She turns and walks back to the porch.

Big Dale shuffles his feet and shakes his head.

“Mr. Foster, can I tell you something?” I ask, totally fuming.

“After tonight, Zach, I think you can tell me anything.”

Pointing at him, I go, “Well, sir, I … ” And here I trail off for a moment, struggling to organize all of this flaming anger into the right words. “I … I used to really hope you would end up being different from everybody else around here.” I pause, shaking my head. “But you’re not.” I stop pointing and shove my hand in my front pocket.

“Nobody’s perfect, Zach,” he says calmly. “Especially in Blaine.”

“Here,” I say, handing him the empty bottle of Decabol.

He holds it up, inspects it. “Where’d you get this?”

“Hang on,” I say, taking out my phone and loading the pictures I took of Tank’s stash. “You need to check the green tackle box in the crawlspace.” I hand him my phone. “Take a look.”

“Jesus,” he says, squinting and studying each picture. “Tank’s on this stuff?”

“Come on, Mr. Foster,” I say, rolling my eyes. “Take a good look at your son.” He hands me my phone without saying a word. “Get Coach Horton,” I add. “He’s the kingpin.”

Holding my gaze, Dale Foster says, “You should probably go home now, Zach.”

“Right,” I say and take a deep breath. “Just one more thing, sir.” I clear my throat and notice the flashing blue lights closing in on us. “You need to know that I’m in love with your daughter and she’s in love with me.”

And he just looks at me and says, “We already know that, Zach. We’ve known since June.”

“We?”

“Tank and me,” he says, at which point my stomach seems to drop to the pavement. “He hasn’t mentioned it to you?”

“No,” I say. “I mean, not really. I had a pretty good feeling he knew, but … well, no.”

He shrugs. “Well, that’s kind of surprising, because we’re both fine with it.”

“You are?”

Two police cruisers pull up beside him. He waves to the officers and gestures toward his bullet-ridden pickup. Then he hustles over and says something to them, pointing in the direction Tank went. I recognize the two men in the first car as the same officers who escorted Tank and me home the night of the rock-throwing incident. As their cruiser speeds past me to go find Tank, the two officers spot me and shake their heads like I’m the biggest loser on the planet.

“Listen, Zach,” Big Dale says, jogging back toward me. “Sarah could do a lot worse. Those were Tank’s exact words, ‘Sarah could do a lot worse.’” He looks up the street in the direction Tank ran. “Just give him some time to cool down.”

He puts his hands on his hips, gazes up and down the street.