“I’m in,” I say, not because Val convinced me, but because that dark water has been tugging on me since I first laid eyes on it. I bend down to plant my half-empty beer bottle in the sand, and I’m rewarded with a huge smile from Val. She grabs my hand and pulls me toward the shoreline.

“Jesus Christ!” I can’t help but squeal when the waves lap over my feet. Jude was telling the truth. We don’t have water this cold in Texas. Not even in the middle of winter.

“It’s fucking freezing,” Val hisses under her breath, and she tightens her grip on my hand. She turns to yell back in Lex and Jude’s direction. “Come on! It’s not that bad!” Then she looks at me, and we both crack up, because it’s cold enough to stop your heart.

The guys exchange a skeptical look, but they stick their bottles in the sand, side by side, and follow us down to the water.

“Holy shit!” Lex does a little dance as the sound licks at his toes. “I thought the ocean was supposed to be warm, y’all!”

“Easy, Nashville,” Jude tells him with a smirk. “You’re thinking of Florida. You see any palm trees here?”

Val lets go of my hand and slips out of her jeans like she’s shedding her skin, splashing into the water in just her tank top and underwear. I blink, and she dives beneath the black surface and comes up gasping. “Oh my God! So cold!” Her dark hair stretches even farther down her back. Heavy and wet now.

Lex hesitates, but then he strips off his scarf and his T-shirt and tosses them onto the sand like he’s throwing down the gauntlet. His skin is baby-smooth and china-pale. Dotted with freckles.

He grabs Jude by the arm and tries to tug him into the waves, and I see so clearly the moment Jude decides to let him get away with it. And the two of them laugh.

Val reaches for me again. A cold hand tight around my wrist.

And just for a second, I’m frozen.

Five years old.

Afraid.

Then Val and I both shriek as a big wave nearly takes us down, and that flash of almost memory is swept back out to sea. Gone. Washed away. Like maybe it never existed.

We’re all playing and splashing now. Shouting. Darting up and down the beach, in and out of each other’s grasp. Sandy fingers reaching and wet hands slipping. The sound of our laughter mixes with the pounding of the surf.

The water is like ice, but after a few minutes I don’t mind the bite of it anymore. It almost feels good. Wispy bits of seaweed brush the backs of my knees like floating spiderwebs, and soft, deep sand squishes between my toes.