She giggled. “I guess not.”
Corbin had left camp, but not before he’d beat my ass on the diamond. I’d had to sit through nine innings of baseball against him this evening. I’d played a little in high school, so I’d been picked to coach the opposing team. Corbin had been in and out of baseball camp all summer and obliterated us while Tiffany and Lake had watched from the grass. Smug satisfaction sat on Corbin’s face as we shook hands after the game but disappeared completely as soon as Lake came around.
I released Tiffany’s hand. “What’s the deal with him?” I asked. “Corbin.”
She folded her arms on the table. “He’s a good guy, comes from a good family. Kind of a heartbreaker.”
“So he’s a little shit.”
She laughed. “No. He doesn’t do it on purpose. That’s why I was worried about Lake. Like, if Corbin had a crush on me and thought he could get close to me through her or maybe that Lake was, like, a substitute for me, then I’d worry he might hurt her. But he wouldn’t do it on purpose, you know? He’s not like that. He’s just a boy thinking with his . . . you know.”
Brave, bold Tiffany couldn’t come out and say what she wanted. It made me smile. Part of me wanted to hear it, just to tease her, but there was a bigger part of me that wanted to know about Corbin. “So do you think he’s a problem?”
She cocked her head. “How?”
Did I want him to be a problem? Maybe a little. That way I’d have an excuse to keep him away. “I don’t know. Will he try pressuring your sister into anything?”
“He’s not like that.” She rolled her eyes. “But maybe he should.”
“What?”
“I’m kidding. Of course I don’t want Lake to do anything before she’s ready, and she won’t. She’s too uptight. I swear she’s the youngest sixteen-year-old I know.”
“Meaning?”
“When it comes to boys, she acts like she’s twelve, but she isn’t. When I was her age, I wasn’t so na?ve about these things. None of my friends were.”
I shifted in my seat. It was just like on the horse earlier, Lake trying to convince me she was older while I wanted to keep her innocent. “Maybe you were like that and you just forgot what it’s like to be that age.”
She laughed. “My freshman year, my first boyfriend was quarterback of the varsity football team. A senior. You think he treated me like a kid? No. He taught me and my friends how to sneak out of the house. How to party. Before him, I’d had one beer in my life. By the end of the year, I took beer bongs as an appetizer.”
I couldn’t picture Tiffany at sixteen, which left me picturing Lake. They shared certain expressions that made me wonder if Tiffany had ever been as sweet and pure as her sister—or if Lake was bound to become like Tiffany. Lake was on the right track. USC would open up all sorts of doors for her. Nothing should get in her way, especially not someone like me who had no steady job, a murky past, and little more than what fit in a bedroom. Tiffany, though, she was going through something she probably couldn’t recognize, not being motivated to find work or do anything of substance. She needed a hand out of it, and her dad was too busy with Lake. Even her mom hadn’t seemed to want to help, more interested in getting me to date Tiffany.
There was a pretty good chance I could be good for Tiffany, and an even better one I’d be bad for Lake.
Bucky returned and set both plates down. “It took some bargaining, but I got your wine,” he said to Tiffany. “It’s in the back. Hope you like red.”
“We don’t want any wine,” I said. “She’s underage.”
Tiffany nodded. “I changed my mind.”
With a visible sneer, Bucky muttered something under his breath that sounded like asshole. I had no idea what the fuck his problem was, but I didn’t ask him to repeat himself. I wouldn’t be able to control my reaction if I was right.
“This is so good,” Tiffany said when we were alone again.
The food smelled damn tempting, but our conversation still weighed on my mind. “You don’t think she’ll head down that path, right?”
Tiffany cut her meatballs into halves. “Who?”
“Lake.” I was pretty sure I knew the answer, but I wasn’t around much in the big scheme of things. “The parties and sneaking out and stuff.”
“Oh. No.”
I exhaled. Lake had a good head on her shoulders, and I had to trust that. I went to pick up my fork.
“She should,” Tiffany added, “but she probably won’t.”
I paused. “What do you mean should?”
“It makes me a little sad how she just does what Dad says all the time. Like he’s so perfect? He isn’t, you know.”