Ivan shrugged.
Ré said, “Next time Mark comes to the house, tell him I want to talk to him, okay?”
Ivan shrugged again. “Okay, Ré. See ya.”
He threw down his skateboard and mongo-footed back to his friends, gangly limbs all flapping like some kind of freakish bird’s.
The café’s back door opened again, and it was Alex, at last.
“Du-fresne!” he woofed cheerfully when he saw Réal.
“Sup, Janes,” Ré said. The boys clamped their hands together briefly.
The girls came out the door behind Alex, and Ré didn’t know whose eyes to meet first, so he chose neither. He sat sideways in the driver’s seat and waited for them to come to him.
“Where the hell were you?” Sunny asked. The edge was still in her voice, but she sounded tired.
“Not hungry,” Ré said, not looking at her.
“No, I mean, all day where were you?” Sunny said. “I texted you a hundred times.”
He lifted hard eyes to hers. “I said, not hungry. I had shit to do. What do you care?”
“Who doesn’t have shit to do?” Sunny rolled her eyes.
Ré looked sideways at Alex, raising his brows, and Alex shrugged. Hurricane.
“So. What now?” Alex asked the girls. They offered no answers. Sunny just crossed her arms over her chest and looked away.
“Well, ain’t this just a peachy way to spend a Saturday?” Alex drawled, leaning back against the Buick and putting his elbows on the roof.
After a pause Sunny said, “Let’s go to the lake!”
Evie and Réal both answered at once.
“No!” said Ré.
“I can’t,” said Evie.
They flicked a look at each other, and Sunny looked at them, eyes wide and then narrow.
“Fine,” she said. “If no one wants to do anything fun tonight, then I am going home. You all suck.”
She went around to the other side of the Buick and yanked open the door. She leaned down, putting her hand on the seat, and hissed, “Is there something you two would like to share with us?”
Ré just stared at her, mute.
She retreated, lifting her hand, and then she looked down. She rubbed her fingers together, then looked at the passenger seat, eyes going wide again. Ré saw what she was looking at. A fine dusting of lake sand filled the creases in the vinyl.
A second later Sunny whirled away.
“Alex!” she barked. “Get in the car.” She slammed the door of her dad’s sedan and started the engine like she was kicking a horse.
Alex gave Réal a goofy smile, then loped over to the other car. Evie just stood there, looking abandoned.
Ré looked at her. “I think maybe you should get in,” he said, nodding at his passenger seat. “I think we need to talk.”
Evie’s shoulders fell, but she nodded and went around to the far side of the Buick. She waved at Sunny, but Sunny just threw the sedan in reverse and tore out of the parking lot, grit flying.
“What was that all about?” Evie asked.
Réal shook his head and let out a breath. “You really don’t want to know.”
9
E
“Do you want to come in this time?”
They were parked across from Evie’s drive, looking up at the house again.
“Is that okay? Is your mom home?”
Evie looked at her phone. Her mom would be up soon to get ready for work. “It’s fine,” she said.
She led him into the house and straight up the narrow, steep staircase to the attic.
“Take your shoes off,” she said. “It’s quieter.”
The staircase bisected the attic. On one side was a bedroom with sloping ceilings, on the other a small bathroom. Evie went to the bedroom and sat on the bed. Ré stood in the doorway, looking around.
“Come in,” she said. “Close the door.”
He did that, then stood in the tallest part of the room, in the middle of a circular rug made of rags.
“So. You want to talk?” she asked.
“Yeah,” he said. “We should. About last night, and about some other stuff.”
Evie’s stomach flopped. She gripped the edge of the bed beneath her and nodded.
“How you feeling today?” he asked, eyeing her. “A little crazy still?” He scratched behind his ear; she suspected he was more nervous than itchy.
She swallowed, looking down at the colorful rag rug beneath his feet. She’d had that rug forever. She used to lie on it and think about all the different pieces it had been made from, all the bigger parts that had been ripped up and twisted into that spiral. Where had they all come from? Did each one have a story, a whole life, before finally ending up as her rug?
“Ev,” he said.
“I can’t talk to you when you’re standing over me,” she blurted. The distance between them made her anxious, like she was under a spotlight. “Sit down. Please?”
He looked around for a chair, finding one at the desk behind him. But he stepped over and sat next to her on the bed instead.
“Better?” he asked.
“Yeah. Better.” She heaved a breath, looking down at her knees.
It was stuffy in her room. It always got too hot in summer, too cold in winter.
“I’m sorry about last night,” she said quietly, thinking of Sunny’s words. Pepé Le Pew said it sucked.
“Are you?” he asked. “’Cause I’m not. Not really.” He rested his elbows on his knees and folded his hands, pressing his thumbs together.
She looked at him, the side of his face. His tanned skin had a thin sheen of sweat.
“I mean, I’m not sorry I kissed you,” he corrected. “The rest, I don’t know.”
“I think I kissed you, actually,” she said.
He smiled, but still didn’t look at her.
Then he said, “The thing is”—and although they shouldn’t have, the words hurt before they’d even left his lips— “things are really complicated right now.”
“I know,” she said, and looked down at her knees again. There was a very fine white scar on her left leg, arcing around her kneecap. “Because of Shaun.”
“Not just Shaun. That is fucking huge though.” He took a deep breath. When he exhaled, she felt him shake. “Ev,” he said, “there is a whole bunch of other stuff
