Just as Evie started to squirm, her phone buzzed in her pocket. She pulled it out.
You okay?
Evie breathed. Ré, finally. She typed back, Did you tell S??
Why TF would I do that?
Come to the Olympia, we’re there.
She put her phone away. “Ré says he’ll meet us there,” she said.
Sunny didn’t reply.
Alex stuck his head between the two seats. “What?” he shouted. “I can’t hear anything back here!”
“Oh, shut up, Alex,” Sunny said, pushing his face away. “No one was talking to you.”
He shrugged and slumped back into the cushions.
They pulled into the parking lot behind the Olympia and piled out of the sedan. Sunny marched ahead, saying nothing, and Evie started to feel like she was crashing a really awkward date. Alex, as usual, was oblivious.
Inside the café, Réal’s brother Ivan sat with a group of skate punks in a booth near the back. If he recognized Evie from his kitchen the night before, he didn’t show it.
The skaters all said “hey” to Alex as he went past, and Alex waved his lanky arm back.
“Hey, hey, Tiny Ré,” he said to Ivan, who was taller than his big brother by several inches.
They slid into a booth near the front, Sunny and Alex on one side, Evie on the other.
A dark-haired waitress brought menus. “Sup, Holly,” Alex said to her.
“Stop being so fucking friendly,” Sunny snapped at him.
“What?” Alex reared back as though slapped.
“Just—you’re getting on my nerves,” she muttered, grabbing one of the menus.
Evie wanted to shrink into the vinyl.
“What time did Ré say he was coming?” Sunny asked her.
“Uh, he didn’t say,” Evie admitted. Soon, she begged.
Everything on the menu made her sick to think about. Frozen or fried or from a box, covered in salt and sauce. Nothing’s good here. Evie’s guts lurched again. She took a breath with her eyes closed, trying to tamp down the feeling.
“God, I’m not even hungry,” Sunny said with a sigh. “Get out of my way. I have to pee.” She poked Alex in the shoulder until he stood and let her out of the booth.
When she was out of earshot, Evie asked, “Are you okay?”
“Me? Why?” Alex grinned, looking confused. “Do I look fucked up or something?”
Evie smiled back, shaking her head. “No, you look fine. Sunny just seems a little harsh today.”
Alex glanced past her shoulder toward the bathrooms and shrugged. “Yeah,” he said. “She’s kinda always like that.”
Evie felt rotten for him anyway. Sunny was right—he was such a puppy. The way he loped around, all limbs, like a baby Great Dane that hadn’t grown into his own body yet. He was goofy and cheerful, and maybe not the sharpest knife, but he chased Sunny’s heels with total love. That had to count for something, right?
Sunny returned from the bathroom and slid back into the booth. For some reason she’d abandoned the hair experiment, and her blunt bangs were now back where they always were, falling into her dark, pretty eyes. But she didn’t mention it, so Evie didn’t either.
“Are we eating or what?” Alex finally said. “I’m frickin’ starving.”
R
About the last thing Ré felt like doing was squeezing into a tiny vinyl booth with Sunny. Just like the lake, it used to be Fun. Her toes creeping up his leg under the table, resting where they shouldn’t. But he didn’t know how to feel now, after last night.
Which was stupid, because the only way he should have ever felt about it was Bad. Alex was his friend, one of his best friends. It had been Shaun and Alex first, and then Sunny, a distant fourth, and only because she was Alex’s girlfriend. But you try stopping a hurricane.
So he’d let it happen. A lot.
So. Now what?
What was Evie thinking? What the hell had just happened? Ré licked his lips, remembering hers. He looked out his windshield and across the park behind the Olympia toward the empty band shell.
It felt like maybe only a year ago they’d all been little kids still. Hanging out at the park, doing skate tricks on the hollow planks of the band shell, the sound exploding like artillery through their brains. Shaun skating so close to the edge, not even looking, ’cause he never looked. If he went over, he’d land on his feet. He always did.
Ré looked down at his clenched fists, fighting the sharp feeling in his chest. His knuckles had pretty much healed. So had his face. Why had he even fought with Shaun in the first place? Let himself get that angry? It had been none of his business, and now it was nothing but his business. His and no one else’s—he couldn’t tell Alex about the baby, and he sure as hell wasn’t telling Sunny. And anyway, he’d promised Evie he’d keep his mouth shut.
He shook his head. How had Shaun left such a big mess behind? The one guy who never looked, who always leaped, who, no matter what, always seemed dipped in gold—how did that guy leave such a mess of a life behind?
Ré felt his throat closing. That painful, humiliating desire to bawl like baby filled his chest. He squeezed his eyes shut and gritted his teeth.
The Olympia’s back door flew open, and Ré’s armor snapped shut with a bang.
His little brother and crew spilled out into the parking lot. Ré sniffled and wiped his eyes on his sleeve. Lucky Ivan, he thought, no idea whose messed-up life is out there, just waiting to take him down.
He opened the car door and shouted to his brother.
The taller Dufresne ambled over and put his hand on top of the Buick.
“What’s up, Ré?”
“Your friend Mark—which one is he?”
Ivan looked surprised, but he turned and pointed at a black-haired kid who was skating away with the others. “In the Ramones shirt,” he said.
Ré looked, took note. “You told me once his mom is a healer,” he said. “Is that true?”
“Yeah, I guess so. That’s what Mark said.”
“And his sister too, that
