He looks at me for a suspended moment, gaze moving back and forth between my eyes. He finally sighs, reaching up to cup the back of my head, pressing it back to his shoulder. His voice rumbles beneath my ear. “I didn’t say it wouldn’t be worth it.”
We fall asleep like that, wrapped up in each other, breaths evening out. When I dream, it’s just like before—on the floating dock at night, with the fireflies and the calm and the anticipation.
Only this time, I can see Reyn on the shore, silhouetted by the twinkle of lights, watching over me.
20
Reyn
“Get cleaned up,” Dad says when I walk in the kitchen. I’m dripping with sweat from a morning run that was supposed to be one loop around the neighborhood, but ended up turning into four.
I grab my water bottle off the counter, still breathless. “Any particular reason why?”
“Because we’ve been invited to watch the Vanderbilt game at the Halls’.”
I freeze with the bottle halfway to my mouth. “We’ve what?”
“You know how they are about game day,” Dad says, finishing breakfast as he flips through his mail. It’s started stacking up. “They’ve invited people over. Including us.”
“Including me?”
I know my father and I resemble one another. The green eyes, the sharp cheekbones. The hint of arrogance and impulsivity. It’s a little unnerving to look at him sometimes.
“Specifically you, as a matter of fact. Denise made sure I knew you were welcome.” He carries his plate over to the sink. “It’s an olive branch. We’re going to take it.”
What my father doesn’t realize is that the branch has not only been extended, but the tree has been climbed. Vandy and I are good—better than good—like, ‘slept in the same bed all night for the best sleep I’ve had in ages’ good.
I left before dawn, sneaking out the way I came in, through the window and off the small overhang. I crept back into my house, ignoring the woman’s jacket on the coat rack and going for a run instead. I didn’t want to lose the feeling from the night before. What it was like to have time with Vandy. To touch her scars. To hold her in my arms. To wake up and watch her sleeping, face placid and soft, and run a careful fingertip over the curve of her delicate cheek bone, unable to fight the awful awareness that I could have destroyed this.
But I hadn’t.
She says she’s not ready for sex and I’m okay with that. I wasn’t as careful with her as I should have been. I won’t make that mistake twice.
An hour later, I follow my father into the Halls' house. It’s a midday game and we come bearing gifts; a six-pack of locally brewed beer and a bag of organic chips. I scan the room, eyes peeled for my girl, but I don’t see her. I do take in the foyer, full of shoes and keys and old mail, and then the formal living room, which looks elaborately unused. It’s been a long time since I’d been in this house—at least not through the upstairs window.
Nervous about meeting with the Halls again, I linger in there, looking at all the photos on the mantle. I remember when some of these were taken. Emory, in the eighth grade, holding up an MVP trophy. That year had been crazy, with everyone vying for a good spot in Preston’s underclassmen programs. In another, more recent photo, Emory and Vandy are posed for one of those boring professional shots that never quite look natural. It’s taken outside, probably by the lake, and it looks warm, bright. Spring maybe, going by the dress she’s wearing. Half of Vandy’s blonde hair is pulled back, clipped above her ear, and everything about it is picture-perfect. Hands folded neatly on her knee. Shoulders straight. Not a single hair out of place.
Her smile is as flat as her eyes.
She’s absolutely stunning, but beneath the pretty face, nice dress, and shiny hair, there’s something dark swimming under the surface. The more I look, the more I can spot it in the other recent photos, too.
“Hey dude.” Emory startles me, sidling up, following where my eyes just were. He scowls. “I know what you’re thinking.”
I doubt he does. “You really didn’t know?”
His voice drops to a low murmur. “That she was high for most of these? Not really.” He gives me a sidelong look that seems a touch defensive. “She’d just been through a lot of difficult