Evie finally turned to look at him. “So you think he was murdered?”
Réal didn’t answer. He sat with his knees drawn up, elbows resting on them, beer dangling in his hands. He looked out at the water, though he couldn’t see it in the dark. Maybe tonight isn’t gonna be so Fun after all.
E
“Can I have a beer?” Evie asked. He gave her a look. He didn’t say it, but she heard it anyway—what about the baby? “Whatever,” she snapped. “I’m not keeping it.”
He shrugged and pushed the bag toward her. “Help yourself.”
She lifted a wet can from the package and cracked it open. She’d been drunk once or twice before, but she didn’t really drink. Not that she didn’t have plenty of opportunity—it just didn’t interest her all that much. Getting wasted was more Shaun’s thing. Shaun’s and Alex’s.
But she wondered if maybe she just hadn’t done it right before. Maybe their way was how you were supposed to enjoy drinking. She chugged back as much of the can as she could, like maybe she’d find something at the bottom that would fix the way she felt inside.
“Whoa,” Réal said. “Take it easy.”
She laughed, and he laughed too, nervously.
She thought about Alex, how all his close friends had known his big biker secret but her. It was like she didn’t really know them at all. Only Shaun. She’d only ever paid attention to Shaun. But what happened to a moth when you turned out the lights?
“Tell me a secret,” Evie said. “Something about you that no one else knows.”
This time he didn’t laugh. He squeezed the can in his fingers, making it crinkle, then drained it and reached for another. “Secrets, huh?” he said.
“I promise I won’t tell anyone. It’ll be just between us.”
“Like your baby?” he asked. “Eye for an eye?”
“Yeah,” she said. “Like that.”
He was quiet a very long time, turning the fresh can in his fingers.
Then she said, “Oh, come on, you must have one.”
“I do,” he said. “I’m just trying to decide which one to tell you.”
“I knew it!” she cried. “You’re way too quiet not to have secrets.”
He snorted. “Takes one to know one, Evie.”
She sighed, disappointed. “Fine, you don’t have to tell me,” she said, “but I am taking another beer.”
“Help yourself,” he said again, sounding relieved that she’d dropped it.
This can she drank more slowly. Her skin tingled in the warm night air, and she felt like laughing, though nothing was funny at all. She kicked off her shoes and socks and lay back on the blanket, looking up at the stars.
“Life is so pointless,” she said, “when you look at all that out there.” She waved her arm across the shimmering sky. Endless, empty…she felt the weight of it all crushing her into the blanket.
“I don’t know if it’s pointless,” he said. “Just…maybe not super important?”
“I thought you were sort of Catholic,” she said, flopping her arm down on the blanket between them. “What does that even mean, anyway—sort of Catholic?”
“It means we’re sort of Catholic,” he said, defensive. Then he shrugged. “We’re half Ojibwe too.”
She turned to look at his shape in the dark. “Really?”
“Yeah,” he said. “On my mom’s side.”
“I had no idea.” She couldn’t think of anything else to say, so she sipped her beer. Finally, she raised a finger and pointed at him. “That’s a secret,” she said.
He laughed. “No, it’s not. I don’t hide it.”
“Well, how come I never knew?”
“I don’t know. You never asked.”
“Hello, Réal Dufresne,” she said. “Are you by any chance Ojibwe?”
He hissed through his teeth. “Don’t be dumb,” he said, but he was laughing.
She rolled over and stood up, steadying herself, then walked down to the water’s edge. Tipping her head back, she swallowed. The beer was almost warm now. She screwed the can into the sand at her feet and rolled up her jeans. She stepped into the water; it was the exact same temperature as the beer.
“Be careful,” Réal called.
She waded in ankle deep, the cuffs of her jeans getting wet. The sandy bottom of the lake was smooth and hard and cold, worn into little ridges by the lapping waves.
“It’s beautiful,” she called back. She tipped her head to the stars again. The night was thick with them, surrounded at the horizon by a dark, uneven row of trees, their pointed tops biting at the sky. She kicked around in the water, then came back up onto the beach.
“I’m swimming,” she told Réal. She pulled her shirt up over her head and shimmied out of her jeans, then swiped the can from the sand, taking it with her back into the water.
“Câlisse,” Réal hissed, putting his beer down.
He stood and walked to the water’s edge.
“Come in!” she called. “Swim with me.” Her laugh echoed across the lake like loon song.
“Evie,” he warned, “don’t go too deep. Maybe you should get out now?”
“Oh, shut up, Ré,” she said. “Just get in.”
He hovered on the shore. “Fuck,” he said.
6
R
Fucking skinny-dipping. Well, not quite skinny. He still had his underwear on, but he might as well be naked. The cold water shriveled his balls, and he spat more sacres than a priest on Sunday as he dunked into the black, all his muscles clenching.
He couldn’t really see where she’d swum to, but he could hear her splashing around, breathing in gasps and bursts. Like a selkie, luring him out.
“Ev, this is crazy.” He paddled toward her sounds. The lake wasn’t very deep, but you could drown in a bathtub, so they say. Plus, she was drunk. Plus, he was supposed to be taking care of her—how had that gone so south, so fast?
He dove under the water and kicked toward her, breaching at her side. She was floating on her back with an empty beer can in one hand.
“Ev, let’s go back,” he said, treading water next to her. He didn’t see
