Lucy’s eyes flicked to me. “Are you?”

“Yeah,” I said, shrugging. “There’s usually someone left over who doesn’t have a partner.” Between my skill and my dud partner, we usually scored third place.

Lucy’s face lit up.

I knew what she was going to say before she said it, and in that microsecond, the guilt was gasoline in my stomach.

“Babe, you and Chad should team up!” Lucy said excitedly. “Oh my God, now that would be a real competition.”

She’d lit the match.

Penny blinked. “What? Oh, I didn’t even—” She turned to me, forehead creased. “Do you … I mean, you could if you wanted.”

It sounded like an offer, but was it a test? The idea of actually standing a chance to win first place was tempting, and I knew that together, Chad and I could pull it off. He’d been the one to teach me how to build sandcastles competitively. He’d taught me everything I knew. What angle to hold the tools that would get the best results. The creative vision to create something beautiful. The patience to erect that vision into reality.

I could still remember being thirteen and letting him take my hand, feeling the sprinkle of sand against my palm. Every grain of sand had a story, Chad had said. A history of the earth that stretched behind us so far that it was only the tiniest of pinpricks against the horizon. Chad didn’t take a lot of stuff seriously, but building sandcastles was his religion.

I wanted to say yes. I wanted to be on the A team. I wanted to win. And yet … was Penny hoping I’d say no?

I searched her face for any sign of fakeness but came up empty. Did I owe it to Penny to brush off Lucy’s suggestion? To pretend like this didn’t feel like my chance to come in from the cold? Like I didn’t know that Chad and I could take home first if only we had the chance?

He’d been right when he said we used to be able to talk, just us. We’d been able to hang out and text each other without freaking out about whether we should include Penny. But when they’d started to date, it had changed everything.

It wasn’t just me and him, or me and Penny. It became the three of us together, no secret too secret. Everything was laid bare between us. Nothing was secret, but we couldn’t be open with each other anymore, either. Chad was right. When had any one of us really talked?