“A little while” ends up being two hours later, nine o’clock, late enough that Leland has already spiraled through self-doubt and convinced herself that Fray won’t show. She’s wearing her red bikini under her Jordache jeans and a velour top, she has cracked open one of her father’s beers—she pulled six out of the back; when you open the fridge, you don’t even notice any missing—and she has poured a bag of Utz chips into a bowl and opened a container of onion dip because her mother, Geri, says people always appreciate a snack. The hot tub is bubbling like a witch’s cauldron under the cover and it’s this that Leland suspects might get her in trouble—the oil bill, her father is energy-conscious—but why even have the hot tub if they can’t use it?

When the knock finally comes, Leland’s heart leaps. She has finished one beer and feels as light and floaty as a spirit in the material world.

“Hey,” she says when she opens the door. Fray looks so fine—he has on a gray hooded sweatshirt under his Calvert Hall lacrosse jersey and jeans and his high-top sneakers are, as ever, untied. He’s holding a pair of swim trunks.

“Hey, Lee,” he says. They lock eyes and Leland wonders why it has taken them so long to shed the Blessings and acknowledge what has been true for a while now: They are meant to be together.

When Leland looks back on that night, it seems almost painfully romantic in a nostalgic 1980s way. They each crack a beer, Fray changes into his trunks in the powder room, he helps Leland lift the top off the hot tub. They climb in, sitting on the same bench but not touching. Leland has the stereo in the rec room cranked to 98 Rock and the back sliding door is open so they can hear strains of “Radio Ga Ga” and “When Doves Cry.” They tap their cans of Natty Boh together and drink.

They start kissing during “We Belong,” by Pat Benatar. It happens naturally, like a magnet is drawing them together. It isn’t Leland’s first kiss or even her first tongue kiss—that was Jay Pitcock after the eighth grade dance back in May—but this is different. Fray is skilled with his tongue, he tastes like beer, he knows to put a hand on the back of her neck and pull her toward him.

When they finally break apart, Leland is dizzy, dazzled.

“I’ll grab more beers,” Fray says. He hoists himself out of the tub and Leland watches him leave wet footprints on the rec room floor. When he disappears from view, she gets a crazy idea, then talks herself out of it, then decides to just go for it. Tonight is the night her life changes.

She takes off her bikini top.