“Where’s Sarah?” She had meant to ask about Silas, but Sarah’s name came out instead. She didn’t correct herself.

“I don’t—” he said, taking a step back. “I don’t know.”

“What’s going on between you two, huh?” Lily asked, tilting her body with one hand on her hip.

Silas said he loved her hip bones.

“Nothing,” he said, but she could sense a ripple in his voice, and she wasn’t going to let go of it. Bonding with Philip was one of her main goals for the weekend, and she was just drunk enough to try.

“Come on, you can talk to me,” she said, leaning in. “I’m practically part of the family.”

Philip raised his eyebrows at her.

“Come on, walk me to the firepit and we can talk. I think Silas went down that way.”

“I think I’m just gonna—”

“Come on,” Lily said, pulling on his arm with her whole weight. Philip glanced back at the woods and exhaled, shaking his head.

“No, you know what? Come on this way. We’ll have a drink and talk about it.” He took her by the elbow and nodded toward the house. “We don’t need to go back there.”

Lily beamed and looped her arm in his. She couldn’t wait to tell Silas how she’d won over his brother. No one else had, as far as she knew.

“Lead the way,” she said.

—

BY THE TIME THEY were settled on the two-person porch swing, Lily with a vodka Sprite (“Diet, please,” she said three times to Philip’s back) and Philip holding a beer, it was fully dark.

“So, you like her, right? Sarah?” Lily asked, watching the shadowy shapes of her friends on the beach. As far as she could tell, none of them were Silas. She swallowed the thought away with a sip.

“Yeah, I guess. I mean, she’s cool. Cooler than a lot of girls I know,” he said.

“Not cooler than me, though, right?” Lily asked, pushing his knee with her foot. He rocked the swing under them just enough to feel like a boat in calm waters.

“ ’Course not.”

Lily smiled into her drink.

“Well, have you told her?”

Philip sighed, glancing once more toward the woods. “Kind of, yeah. I kind of just did, actually.”

“No way!” Lily exclaimed. “What did she say?”

“Well, I’m sitting here with you, aren’t I?”

If it had been Terrance speaking, it would’ve sounded insulting, but from Philip it didn’t. It sounded like friendship, or the beginning, at least. Lily leaned forward and put her hand on Philip’s large shoulder.

“Oh, Phil. She doesn’t deserve you.”

“I don’t know about—”