“You walked through the woods?”
Tristan sank down, removed the screen from the fire pit so he could use the poker to hook out a piece of flaming kindling. Pearl got the feeling he was in the habit of letting people believe he could see in the dark. “Do you have any Grey Goose?”
“I told you, my gramps won’t pony up for hard stuff.”
A slight lift of his brows as he turned the kindling over, then dropped it, wiping his hands and straightening. “I’m going for a ride.”
Bridges and Akil both rose. Pearl stood behind them, feeling as though she’d missed a cue. Tristan didn’t seem aware of her; he led the way down the beach, never glancing back to make sure they were keeping up. She watched Bridges, waiting for him to say something, like maybe explain why he was willing to desert his own party at the first word from Tristan.
They followed the path that led past the boathouse up into the trees. The blackness was total here, towering spruce and balsams blotting out the moonlight. A moment later, a glowing square appeared: Tristan’s phone, lighting the way.
They emerged on a steep ridge that switchbacked down to the water. The path was precarious, but not nearly as tricky as getting aboard Tristan’s boat was going to be. Pearl couldn’t see it, could only hear water lapping against the hull. No one spoke.
The ledge provided barely enough room for them to stand as Tristan unknotted a line tied around a tree trunk. He tugged, and finally the shape of the boat was discernible against the night, drifting closer. He made it all look easy, bracing his palms flat on the deck and boosting himself into the aft entry, going up the starboard walkway to the helm, where he started the motor, the running lights bursting on. The gauntlet had been thrown. Follow the leader, if you can.
Akil leaped first, then Bridges. His sandals slipped on the wet stern. Pearl’s shoulders jumped involuntarily, but he pulled himself into the walkway, safe.
Now the gap between the ledge and boat stretched out before her. No room for a running start, nothing to hold on to. Bridges held out his hands. “Come on. I’ll catch you.”
Another second of hesitation and all her credibility would be lost. Instead of looking at the gap, she focused on Bridges’s hands and lunged for them.
Her toes barely made the stern. Then he had her, pulling her into an embrace, rubbing her back. “Gotcha. You’re okay.” Akil was laughing.
Pearl extracted herself, cheeks burning. She wasn’t a hugger, except for Dad and Reese, and she sat down, jaw clenched, her skin tingling from the uninvited touch. Bridges sat beside her, stretching his arm across the top of the seat. She stayed clear of it, watching Tristan’s back, the wind tossing his hair around.
He was a better driver than Bridges, cutting across the water at a steady clip, his attention never wavering as he took them out into the blackness. The boat was a beauty, a StanCraft 290 Rivelle with a cream leather interior. His father’s boat, Pearl was almost certain. Dad had pointed it out in the harbor once, saying that in his next life, he’d own a wooden speedboat. Classiest things on the water.
After a couple of minutes, Bridges called, “Tristan.” No response. Bridges moved forward. “Dude.” He gestured to Pearl. “We have to take her back now. Right?”
Tristan glanced over his shoulder. “Oh.” He made a wide turn and took them into the harbor, returning to the yacht club dock. He leaned back, waiting.
Bridges stepped onto the dock with her. “Sorry about . . . well, everything, I guess. Tonight was pretty much a fail. I’d like to try again, if you want.”
Pearl opened her mouth, not entirely sure what was going to come out. From the corner of her eye, she saw Tristan tilt his head, roll his shoulders as if working out a cramp. “Sure. Why not?”
As Bridges entered her number into his phone, Pearl felt it for the first time. Tristan’s full attention, focused squarely on her.
She grew intensely aware of her body, the awkwardness of how she stood, slightly hunched, arms folded. She straightened her spine by degrees and lifted her chin, her skin thrumming.
She wasn’t the only one who felt the scrutiny. Bridges shifted, met her eyes, took an uncertain step closer. Of course they wouldn’t kiss; it would be ridiculous. It hadn’t been a real date. But it was as if the decision had been made for them, an invisible hand moving his knight to take her, the pawn.
Bridges’s lips touched hers. Her eyes remained open, her nostrils full of his cologne, spicy and fresh. When he pulled back, he said softly, “I’ll call you.”
She turned and left without a word, blood roaring in her ears, counting each plank she put between them, counting the seconds until she reached dry land. There, she gripped a lamppost and watched the boat’s taillights disappearing across the water, heading toward a destination they hadn’t wanted her to know.
Five
DAD WAS UP, making his hangover special: scrambled eggs, black coffee. He’d been asleep on the couch when she got home—not late, before the national news started—but this time, she hadn’t woken him. Hadn’t fixed him toast and asked him to watch the Tonight Show with her. Instead, she’d slipped into her room, where the light from her tablet crept beneath the door until the wee hours.
Now she rubbed her lips, trying to erase a memory as Dad moved between fridge and stove. She looked at the scars on his hands. The burns had healed well, but the cuts from where he’d punched out the parlor window to get inside the Garrisons’ house had required almost twenty stitches, the pinkish scar tissue twining up his wrist like young roots. “Missed you coming in last night,” he said, as if partially catching the flow of her thoughts. “Good party?”
“Not bad.”
“Any puking?”
“Not that I saw.”
“Sounds like a success to me.” He fixed her a plate, squirting on lots of ketchup, the way she liked it, and she felt such a rush of guilt and affection for him that her eyes burned. Always being a relatively easy, responsible kid had earned her his trust, especially now that she was eighteen and Dad had done away with her already lax curfew for good. If he knew where she’d really gone and who’d she’d been with last night, if he knew about Tristan—she blinked rapidly, stirring her fork in her plate. She’d told him she’d gone over to Katy Scanlon’s house for one last party with her graduating class; Katy was a sort-of friend who she hadn’t spoken to since the last day of homeroom.
Dad watched her as he swallowed two Excedrin with his coffee. “I’m headed to the club. Wysocki-Tillman wedding needs one hundred and fifty folding chairs set up before eleven.”
“You guys already put up the tents?”
“Fought with those things all day yesterday. Meriwether was hanging around bitching about ‘divots in the grass.’ Dickie told her if she can think of another way to hammer in stakes to let us know.”