“I guess he doesn’t want to,” I said finally. And then, because I simply couldn’t help it:

“Did you?”

MICKEY

MICKEY GRIPPED THE HARD lemonade between her knees until condensation mixed with sweat and trickled down her legs. Ruth was almost done with hers, but Mickey hadn’t taken a sip.

“Ooh, turn this up!” Ruth yelled, standing next to the captain’s seat and balancing in the space between the two windshields.

“DJ, take the wheel!” Cody said, reaching for the cell phone attached to the boat’s speaker. Ruth squealed and fell over him, grasping the wheel with both hands and landing squarely in his lap.

Mickey eyed Josh on the other cushion up front. His hair was longer than she remembered, but it had been at least two years since they last saw each other. It looked good. She liked the way the wind pulled it forward and back and the way Josh didn’t seem to mind at all. She imagined what it would be like to run her fingers through those deep brown curls, to have access to the parts of him she found herself wanting, so badly, to touch. When Cody cut the engine in a cove, the silence rushed in like something forgotten and hungry.

“We can swim here,” he said, cracking another bottle open against the boat’s gunwale “Or whatever we want.”

Ruth ran her hand along the wooden dashboard of the boat, polished to a gleam.

“Do you have a lot of these?” she asked.

“Boats? We have a few,” Cody answered. “My dad is a collector.”

“Of boats?” Ruth asked, flabbergasted.

“Boats, antique hunting rifles, handsome offspring,” Cody said with a wink. “Whatever he can get his hands on.”

“Are you saying your dad puts his hands on you? You should tell a safe adult.”

“Funny. Very funny.”

Ruth stood up and stretched, and Cody watched, not even trying to be subtle. Mickey looked around to see Josh watching, too, and she pushed herself deeper into the cushions. And then Ruth did what she always did, the thing that made up for all the ways she made Mickey feel invisible just by breathing.

She turned to her.

“Come on, Mick, let’s go swimming,” she said, grabbing Mickey’s hand. Mickey’s drink splashed against her knees.

“It doesn’t work if you don’t actually drink it,” Ruth said, pushing the end of the bottle up until gravity made the liquid pound on Mickey’s lips.

“That a girl!” Ruth shouted when Mickey finished the hard lemonade, coughing. “Come on.”