Everyone made disappointed noises, but nobody, she noticed, seemed sad to see her go.

• • •

It was cooler along the water than it had been on the deck, windier, too. The ocean seemed a little wild tonight, the waves moving in choppy, uneven lines, frothy on top, cracking against the shore. Alice wasn’t walking in any direction in particular but soon found herself on the stretch of beach in front of the club. She looked up. Next to the bonfire pit was Tommy van Stratten. And seeing him sitting there, as still as a piece of driftwood, knees pulled into his chest, notebook open in the sand beside him, gazing out at the Greeves Bridge in the distance, the only thing that surprised her was that she wasn’t surprised at all. She’d known he’d be here, she realized. That’s why she’d come.

She hadn’t seen Tommy since that morning a couple days back. Not in person, anyway. She’d gone to the club with Charlie a few times, gotten lost in that photo of him and Camilla hanging in the dining room, his face so young and open and carefree, hers so beautiful and self-possessed and mysterious. Still, Alice had a rough idea of how he was doing: not so hot. The verdict had come in on the malpractice suit, and, as predicted, it wasn’t favorable to Tommy’s dad. He wasn’t going to be facing jail time, but his medical license had been revoked. He could never work as a doctor again. What’s more, the patient’s wife was also seeking damages, so Dr. van Stratten would likely be on the hook for a lot of money. And Charlie had told her that word around the club was that when Mrs. van Stratten found out that her husband was being forced to declare bankruptcy, she’d said she’d had it, was filing for divorce.

Tommy seemed no more surprised to see Alice than she was to see him, like his unconscious had set this encounter up with her unconscious, like they’d made a date to meet in their dreams. She pushed the notebook out of the way with her foot, dropped down beside him. Starting out with small talk, the polite ritual of question-and-response, seemed pointless—as if, somehow, they were already beyond that. And something about the lateness of the hour, the darkness covering them, made her normal shyness vanish. Her normal reserve, too.

“I heard,” she said simply. “I’m sorry.”

“Thanks.” There was a long silence before he said, “I’m actually sort of glad it’s happened.”

“You are?”

“Not glad glad, obviously. It’s just, we’ve known it’s been coming, have been waiting for the shit to hit the fan for so long now.”

She nodded. “Yeah, the waiting can get super wearing.”

“Can it ever.”

“And at least now it’s over and done.”