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Sandy lifted her arm toward her cabin, her gaze fixed on her porch. Archer looked above Sandy’s grayish-blonde ponytail—he towered over her by a foot—and rolled his eyes at Tea. Tea grinned, then made a show of pouring more wine into her glass and taking a big gulp.

He shook his head. You suck, he mouthed.

She shrugged and took another long sip.

After he successfully calmed Sandy down and somehow had her walking away with a smile, Archer grabbed for the empty jar.

“Archer!”

“Jesus, what is in the air?” he grumbled to her. Then he stood up straight. “Mom, hi!”

Larissa Vincent walked up to her son with a stern face and crossed her arms. “Are you joining us tonight?”

Tea felt her throat close up, her palms go clammy. Does she know? Is she mad at what I did to her son?

Archer held his hand out to his jar and unopened bag of chips. “I have dinner.”

“That’s not a meal.” Larissa eyed the chips, the jar, and finally the person who was keeping Archer company. “Ope, Tea! Darling, it’s so good to see you. I would have stopped over sooner, but you know…the pandemic and all that.”

She swallowed. “You too, Mrs. Vincent.”

Larissa glared at her. “That is not my name.” She playfully slapped her son’s shoulder. “Maybe if Archer actually filled us in on anything about you the past eight years we wouldn’t be so formal! He hasn’t told us a thing.”

Archer flinched at her words.

Her shoulders relaxed. She thought we were talking. She thought we were still friends. She rolled her eyes, making a show of it. “It’s good to see you too, Mom.”

“Much better,” Larissa replied with a twinkle in her eye as she turned back to her son. “I made meatloaf tonight, and I was going to put it on the grill.”

Archer tossed his head back and moaned. The sound…did something to her.

She poured more wine down her throat.

Archer snapped up straight and pointed at her. “You’re hogging.”

Tea pressed her lips together and released a satisfied smack. “You’re taking forever.”

Larissa watched the two of them with obvious glee. “It’s so good to see the two of you hanging out.”

Archer’s shoulders sagged. “Well, we’re currently not hanging out because you’re here—”

Larissa pressed a finger into her son’s chest and pushed hard, a strand of hair slipping from her ponytail. She blew it out of her face and gritted, “Archer Vincent, if you do not join us for dinner tonight, I will come into your cabin with a sledgehammer and annihilate that pathetic wall of yours—”

He lifted his hands up. “Okay, okay, I got it. Don’t take it out on my sticky notes.”

She huffed, then clasped her hands behind her back and grinned. “See you in thirty minutes.”

Archer let out a strained sigh as he watched his mother make her way back to her cabin. His hands curled into fists, then he unfurled them and repeated the motion. Finally, he turned around to face her.

Tea held up her empty wine bottle with a triumphant smile. “Whoops.”

She faced the front door outside Cabin A the following morning, telling herself that it was no big deal. After he cursed at her for finishing up her bottle the night before, she went to grab another, but when she returned he was being summoned by Steph Bramble to fix their storage unit’s roller door. By the time he finished, he had to report to dinner.

“We’ll…talk,” he’d said, snatching his unopened bag of chips and empty jar.

“Sure, yeah.”

He frowned. “That didn’t sound too convincing.”