So, for the second time that day, Alice decided to keep someone she was close to in the dark because she was afraid honesty would exact too high a price. It was a despicable move, she knew, craven and cowardly. But the truth of the matter was, she didn’t think she could handle any more change or loss in her life. At the moment she was at her limit. It occurred to her that from another perspective she was only evening the score between them. After all, Tommy was keeping a secret from her, too. A big one. And one that also concerned Camilla. The other day at Redbone’s Café, he’d said to her of Camilla’s death, it didn’t happen like everybody thinks it did. When she’d pushed him for more information, he’d started talking very quickly and very urgently about how Serenity Point was more dangerous than she realized. He had insisted that her ignorance was for her own good, that to be in possession of certain knowledge would put her in harm’s way, and that he was just trying to protect her. Well, it could be argued that his ignorance was for his own good, that the possession of certain knowledge would put them in harm’s way as a couple, and that she was just trying to protect the two of them. Okay, maybe she was reaching a little, pushing the comparison a bit hard to justify her own questionable actions. At least Tommy was being open about what he was concealing. She, on the other hand, was being flat-out deceptive.

Alice pushed these thoughts from her mind, resolving to sort them out later, as Tommy applied the brakes and rolled down the window, turned his face to her. She loved looking at him. He was handsome in the cleanest, most straightforward way imaginable: light brown hair and even features, long, lanky body, muscular from all the crew—he was set to row for the team at Harvard in the fall—strong, white teeth, the front two slightly overlapping. His beauty was of a totally different order than, say, Jude’s. There was nothing decadent or androgynous about his appearance. He was what you envisioned when you were a little girl dreaming of your first boyfriend.

“Hop in,” he said, and when she did, kissed her twice, the first kiss soft, the second hungrier.

She reached for her seatbelt. “We going anywhere in particular?”

“I told my mom I was taking the car to get a jump-start on picking up college supplies. That’s the only way she’d let me borrow it.”

“This is your mom’s? I just assumed you had your own car.”

“I did. But we’re down to two now. My dad had to trade in the Lexus.”