I haven’t met the tall girl writing her initials in the sand by the fire. Or the shaggy-haired guy who’s sitting beside her, picking out chords on the guitar. Fragments of melody that Viv and I were trying—failing—to sing along to.

I do know the redhead who’s walking toward me with a couple of beers. His name is Lex. I met him at dinner, and evidently that makes us besties now.

“Holy shit,” he says, and he hands me one of the sweating bottles. “Can you believe we’re actually here?” He raises his own half-empty beer in my direction, and his blue eyes come alive with reflected flames. “To the first night of the best summer ever!”

Each year, high school juniors from all over the country apply for a chance to attend the four-week theatre intensive at Whisper Cove. They all want the opportunity to study with Willa Culver. And we made it in—me, my new pal Lex, and everyone else milling around us. This secret after-hours welcoming party makes it official.

Lex is playing with the fringe on a light scarf that’s expertly draped around his neck. He’s all freckles and gorgeous red-gold hair in the firelight. Barefoot with his jeans rolled up, he looks like a stylish Tom Sawyer, and I suddenly feel plain in my cutoff shorts and concert T-shirt. “You ever been to Connecticut before?” he asks me.

“Once,” I tell him. “A long time ago. You?”

“Nope,” Lex says. “I’ve never even seen the ocean before.”

I detect a southern drawl, elongated vowels that clink together like ice cubes in a glass of sweet tea, and I remember he told me at dinner that he’s from somewhere just outside Nashville, Tennessee. Franklin, I think he said. Or something like that.

“It’s not really the ocean,” I correct him, even though it makes me an asshole. “It’s Long Island Sound.”

“Whatever.” He rolls his eyes, totally unbothered. “It’s basically the ocean. And it’s pretty, right?”

He’s not wrong about that.

Tonight a full moon hangs huge and low just above a horizon that looks like it’s been stitched with golden thread, and below that, waves rise and fall in a shimmer of silvery brilliance. In the distance, silhouetted against the black, a lighthouse is the tent pole holding up an expanse of dark sky.

The view doesn’t look real. It reminds me of a storybook I had when I was a kid. Something Dad used to read to me at bedtime. About mermaids.

Or maybe they were pirates.

Lex and I stand there. Staring. Toes buried in the sand.