He pulled out a silver flask and set it on her bare thigh, just below the tattered hem of her jean shorts. He let his hand rest on the seat next to her, his fingertips grazing her skin, setting something off, a feeling so warm and overwhelmingly good and big that she thought she could die from it. Ann loved not knowing what would come next, loved that Anthony was in control, loved the heat and the way her body felt, lean and alive, loved that he didn’t think of her as a kid but as someone worthy of sharing thoughts with about his marriage and his two lives. His marriage. Maureen!

“I should probably go home,” she said.

“I’ll take you, don’t worry. First just have some fun. You’ve been working all summer. You deserve some fun, don’t you?”

She took a gulp.

“Go ahead. Have another. Enjoy it. The scotch is casked. Only two hundred and forty bottles, twenty-five years old. The good stuff. I grew up drinking moonshine. Life’s too short to get drunk on cheap whiskey.”

Anthony drove over another bump. Half the contents went into her mouth, while the rest spilled down her chin and all over her already-damp shirt. The alcohol burned her throat and shot up her sinuses. She coughed.

Anthony laughed. It was the first time she’d heard him laugh. She liked the mellow sound of his voice, and the way his eye squinted at the corner. The moonlight picked up the stray silver hairs in his beard. He seemed so grown-up. So manly.

“That’s about thirty bucks’ worth you just spilled all over yourself.”

“Sorry,” she said again, still coughing.

“You may as well finish it off.” She did. The liquid landed like a burning torch in her gut.

He stopped the Jeep. “Now, how am I going to take you home to your parents smelling like a distillery?”

Ann didn’t want to think about her parents, didn’t want him to mention them. She wanted to keep Anthony and her parents separate.

“It’s a perfect night to look at the moonlight on the water with a beautiful young woman. Let’s walk down to the pond.”

Ann pulled off her sandals and tucked them under her seat. She always left her sandals in the car when she came here with her family.

The path was sandy, the only danger the tree roots.

He led the way down the long, sandy footpath. His shoulders were broad, his calves firm. There was a butterfly-shaped sweat stain showing through the back of his linen shirt.