Sunny, dusty days outside passed too fast. Spending a week in fresh air was exactly what I hadn’t known I’d needed. For the first time in years, I wasn’t surrounded by hardened men or straining my body so my mind wouldn’t wander too far down the wrong path. I felt like I was part of the living. The kids’ enthusiasm was exhausting and infectious. Tiffany had loosened up. Lake made me feel like a man again just for having someone to look out for.

I didn’t want it to end, but like all good things, it had to. We were leaving in the morning. Tonight, the counselors had thrown the campers a party at dinner, then sent anyone under twenty-one to bed early. Including Tiffany.

“But I’m practically twenty-one,” she’d argued with Gary.

“Aren’t you like nineteen?” he’d responded. “And even if you were twenty and three-hundred-and-sixty-four days, it wouldn’t matter. You’re underage.”

I’d walked her to her cabin while Kirk had dealt with ours. Her girls’d asked for a bedtime story, and Tiffany had pulled out a surprisingly good one. She’d told me why afterward—she’d just summarized the first three seasons of 90210.

After saying goodnight, I headed to the campfire Gary and the staff had made.

As I approached, Bucky dicked around on the guitar, plucking at random strings. Lexi, a lifeguard, passed me a Bud. All the chairs were taken, so I sat in the dirt by the fire.

“Welcome to the special adult party,” Gary said to me. “We do it every year on the last night. Tiffany’s not going to rat us out to her parents, is she?”

“Sutter don’t call the shots in that relationship,” Bucky said. “When you got a hot piece of ass like her, you just do what she says.”

Fuck this guy. He’d been giving me shit all week. When I worked a job, I mostly kept to myself because there were always men like Bucky whose mouths were bigger than their muscles. My muscles were just big, a byproduct of being one of the younger guys in construction—the older ones were always making me do the toughest shit. I couldn’t take the kinda bait Bucky was tossing in front of me. My dad had a temper that could flip at any moment and I knew, deep down, that switch existed in me. “Don’t go there, man.”

“Or what?” Bucky asked.

I opened my beer. “You’re lucky there are kids around.”

Lexi threw a bottle cap at Bucky. “Stop. Seriously. You’re an ass.”

Gary squinted at me over the fire. I wasn’t so good at making friends, but he’d been good to me, giving me this job, making sure I was set all week. That was part of why I’d been on my best behavior. I planned to keep in touch, maybe even come back next year.

“Anybody know a good scary story?” Lexi asked.

“I got one,” Bucky said. “Once upon a time, we ran out of beer.”

“Bullshit,” someone said.

“There’s more back in the kitchen,” Gary said.

“Nah, there ain’t.” Bucky strummed the guitar and sang, “This is the l-a-a-a-st of it.”

Gary checked the cooler. “Fuck. Who the fuck’s been sneaking it out?”

Everybody looked away. I hadn’t drunk anything in a week, but if Tiffany had found herself some special punch our first night here, no doubt others had their ways of sniffing it out, too.

“Somebody’s gotta go replenish the stash,” Gary said. “The night just started. I’ve already had two, and with my job, if I get a DUI, I’m fucked.”

“None of us are sober,” Bucky pointed out, slowly turning his beady eyes on me. “Except Sutter.”

I hadn’t even taken a sip. Truth was, I didn’t want to do much more than have a beer, two max, and head to bed. The days here were long, hot, and grueling. But everyone looked at me, which didn’t leave me much choice. “I don’t have a car.”

“Take my truck.” Vern, a gray-haired wiry man who worked full-time as a janitor for the campground, shifted around to shove his hand in his pocket. “It’s about forty minutes to town and back.”

He tossed me the keys. It was barely nine-thirty and didn’t seem worth arguing about. Even if I wasn’t going to drink, I was the new guy, and their only hope for refills. I passed my untouched beer to the guy next to me and stood. “All right.”

“There’s a liquor store on the main boulevard,” Vern said. “If it’s closed, just stop in any dive around there and slip ’em some cash. They’ll sell you a bottle of something.”

I nodded at them and headed for staff parking. Gary caught up with me after a few yards. “Forgot to get you cash,” he said, passing me a couple twenties.

I thought about not accepting it, but I didn’t have a dollar to spare on other people’s alcohol, so I put it in my pocket. “Thanks.”

“Also wanted to thank you,” Gary said. “You did good this week.”

“Yeah?”

We stopped at Vern’s truck, a white, rusted Ford from the seventies that looked like it weighed as much as a whale and probably moved as fast. “I was a little worried about having Tiffany here,” Gary said. “She seems like a rule breaker. But far’s I know, you two kept it clean. That probably wasn’t easy so I appreciate it.” He ran a hand through the mop of curls on his head. “How long you two been dating?”

“Couples months I guess.”

“Ah. Is it serious?”

I glanced back at the campfire. No, it wasn’t, but it could get serious. If things kept up this way, Tiffany letting down her guard, Lake being off limits, it might. “Nah. Not yet.”

“Good, good.” Gary rocked on his heels. “You’re too young to settle down, but I know how these girls can get. Don’t let her push you in that direction if you aren’t ready.”

I wasn’t sure what to say about it. Much as I liked Gary, I wasn’t in the habit of talking about my personal shit with anyone.

He slapped me on the back. “See you in a few.”

I climbed into the beat-up truck. The thing didn’t look like it’d make it down the block, much less to town, but I figured Vern knew better than me. It growled to life, and I gave it a few minutes to warm up. Luckily, the heater worked. Walking away from the campfire had left me with a chill. I reversed out of the lot and headed for the trail toward the highway. I squinted through the pitch dark, the headlights showing only what was right in front of me.

At the mouth of the unpaved road, a movement caught my eye. Lake stepped out into the path, looking not even a little worried I might hit her. I slammed on the brakes. “Jesus Christ.”

In denim short-shorts that looked a size too big and a t-shirt a size too small, she came around to the passenger’s side and opened the door.

“What’re you doing?” I asked.

“Looking for you. I waited at the pool, hoping you’d come since it’s our last night.”

I checked over my shoulder to make sure nobody was around. “Get in.”

She hauled herself into the seat and pulled on the door. Using all her weight only moved it a few inches. The truck was hidden by trees, but we weren’t even off the campsite yet. I leaned over to grab the handle, and the door creaked and groaned, closing heavily.

Her face was in mine. I smelled sweetness, watermelon or something, and chlorine. “You didn’t get in the pool, did you?”

“Just my feet.”

She kicked off her flip-flops. The fine, gold hair on her upper thigh shimmered under the dome light. I didn’t know where to start. The skimpy outfit? Sneaking around in the dark? Swimming without supervision? “You can’t be here, Lake.”

“I know. But it’s our last night.”

We were on display. I started to drive to get the light to turn off. “It’s everyone’s last night.”

I went slowly down the unpaved trail, but we jostled in our seats anyway. She didn’t even bother looking out the windshield. “Where are you going?” she asked.

Hunched over the wheel, I glanced between her and the road. The seat was one long bench of three seats, Caribbean-turquoise vinyl. She pulled one bare foot up on it and faced me, like I was about to say something important. “On an errand.”

“So you’re coming right back?”

“Yeah.”

“Then what’s the big deal if I come?”

It was after dark, she was a minor, and I was responsible for her. All that said, she’d never be safer than when she was with me. I was sure of it. I adjusted the rearview mirror. “You promise to go straight to your cabin when we get back?”

“Yes.”

“So what’re you doing, swimming alone at night?” I made sure my tone conveyed my disapproval.

“I told you. Waiting for you. And I only put my feet in.”

“Doesn’t matter. It’s dangerous. Water tricks you. It looks calm and inviting, but it can kill you. Fast.”

She didn’t respond. If I’d scared her, good. Nothing bad ever came of respecting the elements.

The final few yards of the road were bad enough to knock a pack of cigarettes out of Vern’s visor. Lake picked them up. “How come you never smoke in front of me?”

“They’re not mine.” I pulled onto a main road, and the ride got about as smooth as it was going to get in this soon-to-be junkyard scrap metal. I relaxed back into my seat. “We talked about this. Secondhand smoke’s bad for you.”

“And not for you?”

Lake shouldn’t be in the truck. I shouldn’t’ve been noticing or still thinking about those soft-looking hairs on her leg. I should’ve sent her back. I didn’t even want alcohol but somehow I’d ended up in a situation. I would’ve killed for a cigarette right then. “Gimme those.”

She handed over the pack, and I stuffed it between the seats. “I thought about what you said the other night. I’ll quit, it’s just going to take some time.”

“I can help,” she said.

“How?”

“I don’t know. There must be some way.”

“It’s not like AA where you get a sponsor.”

I took the on-ramp to the highway. It was dead, not many cars around, just lots of black pavement flanked by shadowed trees. The sliver of a moon waxed from new to full.

“I could check in on you.” Her voice barely carried over the grumble of the engine. “Or you could call me when you get the urge.”

Seemed about right, replacing one impulse with another. Lake instead of nicotine. Only, I didn’t think that was how she meant it. I glanced over in the dark. “What’s going on?”

“What’s going to happen? After camp?”

“I don’t know. Guess I finish the job by your house. Then I find more work until I graduate. You go back to school.”

“What about Tiffany?”

The way I saw it, I had two options. Stop seeing Tiffany and end my time with the Kaplans, or keep both girls in my life. “I don’t know, Lake, but like I told you before, that’s between me and your sister.”

“Where do you live?”

“Lake . . .”

“You said you’d get me books about what to major in.”

“I will.”

“But when? I start school in a week. Next thing you know, it’ll be time to fill out applications. I’ll have homework, and my dad’s making me take a college class. I won’t have time for anything else.”

I slid my hand down the wheel. “You freaking out a little?”

“No, but maybe I don’t want to do all this anymore. I don’t understand why everyone else gets to decide for me.”

I only realized then, from the panic in her voice, what she was after, pestering me about the cigarettes, Tiffany, the future. She didn’t know if we’d see each other after this. I didn’t know, either. Maybe I wouldn’t if I didn’t keep things up with Tiff. The truth was, I had little control over the situation, and Lake had even less. “I’ll get you your books,” I promised.

“Forget the books. I don’t care about them.”

“You should,” I said more harshly than I meant. “If you don’t know your options, how’re you going to know what to major in?” Truth was, her dad wasn’t a big man, but he scared me. He had power over Lake. I had wondered more than once if she’d even ever considered a school aside from USC. This was too big a decision to let her dad make for her. “How’re you going to stand up to your dad if he tries to force you into something you don’t wanna do?”

“What if I don’t want to go to school at all?”

I gripped the steering wheel, frustrated, even though I knew she didn’t mean it. Neither of us had any control over this situation and she was looking for something to hold on to. “That’s not what I meant. You know it isn’t.”

“It was just all laid out for me before I was even born.”

“Then ask yourself what you really want, but don’t say it isn’t college. It is. The question is where you want to go and what you want to do when you get there.”

“What do you mean ‘where’?” she asked quietly.

“Doesn’t have to be USC, Lake. Doesn’t have to be what anyone else says.”

She bit her thumbnail and sat quietly a while, obviously thinking. I hoped she was beginning to see she had options. She wasn’t going to figure it out tonight, but it was a start.

We entered town suddenly, a building or two at first and then we were on the main boulevard passing fast food joints, log cabin inns, and souvenir shops.

“I live in Long Beach,” I said, hoping it might calm her down a bit. “I’ve got a roommate and a kitchen that barely fits two people.”

“I didn’t know that,” she said. “That’s far.”

“From where? You? About a forty-minute drive.”

“Oh.” The vinyl squawked as she adjusted her foot. “Are you happy there?”

I couldn’t remember feeling much more than complacency since Maddy’s death. Lake was the only thing recently that hadn’t been some kind of job or obligation. “I guess. I’m not really one thing or another.”

The first liquor store I passed was dark, so I pulled into a bar called Phil’s a few stoplights down. It took me a minute to decide where to park. There were people out front, and I didn’t want anyone to see Lake in the car. I chose a space off to the side, farthest from the building.

“Why are we here?” Lake asked.

“Picking up booze.” A flyer on the window advertised line dancing. Three women stood by the door, smoking, and my mouth watered for a cigarette. “I’ll only be a minute. You can’t come in, so just lock the doors and wait, all right? Don’t get out for any reason.”

“What do you think’ll happen in a minute?”

I guess she didn’t know yet that one minute could change your life. That if I’d left baseball practice one minute earlier, things might’ve been different for Maddy. Lake was intuitive but too trusting. She hadn’t hesitated to have me come into her parents’ house that day, even though I was three times her size and carried tools that could kill a grown man with one swing. She should have someone looking out for her. I wanted to be that someone.

I got out of the car, slammed the door shut, and waited for the thunk of the locks. The girls were average-looking. Jeans, cowboy boots, tank tops spotted with sweat, hair stuck to their foreheads. “Hey there,” one of them said. “Looking for a dance partner?”

I went into Phil’s and took out the twenties. “Can I buy some beer off you?” I asked the bartender.

“How about Jack instead?”

“That’s fine. Whatever you got for forty bucks.”

He nodded and headed into the back.

“Got a cigarette I can bum?” One of the girls from outside sat on a barstool next to me. I had a pack in my shirt pocket, but cigarettes cost money, and money was finite. I only spent it on what I cared about. “No.”

She took a swig from her beer. Her ring caught my eye, a big, bulky thing with a silver band that looked oddly familiar. The bulbous, dark stone covered everything below her knuckle. I looked closer. Maybe it was glass, and hunter green, not black stone.

“What is that?” I asked.

She showed me her hand. “A mood ring.”

“Fuck. Yeah, I remember now.” Maddy had one. My mom had bought it in the seventies and handed it down to her. Sometimes, when I was broody, Madison would force it on my finger and ask me to make it change colors, from dark to light. To make it happy. “What’s the green mean?”

“I forget. I feel bored, though, so maybe that.” She looked up. “Where you from?”

Words were like money, not worth wasting when it wouldn’t get me anywhere. “Not here.”

If I were at home, if Lake weren’t in the truck, maybe things’d be different. Girls were a fine distraction. All but Lake. She was crystal clear to me, as was everything around her. Scenery was more beautiful. I felt blood pumping through my veins. Things sharpened that’d gone dull a while ago, even memories of Maddy. Over time, I’d forgotten some stuff about Maddy without realizing it, and around Lake, it was coming back. The way she read like Maddy, or now, this ring I probably would’ve overlooked. Any memories of Maddy usually came with a blinding kind of pain I’d learned to accept, but seeing that ring again, it didn’t make me want to drive off a cliff. It was okay.

But did that mean I was forgetting Madison? I couldn’t even picture her as clearly anymore. Not as well as I could Lake.

“Where then?” the woman asked. “Never seen you here before.”

“Can I buy that off you?” I asked. “The ring?”

She furrowed her brows, inspecting it. “It’s not worth anything.”

I didn’t care. It wasn’t as if I was going to drive up to my mom’s and look for Maddy’s, even though it might still be there. “How about I give you the change from the alcohol?”

She smiled. “Phil’s not going to give you any change.” She took off the ring and slid it across the bar. “Take it. I’ll get another.”

The bartender returned fisting two paper bags. He handed me them by their necks, and I gave him the money. I put the ring in my pocket and thanked the cowgirl. Maybe I owed her a little more time than I gave her, but I had none to waste.

I didn’t want to be away from the truck another minute. From Lake.