1. Talk about the difference between art and craft.
2. Take photos.
3. Put our hands all over each other.
4. Play with Bean the Magic Pup, who sometimes rides along and barks at passing boats.
5. Trash talk Adrian Summers.
6. Plot revenge that we’ll never enact.
7. Put our hands all over each other.
8. Talk about our failed D&D campaigns from childhood.
9. Consider a trip out to our old secret North Star boatshed to test out a new campaign.
10. Decide the boatshed might be inhabited by ghosts or spiders and change our minds.
11. Watch the Fourth of July fireworks.
12. Eat iced lemonade.
13. Put our hands all over each other.

Here’s what we don’t do on the boat:

1. Talk about me going to California to live with my dad next year.

That subject is off-limits. Maybe if we pretend like it doesn’t exist, it will never happen.

Here’s what we also don’t do:

1. We don’t tell anyone that we’re more than friends.

I mean, sure. Half the town is probably talking about us. My mom has made the Bonnie and Clyde comments, and Lucky’s parents have been nosy too. And then there’s Evie, who definitely knows something happened in the darkroom … but I don’t even tell her.

It’s not because I don’t want people to know or because I’m ashamed of what I’m doing with my childhood best friend. I’m not doing anything wrong. It’s just no one’s business, that’s all. And this town has proven that they can’t be trusted to handle delicate information with grace. My name’s already being whispered; I don’t need to give the rumor mill any more fuel.

One evening, when Lucky and I were supposed to be heading out on the Narwhal to practice my backstroke, or some kind of more salacious stroke, I find him in the boatyard with his father, working late on a last-minute engine problem for a customer.

“Sorry,” he tells me. “They’re paying us overtime rates, and it’s the kind of favor that my dad can’t turn down. Shouldn’t take more than an hour but might be too close to dark for us to take the boat out. Maybe we could stay in? Order pizza? Watch a movie on TV? My house is overrun with toddler cousins at the moment. What about yours?”

“Evie’s home. My mom’s, uh … out. But she might come back by the time you’re done.” I squint at him. “Would that be okay? Or too weird?”

“I’m fine with it, if she is.”

Mom’s definitely warming up to him, and he’s been in and out of the Nook. But he’s never been inside our apartment. I think she’d be cool with it.