They were high-school brats—maybe even Kayla’s classmates, now that I think about it—trying to act all tough, so then they came for us, like, “Who the fuck are you?” Behind them, Kayla gave me and Nick a nod like thanks and bolted across the road with her sister while I shouted at the punks, “Yeah, what’s your fucking problem?”

The douche bags were all talk, though. They got in their fancy cars and peeled out of there, blasting shitty music from expensive speakers.

Nick was like, “Do you know that girl?”

And I was like, “Not really,” and told him all about Kayla and how she used to babysit for the Voss kids but then tried to blackmail Mr. Voss by saying he’d molested her or whatever, but so then Mr. Voss called her bluff and was like, Prove it, and all of a sudden she was like, Oops, my bad. That never happened.

“Did it happen?” Nick asked me.

“Dude, look at her,” I said. Kayla was all the way down near the water by then, but even from a distance it was obvious she’s all woman, not some helpless little girl.

“I don’t even know what that means,” Nick said, “but that dude sounds shady.”

Nick didn’t grow up here, so he wouldn’t understand, but J.R. Voss is like a pillar of our community or whatever. I mean, he’s not perfect. I even said to Nick, “They probably fucked and she thought he was going to leave his wife, and when he didn’t, she went psycho. Who knows. But, I mean, she basically ruined his life. She practically called him a child molester.”

And Nick was like, “I don’t know, man. If the whole point was to get revenge, why would she ruin her own life too?”

For real, though, I’d never thought about it like that. I’d only ever thought of it how Dad does, which is that the whole thing is a total disgrace. So I was like, “Good point. It’s all gossip anyway. Who knows what really happened.”

“Who knows,” Nick said.

Later on, Kayla came up to us when her sister was playing near the water and said, “Thanks for before.”

Nick was like, “Don’t thank us for being decent. Those guys are dicks. Sorry you have to deal with people like that,” which kind of annoyed me, because come on, dude. Laying it on a little thick. Except obviously he was right. I felt bad for Kayla then.

She introduced herself and we did the same, and she nodded toward her sister and said, “I usually bring her out in the morning when it’s empty. Lesson learned, I guess. Anyway, nice to meet you guys.” And she left.

I wasn’t surprised when Nick said later on, “Wanna hit up the beach again tomorrow? A little earlier, maybe?”