Page 6

“No,” I said. His head turned, and I plastered on my winning smile. “But I’m committed to pretending.”

“Alvin.”

“Darius.”

He lowered his voice. “You don’t have to make everything a joke, ya know.”

“And you don’t have to make everything sound like a funeral, baby boy.”

The muscle in his jaw ticked and the calm was replaced by his usual sour mood.

I preferred it that way. I didn’t know how to handle Dee in a good mood. I’d been irritating him since childhood. It was comforting to know I hadn’t lost my touch.

He opened the cabin door but I stayed still for another second, staring through the window, trying to see just how fucked of a small-ass space this was gonna be.

Darius swiped my bags when we heard a whistle blowing near the lake. My hands went cold, and he chucked both of our shit into the cabin and stormed away, slamming the door.

For half a heartbeat, I was fifteen again. Submerged in the warm lake well past lights-out with Darius’s mouth still warm against my own. His hands were gripping my wet shirt and the wild look in his eyes was enough to completely undo me.

“This is not happening.”

The words echoed so clearly that I heard them over the teenagers shouting outside and being the dumb assholes their youth allowed them to be.

Move the fuck on from the past, Alvin, or you may as well go drown yourself in the pond for him.

Heat wrapped around me immediately when I walked out of the shade of the cabin area. The air thick with pine, lake water, sunscreen, and the industrial-strength cleaner they used in the cabins. The combination hit me so hard I nearly stopped breathing and had to give myself another pep talk to keep going.

The peppy blonde bitch came up beside me as I made my way to the clearing. “You look pale,” she said.

“It’s called natural elegance,” I told her.

She stared at me, but Darius got her attention when his glistening body rounded the corner of her peripherals. I snatched the sheet of paper from his hand before he could raise his arm to pass me whatever bullshit we were about to do.

“You sleeping in her cabin, DeeDee? I’ll make sure to leave on a nightlight for you so you don’t fall on your self-righteous ass on the way home.”

Before he could reply, our phones rang with a video-call request. To everyone’s horror, I answered first, reluctantly parking up beside Darius while his new girlfriend sauntered off.

“Ah, so you must be Alvin and Darius. I apologize for my absence. I will reconvene with you both at a later date. I trust that you’re capable of handling a few youths.”

“That depends,” I said, eyeballing the forty-something-year old twat with glasses on the screen. “Are you gonna threaten to arrest us again?”

She stopped talking, and Darius sighed.

I held out my hand and mock-shook hers. “Alvin Carter. Delighted to be here under threat of further legal consequence, ma’am.”

The woman’s expression flickered before she nodded. “Director Cooper.”

“Director.” I nodded solemnly. “Powerful lady. Did you bunk your way right on up to the top?”

Darius stepped in before she could decipher that. “Darius D’Angelo. Pleasure to meet you, Director Cooper.”

She nodded again, visibly relieved to find one adult who appeared house-trained. “Your group is already waiting in the recreation hall,” she said. “We’ve assigned you to the senior youth program. Ages fourteen through sixteen.”

I looked towards the basketball court. The boy wearing his shirt on his head cupped his hands around his mouth. “Nice shorts, sir!”

I glanced down at the sparkly pale-pink fabric clinging to my thighs, thanks to all the sweat dripping off my body. Then back at him. “They’re coral,” I shouted in his direction. “Public education has failed you, I see.”

A few kids laughed, and the boy’s grin slipped.