Page 25

Because apparently sharing a cabin with me was too fucking much.

“Three.”

Because some things never changed.

“Throw!”

Clothes exploded into the air. One sneaker made a beautiful arc against the morning sky before hitting the lake’s surface with a satisfying splash.

I laughed, actually laughed for the first time in a while. God, this felt fucking good.

I looped my arms around the heathens and ushered them forward. “Come along, my little kleptos. Here’s your next lesson: Leaving the scene of the crime before you’re caught.”

I lifted one hand over my head and flipped off the cabin and the dining hall. Trevor laughed hard, and it brought on a chorus of laughter from everyone else. Including me as I kept walking.

I’d already spent enough summers at Camp Dix waiting for Darius D’Angelo to decide whether being close to me was worth the trouble. I sure as fuck wasn’t wasting another one.

CHAPTER 8

Everything had been relatively drama-free this morning, as drama-free as it could be after I spent the night sleeping on the porch while ignoring the emotional damage I’d deposited on the other side of the door.

I’d left my sneakers under the bed. Slid on my flip-flops and tossed my bag across the room. Alvin was still curled up on the top bunk when I’d left to go to the dining hall, his back to me and his alarm going off. For the third time. After he’d snoozed his backup alarm and his backup, backup alarm.

Fucker claimed he needed his beauty sleep. And he wasn’t wrong. Alvin Carter was beautiful in his own way. He was also a fucking dead man when I found him…

I’d just gotten back to the cabin, ready to wash away the tension and the remnants of the insects that had made a home in my hair overnight when I realized my clothes weren’t where they should’ve been.

Not just one thing. Everything. My shirts, my shorts, my favorite black tee that took nearly a year for me to save up and afford because it came with a designer label attached. Even the undershirt I was trying to pretend didn’t matter.

The one that reminded me of him. And, if I breathed real deep, still smelled like him too. Or maybe it was the room that smelled like him and the mix of cologne and perfumes he’d perfected a few years back and called his “signature scent.”

I now stood in the middle of the room. Staring, my throat tight, like if I stared hard enough–long enough–like if I blinked enough times, the universe would correct itself.

It didn’t. Instead, my glare caught on something by the lake and I rushed out of the cabin, down the porch steps and over to the dock. Where I spotted a balled-up pair of white gym socks.

At first, I thought it was a pile of trash. The campers doing what they always did and cutting corners. I had been one of those campers not that long ago. And so had Alvin. We hadn’t wanted to make the trek all the way up to the dumpsters and had tossed a bag or two where we’d hoped none of the counselors would see it.

But the closer I stepped, my flip-flops slapping the floorboards while simultaneously manifesting my worst fear, the more of my shit I saw floating in the lake. Slick with water, catching the morning sun, and bobbing along the surface.

My shirt: black, damp, still clinging to my body’s memory. My jeans: darker, heavy at the waist, drifting like a defeated flag. My jacket: soaked to the interior, stretched slightly, as though it had been dragged through the mud and leaves before it was slowly drowned in the lake water. Floating beside whatever wildlife made this camp their home long before some judge made it my prison.

“Allllvinnnn!” I screeched at the top of my lungs, a few birds propelling off nearby branches and scattering into the sky.

They were smart. My former best friend? Yeah, he had a fucking death wish as he came strutting down the hill behind me. His hair pulled up high on his head, his camp t-shirt tied into a crop top, a whistle bouncing with each step he took in my direction, and a smirk so smug I swear it came with its own theme song.

Alvin glanced at the wet varsity jacket in my hand, my shorts that were just as wet after I’d gone diving in after the jacket, and my feet which were doing their best to wiggle off the plants and sand squishing between my toes.

“Well,” he said, tasting the word. “Look at that. Water therapy.”

“Alvin…” I repeated. Because simmering rage did that to me. Alvin did that to me. Made me feel as if I had a million things to say and no words to say them with.

“Darius,” he mocked. His eyes catching on my jacket, softening for a moment, only to immediately harden again. Guilt replaced by his own brand of pettiness. “Lose something?”

“I didn’t lose anything.” I stepped back, because the lake was too open, and the dock suddenly felt like a stage as campers started to pop up behind him. “My clothes are in the⁠—”

“In the lake,” Alvin finished for me. “Yes. I can see that. I’m not blind, babe.”

“You did this.”