“No back in—” She stopped herself. “His old hometown.”

If I had still been playing Roux’s game . . . God. She really did know where they were from. Maybe even his real name. I pushed that thought away, though. I would not veer off the course I’d chosen. I would not use Roux’s methods to squeeze this child.

“Is this a real girlfriend or the kind he ‘met at camp,’ who lives way up in Canada?”

She shook her head. “No. She texts him all the time, and I’ve seen pictures. She’s, like, got this perfect body, and she’s a senior. . . .” She trailed off, shrugging.

“So he’s not your boyfriend. And he’s serious about another girl,” I said. This was hard, but there was no way out but through. I spoke softly, firm and calm. “Then I need you to explain to me what you were doing with him in the basement. When I went to get more air tanks.”

Maddie’s eyes widened, and she searched my face. She swallowed, almost a gulp, and then color rushed her cheeks, washing her crimson.

“Oh, my God. You saw us?”

“I sure did,” I said, still calm and soft.

“Oh, my God.” She got up off the swing, jouncing me about, but she was too agitated to stay seated.

“Don’t run off,” I told her.

She walked in a small, spinny circle, saying, “Oh, my God. Oh, my God.”

“Maddy. We have to talk about this,” I said.

That stopped her, and she wheeled on me. “No we do not! It wasn’t anything!”

I put my feet down to still the swing, and I could feel my own cheeks flush. I pushed through it. “He was touching you. Very intimately. That’s not what friends do.”

She shook her head, desperate and unhappy. “It was nothing. It was a bet. It was a game.”

I was sick to death of games. Especially the kind Roux’s family seemed to play.

“Your body is not a game. Sit down, Mads.”

She did, slumping onto the other end of the swing and tucking her feet up until she was a small, miserable wad. “It didn’t mean anything.”

“It ought to mean things. Tell me about the game.”

She shook her head again. “I’d rather die. For real.”

“You’re not going to die. Talk to me.”

She stared down at her hands. “We play this game. It’s called Bet, and he asked me, like, if I had ever . . . If I ever. You know.”

“Had sex?’ I said.

“No, God. Ugh. If I had ever . . .” She rolled her hands.

“Had an orgasm,” I said.

“Ugh, don’t say that word.” Almost involuntarily, she scooted another inch away on the swing, pressing her back into the arm.

“Maddy, if you can’t say the word ‘orgasm’ without wanting to die, you’ve got no business trying to have one with anybody but yourself.”

Her face was so red, and a sheen of fine sweat broke out on her forehead.

“Oh, my God! I told him I hadn’t ever, you know, had one, and that was the bet. Like, he bet he could get me to. His girlfriend has them, and he said it was easy. I bet that he couldn’t, and then we just . . . I don’t know. God!” She buried her face in her hands again.

“Okay, okay,” I told her. “You were curious. That’s normal. And you like this boy. But playing games like that, touching games, will make you like him even more. You don’t want that. He doesn’t feel for you that way, and you can get seriously hurt. Plus, it is a big, giant step toward having sex, which you are categorically not ready for.”

She lifted her chin. “How do you know?”

I said, “Because you are fifteen, and because you can’t even hear the word ‘orgasm’ without dying.”

“God, stop!” she said, proving my case. I eased up on her then.

“Was that the only time you played Bet?” I asked, gentle. “Or did you two do other things?”

I could see her considering a lie, weighing her options. In the end she met my eyes. “We played before. But, but not like . . . Like, that was the most—” She stopped.

“Did he make bets to get you to do anything like that for him? Physically?”

She shook her head, adamant. “That was the farthest it ever got. The other bets weren’t even about, like, touching stuff,” she said, and I believed her. “We never made out. He’s not, like, a cheater. He wouldn’t do that to his girlfriend.”

I thought she was telling the truth, right up until the end. Then she’d started lying, but mostly to herself. I called her on it.

“Do you think his girlfriend would mind him playing that game with you?” I said, and her fading blush came back. “If he were your boyfriend, would you want him to play that game with your friend Shannon?”

She shook her head, and then she peeped up at me through her lashes. “Are you going to tell Duddy?” Her eyes were pleading.

Here was my old road in. I could lie right now, promise not to tell Davis in exchange for Luca’s real name, or at least the city where his girlfriend lived, and then I’d have her. Roux was running to keep Luca. She’d inadvertently revealed that back at Rosie B’s. I knew her timeline, and if I added Luca’s age and description and the city, I could find something on the Internet. There would be an AMBER Alert or a “Have You Seen This Boy?” page. I could get right back in the game. I’d unblock Tig, open up that pathway to another life in case I blew up this one. I pressed my lips together, waited until the wave passed. I was out of it, and I would not step back in and play. Not with Roux. Not with Tig or my marriage. Least of all with Maddy. She’d been played with enough, it sounded like.

“I already told your dad,” I said. Her eyes filled instantly with tears, and she clapped both hands over her mouth. “But listen, he didn’t want the gory details. Dads do not want to know that stuff about their daughters. I only said that you and Luca got a little physical, nothing that could cause a baby, and that you two need to be more chaperoned. Okay?”

Her hands dropped. “That’s really all? You swear?”

“That’s all,” I said, and there went my leverage. I could not go back now. I was well and truly out.

“Can we never talk about this again?” she said.

I laughed. “Sorry, kid, we’re going to be talking about sex and the kinds of choices I hope you’ll make quite a bit before we’re finished.” I wondered if Luca had won his bet, but I didn’t know how to ask her, and it was not really my business. If he had, would she need more or less counseling? “I think your feelings for Luca kinda ran away with you.”

She smiled a miserable smile. “It doesn’t matter. He won’t be here much longer.”

He really had spilled his guts to her. Maybe he had asked her to play the Bet game because he liked Maddy more than he admitted. For most kids his age, a girlfriend in another state, even a gorgeous senior, didn’t have as strong a hold as a cute girl in the room right then.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I know you’ll miss him.”

“Yeah, but it’s good. For him. He says when they move again, he can get back in school. Do regular stuff. At home in Seattle, he played basketball and—” She stopped, realizing she’d said the city.

He’d obviously told her it was a secret. I hadn’t asked, and yet this girl I loved had laid a new card down for me to play.

I wasn’t going to pick it up. I wasn’t. But I couldn’t help wondering what else he’d told her. His mother’s job? Maybe, but Luca didn’t know I was Roux’s target. At least Maddy couldn’t know that I was being blackmailed. I wanted to ask, to press, to play. I held myself completely still, like Roux, until the urge subsided.

“I’m getting hungry,” I said, as if I hadn’t noticed her slip. “Want to help me set the table?”

“Sure,” she said, relieved to be out of this conversation. She bounced to her feet, and I went with her.

Dinner wouldn’t have seemed like much to an outsider. We sat around the picnic table in the backyard, stuffing ourselves with fresh, hot food from the grill. I spooned sweet potatoes into Oliver between bites of surf and turf and tore up a fluffy roll for him to pincer up and gum. We talked about fall-break plans and the weeds in the back garden, nothing of interest to anyone outside this little circle. But to me every minute was sacred. I wanted to stop time, live inside this meal, this moment, forever.

It had to end eventually. I offered to bathe the dishes if Maddy would bathe her brother, and she laughed at that. Davis, who had shopped and cooked, was absolved of any further chores. He went with Maddy anyway; Oliver loved bath time, and it was fun.