“Here. Take this.” He pulls his sweater over his head and tosses it to me. The T-shirt he’s wearing underneath hugs his chest and his arms, but I don’t let myself stare, because he’s just standing there watching me with this slightly amused look on his face. “I mean, unless you enjoy freezing.”

The sweater is soft in my hands. Thick and warm. And it smells like sandalwood and summer.

But that cocky grin pisses me off.

“Thanks,” I tell him. And I toss the sweater back. “But I’m fine. Really.” I force my muscles to relax. Refuse to shiver.

He shrugs and pulls the sweater back on. “Suit yourself.”

“Cole!” Jude shouts. He and Lex are heading back in our direction. “Good to see you again, my man!” They pile on the driftwood and get the fire going.

Val comes back, too. Drawn by the flames. She sits close to the fire and tucks her long legs under the blanket, jeans spread out to warm in the heat beside her.

Jude handles the formal introductions.

Lex.

Val.

Avril.

Cole.

“Willa’s son,” Jude tells us, and Lex and Val seem appropriately impressed. Which is probably the reaction Cole is used to. “We hung out last summer.” Jude fishes the last floating beer out of the cooler and wipes the wet bottle on his damp shorts before he hands it to Cole. “He’s gonna be a senior this year. Same as you guys.”

“Are you doing the intensive, too?” Lex asks. I figure he’s sizing up the competition—like Val was with me—but Cole shakes his head.

“I’m not much of an actor. Music’s my thing.” He pops the top off his beer. “I’ll be around, though.”

Jude keeps Cole busy answering questions about the past year. Everything that’s happened since they last saw each other. But I notice how Cole’s eyes drift in my direction. The way he keeps looking at me through the fire. Between the flames.

I try not to stare back, but there’s something about Cole Culver that makes it hard for me to look away.

“So you grew up here?” Val asks him.

“Lived here my whole life,” Cole answers. “Right next door to the theatre.”

“I was just telling Lex some of the stories about this place,” Jude says, “but he didn’t believe me.”

Lex rolls his eyes. “I didn’t believe you when you said it was haunted.”

“Every theatre has a ghost,” Val tells us. She’s drawing lazy circles in the sand with one finger. “It’s like a requirement or something.”

Jude laughs, but I’m thinking about our high school back home. It’s only a couple of years old. All chrome fixtures and big windows. Bright lights and fresh paint. The fine arts building sits on the site of a former JCPenney.

No ghosts there, except for maybe the ghosts of sales gone by.