“My mom really wanted a girl,” he was saying.
“So they just kept trying?”
He grinned. “Pretty much. Plus, we’re sort of Catholic.”
“Oh.”
Evie blushed. His grin had made Catholic sound dark and mysterious, conjuring images of forbidden things. Mistakes. A picture of Shaun in her kitchen, knotting his fingers in her hair. His lips, his breath. Evie swallowed. She closed her eyes, and tears spilled again.
Réal did nothing for a second, and then he said, “Hey.”
He crossed the kitchen, taking her arms lightly. “Hey now.” She breathed, then opened her eyes. He gave her a long look before saying anything, then: “He was my brother too, Ev.”
Behind them, the front door crashed open, and two boys exploded into the hall, shouting at each other. Evie backed away from Réal, into the wall.
She recognized Beni. The other boy was tall and lanky and had the same thick, black hair as the rest of them. Ivan, she guessed, as he ran up the stairs two at a time.
Beni came down the hall, giving them a look as he stepped past into the kitchen. “Sup,” he said gruffly.
Evie looked at Réal, feeling like the wall was the only thing holding her up. “I don’t think I can eat,” she confessed.
“All right,” he said, eyes as soft as his voice. “That’s okay. You still want to go to the lake?” She nodded. “Okay. Just let me feed my brothers, and then we’ll go.”
R
The lake usually meant Fun. Which usually meant Trouble. Réal was surprised Evie even wanted to go—she seemed way too miserable. But girls were confusing. They always said one thing and meant something else completely. He knew that about them, at least.
Back in the car, her dark hair spilled across her face. He couldn’t see her eyes, and he couldn’t tell what she was thinking. She just stared out the passenger window as the trees flew by.
“You mind if I grab some beer?” he asked. He wasn’t sure if she’d be insulted, being knocked up and all.
“No, that’s okay,” she said, looking his way at last. She smiled weakly.
“Okay. Cool.” He smiled back.
The lake was not far from town, along a tree-lined stretch of old county highway, but unless you were looking for it, you wouldn’t know it was there. Locals only. It was shallow and cool, with a sandy beach and a fire pit that had seen its fair share of abuse.
In full summer, it would be packed with kids, but probably not tonight. School wasn’t even out yet, exams still a couple of weeks away. But it was a warm night, promising warmer ones to come.
Réal pulled into the liquor-store parking lot. The trick to buying underage was to never hesitate, never look unsure. Also, to not buy like an amateur. Amateurs always bought stupid shit because they didn’t know any better. Flavored schnapps or cheap hard liquor. Dead giveaway.
He went straight for the beer. Tall boys, same domestic brand every time, so when the girl rang him through, she treated him like an old regular and never guessed she should have been asking for ID for the last two years—and for the next six months, too, until he was actually legal.
When he got back to the car, Evie was on her cell phone, blue light shining up into her face as she tapped the screen with her thumbs. He got into the car and put the paper bag down between them.
“So is anyone else coming?” he asked.
“Uh-huh,” she said absently. He heard the whoosh of a text being sent. She looked up from the phone. “Sunny says she has a thing, but she’ll come later, with Alex.”
“All right,” he said, throwing the car into drive. “When’s later?”
“I dunno, she didn’t say.”
Réal chewed his lip. It wasn’t that he minded being alone with Evie. It was that Sunny operated on a schedule that took only one person into account. They could be out there for hours before she got there, and she might not even turn up at all. And he barely knew Evie. What the hell would they talk about until the circus finally arrived?
Réal leaned over and flicked on the radio. It scratched and whispered till he found a station. They took the same highway the girls had taken that afternoon. The horizon ahead glowed bright cobalt, darker in the east, with just the faintest starlight poking through. He sat back in his seat and whistled tunelessly with the radio.
Fifteen minutes up the road, he took a right off the highway onto a dirt track that wound through a thick wall of trees, high beams casting wild shadows into the dark. They bounced over familiar ruts and eventually came out onto a wide patch of sandy grass. There were two other cars parked there, but neither was Sunny’s.
They got out of the Buick, and Réal put the bag with the beer on the roof of the car. He pulled a folded old blanket from the trunk and tossed it to Evie.
As they picked their way down to the beach, soft voices lifted in the dark. The fire pit was a rusted, burned-out cage of cast iron surrounded by lake rocks. It was full of ash and garbage. He went to it and kicked around. There didn’t seem to be fuel, and they hadn’t brought any. Probably the same reason no one else on the beach had lit it first. “Whatever,” he said, turning away.
Evie shook the blanket out, and they sat on it, a few feet apart. He pulled a tall boy from the bag, crisp sound bouncing out over the water as he cracked it open.
She hugged her knees to her chest, resting her chin on them, and asked, “Do you think Shaun was murdered?”
Réal coughed into his beer.
He ran a sleeve over his mouth and looked at her, wide-eyed.
“If it’s true, I mean,” she continued, ignoring his look. “What Alex said about him being all messed up. Who would have done that? And why?”
“It’s
