“No, thanks. I’m going to have lunch with Brandy and Tressa.”

“Why?”

“Because they asked. And they’re my friends.”

“They are?”

I look past him again. Tressa is looking in my direction. Smiling. “Yeah, they are.”

“Hey,” he says. “I’d love to eat with a couple of bull sharks. Or maybe they’re more like oceanic whitetip sharks. Haven’t decided yet.” He looks up, thinking. “I don’t know. I guess Brandy would be a bull shark. They can go back and forth between salt water and fresh water.”

“They’re not that bad,” I say, getting annoyed.

“Not that bad is not something you find in the traits of a friend handbook.” He pops a piece of gum into his mouth. “Suit yourself. I just think that there’s more to having friends than sitting around a table and letting them watch you eat a sandwich.”

I open my mouth to shoot back an answer, but nothing comes out.

He tucks the foil wrapper in his pocket. “Just saying.” He shrugs. “Well, see ya.”

I watch Ronan walk away for longer than I should. Not so eager for lunch anymore.

“Hey,” I say, approaching the picnic table, noticing my feet feel like bricks.

“Hey,” Brandy says, and moves over to make room.

Tressa smiles like a cat watching a mouse ease out of its hole.

“Thanks for inviting me.”

“Her mother made her,” Tressa says. Brandy turns red.

They begin to unpack their lunches, which are both in the same cooler with a sea turtle on it. I look down at my brown paper bag. I pull out my root beer and pop it open. As I look at their fancy chicken wraps, I decide that I don’t feel like eating a fried bologna sandwich in front of these two.

“That was a blast last night,” Tressa says. “Watching the fireworks from the beach was the best.”

“Yeah, it was pretty cool,” Brandy says. “Every town does theirs on different nights all summer long. So you can always find them somewhere.”

Tressa turns to me. “Did you see them?”

“Oh . . . yeah . . . of course we did.” Thinking that answering Tressa’s questions feels like when the school nurse went through my hair looking for lice in the first grade.

Brandy stares. She knows we don’t do stuff like that.

“And then,” Tressa continues, “we went to that fire pit pizza place out on the beach. So cool. Have you been there?” she asks.

I hate pizza. Probably the only kid in the world. But I’ve never liked it. Brandy knows this, and yet I can’t help myself. I look at Tressa. “Yeah, who doesn’t love that place? We go there all the time.”

Now Brandy’s head falls to the side, and she gives me a funny look.

“But the coolest thing was the sleepover,” Tressa adds. “I can’t believe we stayed up until four o’clock in the morning watching that movie. Your mom is cool.”

“What movie?” I ask.