Nothing sounded less comfortable to Alexa than sleeping on the beach. Her hair was very thick; she would never get the sand out. She removed Tyler’s arm again, and this time he resisted more strongly. Say what you will about the #metoo movement and all the rest of it, tell Alexa that times were changing and women could speak up, she knew it was still a very, very fine line that she was walking, that all girls were walking. The line between being attractive and being a tease. The line between needing and not needing. Between independence and desire. If she could give Morgan one piece of advice it would be, Don’t grow up.

“I don’t want to stay here, Tyler,” she said. “Just leave me alone.” Besides the fact that she would much rather sleep in her own bed, there was the not-small matter of her virginity, which for some reason, against all odds and contrary to what most people at school and probably in town and probably online thought, she had managed to hold on to for so long that now it seemed awkward and meaningful to let it go. But whatever. It was her body; these were her choices. She stood.

“I get it,” Tyler said. “Take it easy, Lex.”

“Don’t call me Lex,” she snarled, sounding like the bitch that she felt like, that she feared, sometimes, she actually was. The next thing she knew, she was steeling herself and knocking back the cocktail, cranberry juice or no cranberry juice. Forget it, she thought. Forget Tyler. Forget Zoe Butler-Gray. Forget everybody. On her way out the back door she grabbed a can of beer, a Riverwalk IPA, which had probably been brought out because Zoe Butler-Gray’s father worked for the brewery and always had stacks of it in the garage. She opened it and carried it onto the back deck.

High tide and it felt like the waves were going to come all the way up to the furniture. The moon was almost full, but not quite; it looked like somebody squished it between a thumb and a forefinger. Alexa sipped the beer. She hated IPAs—they were so heavy, they sat in her stomach like a stone. She drank it anyway. Her sips got bigger, and they turned into gulps. When she stood, she felt dizzy. Experimentally she lifted her face to the sky and turned around and around. She felt like she was one with the moon. She felt like she was spinning through the night.

When she stopped spinning, she ran smack into a sweatshirt.

“Sorry,” she muttered, and the guy inside the sweatshirt caught her elbow and said, “Hey, hey.” Fantastic, was her first thought. Another guy grabbing at her, just what she needed. She lifted her eyes.