CHAPTER 1
Tania
My shift at the museum ends in twenty minutes, and I’m still fixing labels under a Renaissance altarpiece that an intern definitely shouldn’t be trusted with.
My phone buzzes, and I retrieve it from my back pocket to check it.
Ben:Weekend. Lake house. You in? I miss you!
The text takes me by surprise. My brother doesn’t do spontaneous.
Ben plans. Ben schedules. Ben builds spreadsheets for grocery runs.
I brush dust from my fingers and text back.
Me:Whose lake house?
Ben:The Lockes.
The Lockes.
I haven’t seen them since I was thirteen, since they left for college and never really came back to our hometown, not for holidays, not for summers, and not for graduations. Once in a while, I’ll stalk them online. The triplets are always in the news because they are rich, successful, good-looking, and all very single.
The triplets and my brother still see each other regularly, of course. They’ve been best friends since they were eight.
But not me.
When they left for college, our lives stopped overlapping.
Me:Maybe. When?
Ben:Leaving in two hours.
My hand stills on the label beneath the altarpiece. I guess if I’m going, I have to make a decision right now.
Me:Okay. I am just about to leave the museum. I’ll run home and pack.
Ben’s car is new enough that it still smells like leather and that fresh car scent I can’t really place.
“You didn’t have to say yes.” He merges onto the highway, shoulders loose in that rare way that means he’s escaped his office. “I know it’s last-minute.”
“I need this break.”
He glances at me. “You sure? You’ve got that exhibition thing coming up.”
“I’ve already worked my hours for the week. I don’t have to go back until Tuesday.”
Traffic thins as the city gives way to suburbs, and the suburbs give way to trees.
“How long since you’ve seen the guys?” He changes lanes. “I can’t remember how long it’s been.”
“Eleven years.” My fingers trace the edge of the seatbelt. “I was barely a teenager when you all left for college.”
He nods, then pauses for a moment. “They’re different now.”
“Different?”
He huffs a laugh. “Well, yeah, they’re different from who they were at eighteen.”
