’m trying to prove it to myself.”

I’m so proud, I can hardly stand it. “Tell me when it is,” I needle her. “Tell me. I’ll keep it a secret. But I have to see this, Reg! You’re going to be so great.”

She takes in a breath, and suddenly the air is vibrating with anticipation. “It’s tomorrow. But you don’t have to—”

“I’ll be there!” I shout into the woods and pick up the pace. “Come on, we have to go. We have to get spaghetti. Isn’t that what you do before a big race?” I can’t keep the smile off my face. “I can’t fucking wait.”