She turned in my lap, settling a shoulder against my chest, and resting there. At the water’s edge, Tyra was getting dressed. She saw us looking, and waved. “Nice swim?” I asked.

Jason called over his shoulder. “Tyra, baby? Nice swim?”

“The best!”

She came through the flowers, grinning. Jason pulled her tight, and lifted an eyebrow. “Anybody hungry?”

Hours later, we were back in the car, yellow light in the trees, the sky above impossibly blue. Jason took us back to hard pavement and the world beyond the trees, driving in a pattern that made little sense to me: north and then east and then north again. I’d never seen this part of the state before, the miles of forest and farmland, the worn pavement and small towns, like beads on a string. I rode in the back with Sara, who watched the world much as I did, silently and content, her eyes hidden behind round glasses with rose-colored lenses. She had a hand at her throat, another on my leg. In front, Tyra was the talker.

“Where are you taking us?”

Jason lifted his wide shoulders. “Just driving.”

“Can you go faster?”

Jason accelerated, blowing dust off the blacktop and litter off the verge. “Fast enough?”

“Only if you kiss me, too.”

He kissed her well, one eye on the road. When the kiss broke, Tyra laughed wildly and pushed her arms above the windshield, into the rush of hot air. “Faster!” Jason nudged the gas, and the car leaped forward again. Eighty-five. Ninety-five. “Yes! Yes!” The speed energized her. She bounced twice on the leather seat, finished the wine, and slipstreamed the bottle. It shattered on the road behind us—a starburst—and when I looked at Sara, she raised her own narrow shoulder.

“It’s just Tyra.”

The day soured a little after that. I didn’t care about Tyra one way or another, but Sara’s easy attitude cheapened her a little.

“We need more booze!”

Tyra shouted over the roar of wind, and Jason high-fived her open hand. Twenty minutes later, we stopped on the main block of a narrow downtown street, angling in where piebald tarmac met the façade of a run-down ABC store Jason claimed to have shopped in once.

“Won’t take a minute.”

“What town is this?” I asked.

It was a dusty place made of two-lane roads and blinking lights and low buildings. I saw kids on bikes, old men, a tractor at a feedstore.

“Does it matter?” Jason asked.

It didn’t matter to the girls. They spoke across the seat as Jason disappeared inside, and I watched him through the glass. At the feedstore, the tractor started up, pulled onto a side street, and disappeared. I smelled pollen, pine resin, and hot pavement. Sara tucked a strand of hair behind an ear, and I saw the pulse at her throat, the flush of her cheek.

“Gibby, hey. I’m talking to you.”