“Unless you’re telling me to fasten my seatbelt,” she fired back, “shut up, Will.”

I grinned, ripping off her shorts, tearing her bra from her body, and twisting her around, pulling her panties down to her thighs.

She whimpered, and I reached around, cupping her throat as I took off her glasses, setting them on the soap dish, and breathed into her ear. “This isn’t young love anymore,” I told her, pressing her tits into the shower wall. “It’s not a crush. This is a man who’s long overdue in showing you what he can do.”

And I slammed my mouth down on hers again and ripped open my jeans.

Will

Seven Years Ago

My mom shouted from downstairs, and I heard male voices as footfalls hit the stairs.

My door whipped opened, and I popped my head up, looking over my shoulder as I laid on my stomach on the bed.

I blinked several times, seeing Kai standing in my doorway in khaki cargo shorts and no shirt.

“You get in and you don’t call us?” he snipped.

My head pounded, and I rolled over, groaning. College was bad for me. I’d never been so hungover.

Someone else pushed through the door, and then I heard Damon’s voice. “Damn. I thought he’d at least have company.”

They walked in, and I looked over at the clock, seeing it was 10:13 a.m.

“What the hell, Will?” Kai growled. “It’s been months. You get into town, you let us know.”

“It’s been like ten weeks,” I griped, reaching over for a cigarette on my nightstand. “We were all just in Miami for spring break. Jesus.”

Kai came over and snatched the cigarette out of my mouth before I could light it, and then walked into the bathroom, turning on the faucet.

I shot him a look. “And I just got in last night,” I pointed out. “Late.”

I hadn’t had time to get in touch with anyone yet. They’d all been home a couple of weeks on summer break already, but I couldn’t stomach the thought of returning until my mom called and laid on the guilt trip. Apparently everyone was lost without me, and if I didn’t show up, so she wouldn’t have to deal with Damon and Kai coming by every day, she’d cut off my credit card.

Of course, she was teasing. I was her good boy.

Although I’d barely made it through my first year at Princeton, and I wasn’t looking forward to that conversation. I hated disappointing my parents. The letter from my advisor loomed on my nightstand, because I’d skipped too many classes and was failing a couple of gen ed classes.

It was painful, trying to care about that shit. I didn’t want to be there, but I ended up staying in New Jersey even after the term had ended because Thunder Bay was a wasteland for me.

It had been almost two years this fall since I’d last touched her, and nothing was getting better. I rubbed my hands up and down my face, and then something landed on me, and I howled as Damon straddled me.

I scowled up at him, smelling this weird mixture of sunscreen and cigarettes on him.

“Going to the beach?” I asked.

“Again, yes,” he said. “We were already there yesterday, but some of these chicks have aged up since the last time we saw them in bikinis.” He swatted at me, yelling in my face. “It’s harvest time!”

“Get the fuck off me.” But I couldn’t help laughing. It was good to see them.

Maybe I’d feel more human soon, being home.

He hopped off me, and Kai came back with a glass of water.

“Gotta spare toothbrush?” Damon asked, heading into the bathroom.

He didn’t wait for an answer, though, before he started rummaging through the drawers under the sink.

Finding a package, he ripped it open and pulled out one of the new brushes my mom had put there. She was good about being prepared for anything.

I took the water and set it down on my nightstand as Damon wet the toothbrush and added toothpaste.

“Did you see prissy little Fane yesterday on the beach?” he asked Kai. “Girl has some swagger now. Tell me that’s not going to be sweet.”

Kai made a face. “God, you’re a loser. What college guy comes home and continues to chase high school tail? Grow up.”

“I saw you looking, too,” Damon shot back, flipping him off.

They must’ve seen her at the beach yesterday.

“Besides, that tail is Michael’s,” Kai pointed out. “He just doesn’t know it yet, so don’t even think about pulling that shit while he’s away.”

I sat up, swinging my legs over the side of the bed and burying my aching head in my hands. I didn’t want sun and sand today.

I didn’t want to walk around this town, knowing she’d already left to start her college summer courses in California and had moved on with her life.

Kai stood over me and picked up the paper next to my lamp, reading it.

His eyes met mine and then he tossed it down, sifting through the other shit on my nightstand. Money and pills in a blank prescription bottle. A vial of coke.

His gaze sharpened, and his jaw flexed.

Opening the little drawer, I swiped everything off the table and pushed it inside, closing it.

“Get out,” I told them, ignoring the judgment in his look. “I need to shower.”

Damon rinsed and headed out the door, but Kai remained, the heat of his stare annoying me.

“One or both of you will be in jail by the end of the year if you don’t get it together,” he hissed. “I can’t be Michael. I have enough on my plate. Get rid of this shit, or I will.”

He left the room, slamming the door, and I flinched.

Was he actually surprised? My winning personality didn’t happen on a dime.

• • •

Several hours later, Kai had gone to dinner with his parents and Damon and I were rolling up to the Cove to take in the view one last time. The sun hadn’t set yet, but I was grimy and sticky from the beach—the only good thing coming out of our day there was that I had sweated out my hangover.

“This place is like a ghost town,” Damon mumbled as we walked through the empty parking lot toward Cold Point. “They’ll run through September, but the next time we come home, it’ll be closed.”

I gazed past the entrance and the ticket booths, spying the beams that held the pirate ship. I could still hear her laughing that night.

My heart ached. God, that dress. Her smile.

Emmy Scott happy was the most beautiful thing in the world.

“You’re like a ghost, too,” Damon said.

I turned away from the Cove, heading straight for the cliffs. “I’m fine,” I told him.

I would be. Eventually.

“You’re not,” he retorted. “That fucking girl…”

“Enough.”

“Fuck her.”

“I said enough.”

I shot him a glare, both of us climbing out to the point and up onto the rock, peering out at the gray sea, the lighthouse on Deadlow Island the only thing shining in the darkening horizon.

It was probably for the best that Adventure Cove was closing this fall. Things needed to die.

I looked down, inching to the edge and watching the water crash into the rocks.