It seemed unfair, spending three hours a day in a classroom during summer, only to wait another thirty minutes in the parking lot. There were things I could do about that, like walk home, or tell my parents my older sister was always late to pick me up—but either of those would inevitably lead to an argument or two. Dad would yell at Tiffany. She’d take her punishment out on me.

It wouldn’t do much good now anyway, with only two days of summer school left. I hadn’t gotten my license yet, so what right did I have to complain? Instead, I did what I had every other afternoon and took out one of the books I needed to read before summer ended.

Some pages later, Tiffany came around the corner, screeching to a stop at the curb. “Get in,” she said, as if I were making her late for something—even though I’d done nothing but wait in that same spot for forty-five minutes. “Come on. Hurry up.”

Gainfully unemployed, my nineteen-year-old sister lived at home, ate Mom and Dad’s food, and had an allowance my dad constantly threatened to cut off. She had one job only—take me to and from school.

Rolling through stop signs on the drive home, she explained the rush. “If Brad calls, I don’t want to miss it. I’ve been waiting ages for him to ask me out.”

It would’ve been easy not to care that she was driving fifteen miles over the speed limit—the windows were down, the breeze warm, and there were still six weeks left of summer. But Tiffany knew better. “You’re going to get pulled over, and Dad’ll take your car away,” I said.

“Maybe for a day, but I’d get it back.”

“Can’t you just call Brad and ask him out?”

“Not unless I want to look desperate,” she said with an air of knowing, as if she were imparting wisdom. In a way, she was. I had no idea about these things. “You want to watch music videos later?”

“I have reading to do.”

“You’ve been reading or doing homework all summer,” she said. “Your class is practically over. Relax.”

University of Southern California wasn’t looking for ‘relaxed’ students. According to Dad, summers were for “weeding out the lazy kids”—like my friends, who were probably at the beach. “I will, in two days.”

“Then we should do something this weekend. Something cheesy, like the Fun Zone at Balboa. Get ice cream bars, like we used to when we were kids.”

One thing about Tiffany, I could never predict what she’d say next. Most days, she didn’t want me anywhere near her. Others, she’d burst into my room, hop on my bed, and ramble on about her day. She had only two speeds—annoyed older sister or best friend. I preferred the latter . . . unless I was in the middle of studying for something important. “Maybe,” I said.

With an eye-roll, she turned up the radio for “Runaway Train” and sang all the way home. She parked along the curb of our cul-de-sac, close to the next-door lot where they were doing construction.

One of the hard-hatted men whistled at us. “Hey. Blondie.”

Tiffany looked through her window. “What?”

“Come here a sec.”

Why should it surprise me that Tiffany responded? If a man had eyes and they were aimed in her direction, she noticed. That might not have meant much if it only happened once in a while, but Tiffany was a California beauty through and through.

There’d been a lot of arguments about the construction since it’d started earlier that summer. My father didn’t like the noise, the dust, or the men he was sure were looking at my mom and sister. It hadn’t involved me, so I hadn’t paid much attention. But if he’d been that upset about the men looking at Tiffany, he definitely wouldn’t want her talking to them.

Tiffany slanted the rearview mirror, brushing her bangs side to side and forward again. She puckered her lips. “You have any lipstick?”

I carried tins of Candy Kisses lip balm in my backpack, flavors like cherry vanilla, bubblegum, and my favorite—watermelon. Here I was, entering junior year of high school, and I was still “too young” for makeup. Even though my friends wore it. Even though Tiffany had been granted that privilege the summer before her freshman year. I didn’t care too much about stuff like that, but I was still a little protective of my lip balm. My allowance was finite.

I rummaged through my pencil pouch until I found cherry vanilla and handed it over. It was nothing to Tiffany, who dug her finger into it, spread a ton over her lips, smacked them together, and tossed it into my lap. “Thanks.”

She got out of the car, her Steve Madden platforms wobbling as she stepped over the curb into the dirt lot.

I slung my backpack over my shoulder and went to interrupt her conversation with the construction worker. “We’re not supposed to be over here.”

“Then why don’t you go inside?” she asked without looking at me. It wasn’t a suggestion.

The man looked down her top.

“And leave you out here alone?” I asked.

She’d rolled the waistband of her black denim skirt dangerously high. A short skirt and platforms didn’t seem like the kind of thing you wore around a construction site, but what did I know? Less than most sixteen-year-olds, Tiffany would say. Nineteen-year-olds, though—they knew a lot about a lot. Particularly how to dress around men.

“How long’s it take to build a house?” she asked him, sweeping her bangs aside. Realizing her mistake, she fixed them again. She spent at least ten minutes in the bathroom every morning plucking at them, fashioning them into a casual curl.

“Depends. We’re pretty quick.” He laughed into his fist. I looked behind us to see why. One of the workers had cocked an electric drill in front of his crotch. It spun around as he jutted his hips back and forth. It was stupid, but the other men on the site laughed.

I fingered the thin, gold bracelet around my wrist, a birthday gift from Dad. Tiffany and I didn’t always get along, but I didn’t want to leave her in a dangerous situation. These men were big and dirty. They were making me nervous. “I thought you were waiting for Brad’s call.”

Tiffany opened her mouth, probably to tell me to go away, but then shut it. “I have to go,” she told him, whirling around.

“Hey, wait,” he called after us.

We went up the brick and concrete walkway to the front door. My parents’ house wasn’t a mansion or anything, but my classmates gawked when they came over. With palm trees, a perfectly manicured lawn, and a three-car garage, our two-story home fit in with the upscale Newport Beach neighborhood. It curved gracefully at the end of the cul-de-sac and even had a pool, despite the beach being a ten-minute drive away.

“Why were you talking to him?” I asked Tiffany. “We’re not supposed to.”

“Are you going to tell Dad?”

He’d said to stay away, but when did Tiffany ever listen to him? Or anyone who knew better? If I brought it up, it’d only start a war at the dinner table. “No.”

“Good.” She unlocked the house. “Problem solved.”

* * *

The next day, Tiffany forgot to pick me up altogether. After an hour passed, I hoisted my book bag and wandered home. It was hot outside, but summer was supposed to be hot, so it felt good. Living miles from the beach, we got some breeze, and our neighborhood was safe, even by my dad’s standards.

I could’ve walked home with my eyes closed. I’d grown up here, had explored nooks and crannies with friends who’d come and gone, played baseball in the cul-de-sac, run away to the Reynolds’ treehouse when I’d gotten a B-minus on a math test. Aside from all that, though, had my eyes been closed, I would’ve known I was home by the telltale sounds of the construction site.

My heartrate kicked up as I approached the lot. At dinner the night before, Mom’d asked why my bracelet wasn’t on my wrist since I rarely took it off. The most likely explanation was that I’d lost it while fidgeting yesterday. Dad had warned me it was expensive when he’d given it to me.

I kept my eyes down, even though there was no reason for the men to notice me. Mom had told me years ago that one day I’d look like my older sister. That day hadn’t come yet. My limbs were too gangly, my dishwater-blonde hair wasn’t highlighted. I didn’t even have breasts. My mom had gotten hers at seventeen and kept assuring me they’d come.

Retracing my steps from where Tiffany had parked the day before to the dirt lot, I bent at the waist and searched for hints of gold.

“Hey,” one of the men said. His voice was so deep, it gave me goosebumps on the inside, if that was even possible. “I found it. Here.”

Slowly, I turned. The enormous hand in front of me had dirt under the nails and my delicate gold chain coiled in its deep valley.

“It looks valuable,” he said.

I squinted up, and up, and up at him. I had only two concepts of men—ones my father’s age, like my teachers, and the boys I went to school with. This one didn’t fit into either category. He was bigger than my dad, bigger, even, than our vice-principal, who was the tallest man I knew. I couldn’t quite see his eyes under his hardhat, so I looked at the rest of his face. Black scruff nearly hid the dent in his chin. His nose was strong and hard with a noticeable bump.

“It is,” I said.

He held it out. The sleeves of his charcoal-gray t-shirt had been ripped off at the seams. His arms were like the guns Dad displayed in his study—hard, defined, chillingly powerful. The more my father warned me off the weapons he kept locked behind glass, the more I just wanted to touch one to see how it’d feel.

I didn’t move an inch, my heart beating harder.

“It’s all right,” he said, nodding. “It’s safe.”

I opened my hand. He poured the bracelet into it, and I put it in my pocket.

He removed his hardhat. He’d rolled and knotted a red bandana around his head, but it didn’t seem to do much; he had a lot of thick, black hair that spilled over. Picking up his shirt, he wiped his temples, giving me a glimpse of his hard, rippled stomach, and a smattering of fine dark hair. He dropped the hem immediately, but I averted my eyes anyway.

“Sorry,” he said.

“For what?” I asked the pavement.

“If I made you uncomfortable.” He removed the bandana and used that on his face instead. Dirt smeared across his olive skin. He was making it worse. I could see his eyes better now, dark brown like soda pop, but against the sun, there were lighter flecks, gold as the chain in my pocket.

My stomach tightened. I was uncomfortable, but him knowing that made it worse.

He pulled a pack of cigarettes from his back pocket and hit it against his palm. “You should get the clasp checked,” he said before he walked away.

I made it all the way to the front door when I remembered I didn’t have my house keys. I could picture them on my desk between my phone and a stack of Sassy magazines. I hadn’t even thought to take them this morning. Why would I? Tiffany was supposed to be with me. Even the gate into the backyard was locked. Dad had been extra diligent about securing the house since construction had started.

I shuffled back down the walkway, sat on the curb, and took out my book. Somehow, I could sense the man watching me. I wanted to look back. I liked his dark eyes, and how he looked scary, but he’d done something nice for me. I read the same paragraph three times and still didn’t know what it said, so I gave in and glanced up. He sat on a brick wall that surrounded the lot, his hand cupped around a lighter as he lit the cigarette between his lips. He wasn’t looking at me.

I realized what was bothering me. I hadn’t thanked him for returning the bracelet, and that was rude. I closed my book and got up. This time, he did watch as I walked back along the street toward him.

“Thanks,” I said from the curb.

“For?”

I put my book under one arm, took out the bracelet, and showed it to him. “You could’ve kept it. I wouldn’t’ve known.”

“What would I do with women’s jewelry?” he asked.

“Give it to your girlfriend.” I pretended to concentrate on getting the bracelet on so he wouldn’t see me blushing. The longer he was silent, the more uncomfortable I got. I had no idea how he’d taken the comment. Unable to help myself, I finally glanced up at him. “Or your mom. Or sister.”

“If I’d kept your bracelet, I would’ve taken it to a pawn shop.”

Heat soared up my chest, right to my cheeks. A porn shop? If he hadn’t seen me blushing before, he definitely did now. I’d never heard of a porn shop. Well, I knew what porn was. Boys at my school bragged about looking at it. My dad got Playboy in the mail. But what kind of things did a shop sell?

“You get locked out?” he asked.

I stepped onto the lot. “My sister has the key.”

He nodded. I wasn’t sure what to make of him. Because he was older and bigger, he seemed unapproachable, but I wanted to talk to him anyway. He took a drag of his cigarette. “What’re you reading?”

I gave up trying to get the bracelet on. “The Grapes of Wrath.”

“The one with the farmers?”

“It’s about the Great Depression,” I said.

“Why’d you pick that?”

“Because it was next on the list.”

His forehead wrinkled. “The list?”

I walked a little closer to him, holding my unclasped bracelet in place. “Required summer reading.”

He stubbed out the cigarette he’d just lit. “You want to sit?”

The wall probably only came up to his waist, but for me, it was tall enough that I wasn’t going to embarrass myself by trying to get up. “I’ll stand.”

“So this list . . . you just go in order, one by one?” he asked. “What if you’re in the mood for something different?”

Was anyone ever in the mood for the Great Depression? This paperback had taken me longer to read than any other book so far and not just because it was almost five hundred pages. I hadn’t thought to tackle the list any other way. “I guess I could try something else.”

“You’re not enjoying it?”

My mouth went dry just thinking about all the lengthy descriptions—traveling across country, drought, dust. “There’s a lot of . . . information.”

“Put it down for a while. Try something else. Maybe something not on the list.”

“Can’t. School starts in six weeks, and there are more books after this.”

“You could always do what I did and watch the movie.”

I balked. “I can’t do that.”

“Why not?”

“That’s cheating.”

“Huh.” The ends of his grease-smudged jeans grazed the bottoms of his worn boots. Where did they carry pants long enough for so much leg? His t-shirt must’ve been through the wash hundreds of times, faded to the point I could barely make out a rainbow streak across it.

I squinted to read it. “What’s Pink Floyd?”

“What?” He glanced at me and then down, pulling the fabric taut with one hand. “It’s a band. You never heard of them?”

I shook my head as my cheeks warmed. I shouldn’t have asked. Tiffany knew all the latest bands, watched all the music videos, and I tried to keep up, but there were so many. Nirvana was the one Tiffany loved most. Why couldn’t he have been wearing a Nirvana shirt? I knew most of their songs—I’d heard them through the wall enough times. “I don’t listen to the radio much.”

“Me, neither. There’s some pretty bad stuff out there.”

I smiled a little. Tiffany was all about her CDs. Saying you didn’t like music was like admitting you weren’t cool. Everybody had something to say about the latest album or some underground band or the ‘song of the summer.’ “I play a little piano,” I said. “But I’ll probably stop.”

“How come?”

“I’m not any good. Anyway, my sister says piano’s for geeks.”

He studied me a few seconds and then nodded toward my parents’ house. “Was that your sister yesterday?”

Of course he wanted to know about Tiffany. It should’ve occurred to me earlier that she was the reason he’d talked to me, but for some reason it hadn’t. Even though I was pretty sure he was around Tiffany’s age, he seemed more mature.

I nodded. “Tiffany. She’ll probably go out with you.”

“Yeah? How do you know?”

“She goes out with lots of guys.”

His heavy black brows fell. “What do you know about who she goes out with?”

“She tells me.”

“Tells you what?”

“About who she likes and stuff.”

“And stuff.” With a grunt, he reached into his back pocket, took out another cigarette, and stuck it in his mouth without lighting it. “You should stay out of your sister’s business.”

I jutted my chin out. He sounded just like my dad, except when Dad said it, it was an order, not a suggestion. Dad made Tiffany’s business sound filthy, like I might go looking for it in the garbage cans out back.

“Look at that.” The cigarette sagged from between his lips as he glanced at my feet. “You dropped it again.”

I followed his eyes to where my bracelet had fallen in the dirt. Damn. I picked it up and tried again to get it back on.

“Come over here,” he said. “Let me do that.”

I breathed through my mouth. “What?”

“The clasp,” he said.

My heart skipped as he beckoned me. I took a few tentative steps and held out my arm, the chain dangling precariously. He moved the unlit cigarette from his mouth to behind his ear, then leaned forward and turned my forearm face-up. He could crush my wrist with one hand, I was sure of it. It took him several tries to even get the two ends between his huge fingers. He squinted, muttering under his breath. His callused palms brushed over the thin skin of my wrist until goosebumps traveled up my arm and my insides tightened up. The ends slipped from between his fingers over and over.

His knee brushed my ribs, and I flinched.

“Sorry,” he said.

I was pretty sure with a little more focus, I’d have better luck with the bracelet than he was having, but I didn’t want to stop him. An unfamiliar tingle made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. It wasn’t as if I’d never had a crush. Like my friends, I blushed when a senior said hi in the hall. I got giddy when someone like Corbin Swenson, the most popular boy in school, acknowledged our table in the cafeteria. But the boys at school were just that—boys. Tiffany liked to tear out pictures of celebrities and tape them to her wall—Andrew Keegan, Luke Perry, Kurt Cobain—and this man was as wall-worthy as he was sweaty, dusty, and quiet.

He grasped me, his tanned hand covering more than half of my white forearm. “Hold still.”

Men of his age or size were never this close to me. I hadn’t moved; I was certain of it.

Finally, he got the two pieces to connect. “How’s that?”

I gave my wrist a shake to make sure the bracelet was secure. “Good, I think.”

“You walk home from school a lot?”

“What?”

He nodded at my backpack. “Didn’t you walk?”

“Today was the first time.”

He tilted his head back, looking down his nose at me. “Probably shouldn’t be walking home alone. Or at all, maybe.”

“It’s not far. I don’t have my license yet.”

He knocked the heel of his boot against the brick, looking anywhere but at me. “But you’re old enough?”

I almost asked how old he thought I was so I could tack “what about you?” on to the end, but what if he guessed too young? I suddenly regretted my t-shirt, high-necked and white cotton with a round, yellow happy face in the center. I’d bought it from a record store, so it wasn’t really childish, unless, I realized, a child was wearing it. On Tiffany, it would look cool, but I was flat-chested. Suddenly, a year seemed like a lifetime to wait for breasts.

“I’m old enough . . .” I said. He looked as though he expected me to continue. “I’m sixteen, but I have to get a certain number of behind-the-wheel hours with my parents.” Tiffany was a licensed driver and could take me, but she’d had two speeding tickets and a fender bender in the last year alone. My dad would never allow her to teach me. I shifted feet. “We started, but I haven’t had time lately.”

“You haven’t? Or your parents?”

I went to answer but stopped. Dad usually worked until past seven. Mom was probably showing houses or at some meeting. I had time now, but there were a hundred other things I should be doing, like reading from the list, studying for SATs, or volunteering. “We’ve all got stuff going on.”

“What keeps a sixteen-year-old so busy?”

“College prep,” I said in the same tone Tiff said duh. “Do you go to school?”

“At night.”

“Oh. Like community college?”

“Yeah.” He let his posture fall and laced his hands between his knees. “You sure you don’t want to get up here? That backpack’s as big as you.”

I looked around, as if someone might be watching. “I don’t think I can.”

He gestured for me to come closer. When I was at his feet, he took my backpack off and dropped it. It landed on the ground with a thud, disturbing the sand into a cloud. “Christ. What’s in there? Rocks?”

I unzipped it to put The Grapes of Wrath away and showed him the inside. “More books.”

“Figures. You need to lighten your load, like me.” From his back pocket he pulled a paperback small enough to fit in one of his big hands.

I read the title—The Metamorphosis. “What’s that about?”

The cover had what looked like a huge cockroach on it. He studied it, his eyebrows drawn. “To be honest, I’m not sure yet. It’s weird. I’ll get back to you.”

I wrinkled my nose. Nobody I knew ever called a book weird. My English teacher and classmates were always using words like abstract, poignant, or metaphorical. It was so unheard of that I started to laugh.

Without any warning, not even a grunt or word to prepare me, he lifted me by my waist and sat me on the wall like I weighed a hundred pounds.

Well, I about did, but that wasn’t the point. He was strong, all dirt and grime, long and lean, his face and arms bronzed by the sun. He could pick me up. He could throw me if he wanted to. He could probably put me over his shoulder and walk a thousand miles without running out of breath. My urge to slide closer to him was as strong as my urge to jump down, run inside, and hide in the house where men like him only existed in my glossy magazines.

The hard brick didn’t give much of a welcome. All at once, I was an absolute and nervous mess about sitting next to a man. I didn’t think of my dad as a man, and certainly the boys I went to school with weren’t. The sun beat down on us, and he smelled of heat and sweat. It wasn’t bad.

“What’s your name?” he asked.

“What’s yours?”

He wiped his palms on his jeans. “Manning.”

“Lake.”

The cigarette was back in his hands. He rolled it, flipped it around, tapped it against his knee. Everything but smoked it. “Are you trying to quit?” I asked.

“Quit what?”

“Smoking.” My feet dangled over the wall. “You look like you really want to smoke it.”

He returned it behind his ear. “Lake,” he said as if trying the word out. “And your middle name?”

That, I’d never reveal. “I hate it.”

He turned his whole body to me. “Tell me.”

“It’s ugly.”

“How can a name be ugly?”

“Trust me, it can,” I said simply. Mom liked to remind me it was a family name when I talked like that, but I didn’t care. Family or not, Dolly seemed like a babyish name, and it was no better than the stuffy-sounding Dolores from which it came.

He half-smiled, one corner of his mouth lifting. That was the first I saw of his straight, white teeth. My heart skipped. Under the dirt, the sweat, the calluses, he was handsome. I’d known it already, peripherally, as I knew the direction of the beach or the artwork hanging in my dad’s office. But now it was right in front of me—I couldn’t miss it.

His forehead creased with lines. “Careful, or it’ll come off a third time,” he said.

It took me a second to realize I’d been twisting my bracelet around my wrist.

“This time, I might not give it back,” he said.

“You’d take it to the porn shop?” It came out fast, breezily, before I could think about it. But it was probably the most brazen thing I’d ever said.

“The what?” he asked, pulling his entire upper body away.

“The . . .” I widened my eyes at his incredulous stare. “You said you’d take it to a porn shop.”

“Pawn,” he pronounced slowly. “P-a-w-n.”

I shook my head. I was still confused. “I—I don’t know what that is.”

He blew out a sigh and glanced up at the sky. “It’s a place you can take valuables for quick cash. Never mind.”

“Oh.” My embarrassment was palpable, like an anvil on my chest. The silence made it worse.

“You can go if you want,” he finally said.

Did I want to? My impulses since I’d come over here had ping-ponged between smiling and shaking and lots else. Everything felt different. Even the house they were building looked further along than it’d been yesterday. Nobody seemed to think it was weird, me sitting here with him. “Do you want me to?”

He kept his eyes forward. “You remind me of my younger sister.”

“I thought you said you didn’t have one.”

“When?”

I thought back to the conversation earlier. I’d suggested he might’ve given the bracelet to someone like a girlfriend or sister. Maybe I hadn’t said sister. I shook my head. “Never mind.”

With the squeal of tires against pavement, I checked over my shoulder. Tiffany’s BMW zoomed in our direction. I wasn’t supposed to be out here. I didn’t think Tiffany would tell Dad, but I didn’t want her to see me and come over. I also wasn’t ready to go inside.

Tiffany parked at the curb. I sucked in a breath and held it, sitting as still as possible, hoping to blend in with my surroundings. After all, Tiffany overlooked me all the time.

I should’ve known she wasn’t in the habit of overlooking attractive men.