“Oh,” said Alexa. “Wow. That’s really amazing. Good for Shelby. Those service trips are supposed to be incredible.” Alexa had zero interest in a service trip, where you went like six days without showering and had to eat things like goat meat and gruel. Clearly Shelby McIntyre was on the fast track to Heaven. “Will she mind?” she asked. “That you’re doing this, with me?”

Was it Alexa’s imagination, or did Cam’s hold on the steering wheel tighten?

“We’re not exclusive anymore,” he said. “That’s over.”

“I see,” said Alexa. “I’m sorry?”

“Nothing to be sorry about,” said Cam. He pressed his lips together and kept his eyes on the road. Alexa looked off to the right, where the sun was just beginning to lower over the Atlantic. The strips of beach that whizzed by them were nearly empty.

Alexa couldn’t resist her next question. “Whose idea was it? Not to be exclusive?”

“Both,” said Cam. He stopped at a crosswalk and they watched a sandy family—two parents, a stroller, and a kid on a scooter—make their way across. It’s never both, thought Alexa, it’s never both, but she let it slide. Then Cam said, “We agreed it was better for her to go back to UVM unencumbered.” Alexa took that to mean that Shelby decided it was better for Shelby to go back to UVM unencumbered.

“What about you?” Cam asked.

Tyler was on a 7:35 a.m. flight the next day, which meant he would leave for the airport at 4:30. If Alexa wasn’t seeing him right now, she wasn’t going to see him until he returned from Silver Lake in three weeks. She thought again about Tyler and Zoe Butler-Gray getting out of Tyler’s car at Blue Inn, and her blood boiled.

Alexa said, “Unencumbered.”

24.

Rebecca

Morgan had been invited to stay the night at Katie’s house, and Alexa was out with Tyler, who was leaving the next day for Silver Lake. Rebecca was happy that Morgan wanted to spend the night somewhere—since the sleeping bag incident she’d turned down all sleepover invitations.