Ten minutes later, I knew where we were. The abandoned hardware store. A tumbledown and familiar house. “We’re going to your place?”

She flashed another slender smile, but drove past her street, turning at the next one, and pulling to the curb at an empty lot with old, small houses on either side. “Come with me.”

She took me into the vacant lot, and we clambered through the foundations of a long-gone house, then out the other side, and down a steep bank, wading through waist-deep kudzu until trees appeared and the vines grew up and over. She pulled me deeper into the forest, and when we reached the creek, she turned along the bank, parting vines until the same pool of deep, clear water appeared.

“You remember our swim?” She slipped off her shoes, entirely serious. “How about a real one this time?”

When her shirt came off, the bra came with it. She blushed only a little, and I thought of all the times I’d seen her at the quarry, browned by the sun and sleek as a seal. She helped me out of my shirt, and kissed me. Her breasts flattened on my chest, and I felt them there, small and warm, a brush of skin before she stepped back and removed the rest of her clothes. The blush was still there, but she turned for the pool, crooked a finger, and tossed off a knowing smile. “Are you coming or not?”

I undressed and followed her into the pool, moving close until there were mere inches between us. “Why now?” I wanted to know.

“Because I was watching your face, and not Darzell’s.” She moved closer until we were touching. “Did you know that you were crying?”

“Only at the end.”

“I thought it was beautiful.”

“Why?”

“Because he made you believe in what you were doing.”

“I already believed.”

“But there’s a difference between duty and love. You wanted to help Jason because he’s your brother—that’s the duty. Darzell made you love him.”

It was true. She was right.

“Kiss me,” she said, and that’s what I did.

Softly.

Adoringly.

“Now, love me,” she said, and I did that, too.

Later, with Becky stretched beside me on a bed of ferns and moss, I thought for the millionth time that the day was barely real: the touch of our bodies, the foundations of childhood we’d burned down together. Even now the lines of her were like forgings on my skin: one leg across my own, her fingers twined into mine.

“Regrets?” she asked. In response, I held her tighter. “Can we do it again, then?”

“Are you sure?” I asked.

It was becoming my favorite question.

Much later, we dressed self-consciously, the awkwardness passing only when Becky caught my eye, and grinned. “The clothes came off a lot easier.”