The threat of the police was now a distant, alcohol-infused memory. As much a nonconcern as the power outage, or stepping into the pool, or your secrets exposed for all to hear over a game at the kitchen island. The second round had begun.

I had been waiting to see what Parker would do after the scene upstairs—Luce spilling out of the room, tinged with the remnants of anger. Of violence.

Parker never played the game, I realized. Never had his secrets exposed for all to hear. Not in all the years I’d known him. Always too busy hopping from person to person.

Or maybe the rest of us were scared of him. What he would do. There were enough rumors about his past, his reckless teenage years. How he had gotten into fights—that’s what Sadie said. He had the scar, and the gleam in his eye, to prove that he used to have a wild streak. Which, unlike mine, only added to his appeal now that it was gone. But there was an understanding that it had existed, and therefore still existed, somewhere at his core.

Parker finally rounded the corner from the front foyer, alone. He saw me watching and paused. Then he redirected his path, coming to stand beside me at the entrance of the kitchen, his hands restless without a drink to hold. He cracked his knuckles one by one. I imagined them in the shape of a fist.

“What happened up there?” I asked, nodding toward the front foyer, where the staircase was tucked just out of sight.

He scanned the room instead, ignoring the question. “Where is she?” This was not the type of place where you could call a cab or an Uber and get home. Luce was stuck here.

Parker stepped away from me, into the crowd.

“Parker,” I said, loud enough to get his attention—on the cusp of making a scene. “What the hell happened? I heard something. I heard you guys.”

He looked at me curiously, his eyes shimmering, the scar through his eyebrow reflecting the light overhead. “She’s drunk. She’ll cool off.”

Like there was a hot, simmering rage in all of us. I laughed. “You want me to believe that Luce—Luce—is the one to blame?”

I tried to picture it. Luce, in her heels, throwing something against the wall. Or barreling into him, knocking him backward. Luce, uncontained.

He inhaled slowly. “Believe what you want. I don’t care.” Like my thoughts were inconsequential. Because his was the story that would matter, that would count.

I spotted her through the patio doors, sitting in a chair beside the pool, the glow from the underwater lights turning her skin a sickly pale. Her shoes were kicked off and her legs tucked up underneath her. Parker seemed to spot her at the same time. He started walking, but I reached for his elbow. “Did she see?” I asked. Meaning us. In the bathroom.

Parker flinched. “Did she see what?” he asked, like I was not permitted to mention things that had happened in the past. That it was up to him to decide whether something existed or not; that the narrative of his life was no one’s business but his own, and he could erase it at will.

“Nothing.” Because it was nothing. With Luce in town, with Sadie here, that moment with Parker could never happen.

Maybe that was my mistake. Maybe all I needed to say to Sadie about Connor was Don’t. But who could say that to her?

To be Sadie Loman was to do exactly what you wanted. If it had been Sadie who had pushed Faith, watched as she fell to the ground, her arm held out awkwardly to break the impact—all would be forgiven. If I had been the one to steal money from the Loman company, I would’ve been kicked out of their world immediately. But not her. She was just given a different job. A better one. And what had happened to the money? Who knew. She’d probably spent it.

She took what she wanted and did what she wanted—they all did. Parker, Grant, Bianca, Sadie. Living up at the Breakers, looking out over everything. Deciding what would be theirs for the taking.

The crowd moved on around me, a blur of faces, sweat and heat, the prickle on the back of my neck—this feeling that I had to get out of here. But I had no idea where to go.

How long had I been standing perfectly still, watching the lives of others play out around me? Leaning against a wall, drinking what was left of the Lomans’ whiskey?

The Lomans’ house, the Lomans’ rules, the Lomans’ world.

Like sitting in Connor’s boat, watching from the outside in. No matter how close I got, I was always the one watching.

There was Parker, whispering into Luce’s ear, crouched beside her while she sat in a low chair near the edge of the pool. Her gaze fixed somewhere in the distance.

There were Ellie Arnold and her friends sitting on the floor together in the corner of the den, cross-legged, like a memory of a time long past—girls at a sleepover like Faith and I used to have, the rest of the world fallen away.

It took me a moment to realize one of the girls in the group was passed out, her head tipped back against the wall, and that her friends had remained with her, here. A large salad bowl rested beside her, and I realized it was in case she vomited. Ellie placed a wet washcloth on the girl’s forehead, and I looked away.

There was Greg Randolph sitting on the couch, his arm behind a girl who appeared to be on the cusp of eighteen, her gaze turned up to his, like he was everything worth knowing.

And there was Connor crossing the room, heading for the door, his phone out in his hand.

“Connor,” I called before I could think better of it. When he turned, I saw him as Sadie might, without the layers and years that had come between us. I saw him as a girl looking out over the balcony of Harbor Club, watching a man step off his boat, self-assured and perfectly himself. A man who would act exactly the same whether someone was watching or not. The rarest thing.

He didn’t care who Sadie was, who any of them were. He was someone, she knew, who once was mine. The only thing left here that still belonged to me, and me alone. And I knew she had to have him.

I pushed off from the wall, met him in the foyer. “Don’t go yet,” I said.

His head tipped to the side, but he didn’t say no. For all our history, I knew his weakness as well as he knew mine. Connor believed in a linear life. He’d known what he would do from the time he was a kid: He would finish school, he would work summers for his dad and for any fisherman looking for a second deckhand. He would fall in love with a girl he’d known his entire life, and she with him, just as his parents had done before.

He was unprepared when his life veered off track.

I smiled as I had once before, when he tipped me backward at the bonfire, kissed me in front of our friends—his mouth, a grin.

I knew, same as he did then: Things like this required a bold move. Me, in a crowd of people—in front of Parker Loman and everyone in their world—whispering in his ear, asking him to follow me down the hall.

My hand trailed down his arm until my fingers linked with his, and he did not resist. I walked slowly, in case anyone wanted to see. In case Greg Randolph would turn from the couch, raise an eyebrow, say, That’s the guy I saw Sadie with. But no one did, and I didn’t even care. I was high on the knowledge that he wanted me still, even after all this time.

It was dark in the downstairs bedroom, and I turned the lock. Didn’t say anything, for fear it might break the trance.

I pulled his face down to mine, but the feel of his kiss was still a surprise. I could taste the liquor on him. Feel the looseness of his limbs as I pushed his shirt over his head. The malleable quality of him, where I could slide myself into his life. The power I held—that I could alter the course of everything to follow.

But he was the one who guided me toward the bed. Who whispered in my ear—hi—like he’d been waiting all this time just to say it.

In the dark, I wasn’t sure whether he was imagining me or Sadie, but it didn’t matter. His fingers just below my hips, brushing over a tattoo he couldn’t see.

Nothing lasts forever. Everything is temporary. You and me and this.

Connor was no longer the Connor I knew—and neither was I. Six years had passed, and we had become something new. Six years of new experiences, life lived and learned. Six years to sharpen into the person you would become. But there were shadows of the person I knew: In the arm around my waist, holding me to him. And his fingers faintly drumming against my skin after, before his hand went still.

Neither of us spoke then. We lay there, side my side, until a noise from out in the hall jarred us both. A hand at the locked doorknob. I bolted upright.

“Avery—” he said, but I got up first, scooping up my clothes, so I wouldn’t have to hear the excuse. I walked straight for the attached bathroom, so I wouldn’t have to see the regret on his face. Stood in the bathroom that was still damp from when I’d cleaned the mess of towels and water earlier in the night with Parker.