“Are you ready for this?” I asked Jenna as we followed my family to the tarmac at the edge of the island. We lingered behind them, walking close together, occasionally brushing our fingers together in that private way of sending messages that we had developed. One finger along the palm meant I want you, a thumb against the back of the hand promising that the best was yet to come. We broke apart when Casey looked over her shoulder, staring at each of us as we made our way to the helipad. I exchanged a glance with Jenna as we approached the helicopter, then I helped her and Casey climb up while my parents followed us on. The pilot and I helped everybody strap in and then we lifted off, flying over the crystal clear water. I looked at Jenna’s face and saw awe there, and contentment too. It was the same contentment I felt knowing how she felt about me—that she was as interested in me as I was in her.

“What do you think?” I asked Casey, who was staring out the window.

“It’s beautiful,” she said, with little inflection to her voice. By then, I was almost convinced that Casey knew about Jenna and I. She had never been this distant and cold with me, not even when we were squabbling teenagers living under the same roof. She was behaving the same way toward Jenna, who would try occasionally to make conversation with my sister. Casey would only give her short answers above the roar of the helicopter.

We landed on the mainland after a couple of hours of circling over the water, gazing at the clouds and the sea life below the surface. There was a Chinese restaurant there that I’d been to once and loved, and when we got there we were seated at a booth in the corner. Jenna slid in first, but as I went to sit down next to her, Casey jumped in front of me and took my spot. I sat down next to my sister instead, trying not to look over at Jenna. My parents sat across from us.

Dinner was stiff and silent, with only my parents talking. I felt guilty—this was my mother’s birthday celebration dinner, and none of us were really focused on anything but each other. I tried to smile and respond to my parents, but in my head all I could think about was Jenna and the possibility that Casey knew about the two of us.

After dinner, Casey excused herself from the booth and disappeared. She came back after a few minutes and we heard the band strike up. The tune was familiar, one my parents had always danced to in the kitchen when we were kids. They had danced to it at their wedding, and though it always made Casey and I gag to see them so in love and affectionate, now even hearing the song made me feel a longing for the kind of romance my parents had.

“This is our song,” Alice gushed, looking over at Bruce and kissing him. He got up and took her by the hand, pulling her onto the dance floor. Casey cleared her throat then and looked at Jenna, then at me.

“I know that you two are together,” she said, her voice cold. I felt my stomach drop at her tone. I looked at her face to see that her eyes were brimming with tears despite her determination to stay distant from her emotions. “I—I saw you coming back this morning, wearing the same clothes from last night. And I saw you kiss today on the beach.”

“Casey—” Jenna said, but Casey cut her off.

“I thought we were friends, Jen. I thought you were interested in being friends with me. And you just wanted my brother?”

“No, it’s not like that,” Jenna insisted, her voice pleading. “Travis and I, we just couldn’t help it.”

Casey snorted. “Okay, Jenna.”

“Casey,” I said. “We’re really sorry. Both of us. But we didn’t mean for this to happen.”

“Sure, you didn’t,” Casey said sarcastically. “You just so happened to invite my best friend to this private island and you just so happened to hook up on the very first day you’ve seen each other in years. Or have you been in touch since then?”

“I haven’t seen Travis since that phone call,” Jenna said to Casey. “This is the first time—”

“You know what? I don’t care,” said Casey, her voice like steel. “I really don’t. I hope you two are happy together.”

“Sis...”

She put her hand up to stop me. “Don’t even say anything, Travis. Just don’t.”

I went quiet. It was silent until my parents returned and silent after, though Casey immediately became chipper when my parents sat back down. She was pretending that nothing had happened, and everything was fine between the three of us when really my relationship with my sister had been shattered by the fact that I’d fallen in love with her best friend.

I sighed, glancing over at Jenna, who looked on the verge of tears herself. I could tell that she was fighting hard to hold them back in front of my parents, and she didn’t want them to see how upset she was and ask questions about what happened.

We left about an hour later, heading back to the house. I sat next to Jenna on the helicopter, our bodies pressed together, but I didn’t dare touch her as I wanted to. I would keep my hands to myself until later—though we didn’t really have to hide anything anymore, it would only make things worse to demonstrate any affection with Jenna in front of Casey. It would be like rubbing salt in the wound, and that was something I would never do to my sister.

We got back to the house and Casey went straight to her room after our parents went to bed, leaving Jenna and I alone together in the living room. There was a look of despair on her face that made me want to kiss her better, although I knew there was nothing I could do in this case to solve the problem.

“Jen—”

“Stop,” she said in a quiet voice that was nearly a whisper. “She hates us.”

“Baby,” I said, going to her, taking her arms in my hands. “She doesn’t hate us. She’s just upset. She’ll be okay with it eventually.”

“What if she’s not?” she asked, looking up into my eyes, desperate for comfort. I kissed her softly on the lips.

“She will be,” I promised her. She stared at me for a moment before nodding with a sigh.