In the darkness, her words almost feel like my own. The ones I’ve been shoving back down inside myself every time they try to rise up. But out here, I can’t push them around. “No. I mean, it’s surface cool, but that’s it. We haven’t really talked or gotten deep about anything, yet. And to be honest, I’m kind of afraid to. Afraid of everything that might come up. You don’t even want to know. Let’s just say I’ve felt a lot of bad things over the years.”

“I’m sure you have.” Her hand leaves my chest, and I feel its warm softness on my cheek.

We lie in silence for a minute, and I imagine her feeling everything I’ve felt—the confusion, the loneliness, the disappointment, the sadness, the hurt, the rage.

“Thanks for sharing all this with me,” she says. “This place. All the stuff about your dad. I know it can’t be easy to talk about.”

“But it kinda is with you,” I say. “Especially out here. I don’t know. I wasn’t lying when I said I’m trying to share everything with you. You saw what happened when we were keeping things to ourselves. I was trying to act all hard and not answer your calls, but that shit sucked ass!”

She laughs. “That’s what you get for ignoring me.”

“What about you ignoring me? What was that about?”

Carli removes her hand from my cheek and goes quiet.

“No more secrets,” I say.

“No more secrets,” she repeats.

“Nah, don’t say it if you don’t mean it.”

“No, I do . . . I promise. On everything.”

CARLI

“I hate basketball,” I say, feeling a huge swell of relief.

“I know it’s gotta be hard,” Rex says, and his hand—cool—finds my waist underneath his T-shirt.

Okay, I’m 200 percent sure that he’s not taking me seriously. “I’m not speaking in hyperbole, here. I, Carli Alexander, can’t stand basketball. Like, if you put one in front of me right now, I’d find something to stab it with. And as it deflated, I’d have a huge smile on my face. I’m grinning just thinking about it.”

Crickets. The calls of two birds.

Rex laughs that awkward I-don’t-get-the-joke laugh and gently squeezes my waist. “Sorry, what? I’m confused. I thought you loved basketball. You’re a beast.”

“Well, you thought wrong. There’s a difference between being good at something and actually liking it. I’m only good because my dad has been coaching me since birth. I haven’t been able to stand basketball since middle school.”

“Middle school? Damn, so you’re telling me that you’ve hated basketball the whole time you’ve been in high school?”

“Yep.”

“Even the times you made the All-American team?”

“Yep.”

“Even when y’all won the championship?”

“Yep.”

“Even with—”