“Why are you apologizing?” Gemma asked.

“I don’t know.” He laughed. He shook his head and looked back at her, smiling at him. “I’m not sorry.”

“Me neither.”

Alex leaned in to kiss her again, but before he could, Brian yelled from the house behind them.

“Gemma!”

That was all it took to ruin the moment. Alex jumped away from Gemma like he’d been shocked.

Gemma got up more slowly than he had, offering him an apologetic smile. “Sorry.”

“Yeah, no, it’s okay.” Alex rubbed the back of his head and refused to even look in the direction of Gemma or her father.

“I’ll see you later?” Gemma asked.

“Yeah, yeah, of course.” He nodded quickly.

Gemma hurried back over to her house, where her father stood at the back door, holding it open. When she went inside, Brian stood outside for a minute longer, watching Alex as he awkwardly tried to fold the blanket.

“Dad!” Gemma shouted at him.

Brian waited a beat before coming in. He closed the back door behind him and locked it, then flipped off the outside light. When he came into the kitchen, Gemma was pacing and chewing her fingernails.

“You don’t have to check up on me, you know.”

“You went out fifteen minutes ago to take out the garbage.” Brian leaned against the counter. “I was simply making sure you hadn’t been kidnapped or attacked by rabid raccoons.”

“Well, I wasn’t.” Gemma stopped moving and took a deep breath.

“Do you want to tell me what was going on out there?”

Her eyes widened. “No!”

“Look, Gemma, I know you’re sixteen, and you’re going to start dating.” He shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “And Alex isn’t a bad kid, exactly. But he’s older, and you’re too young for certain things—”

“Dad, we just kissed. Okay?” Gemma’s face pinched with discomfort over discussing the topic with her father.

“So you’re … seeing him now?” Brian asked carefully.

“I don’t know.” She shrugged. “We just kissed.”

“And that’s all you should do,” Brian said. “He’s leaving in a couple months, and you’re too young to really commit to anything. Plus you have your swimming to focus on.”

“Dad, please,” Gemma said. “Let me figure this out on my own. Okay?”

“Okay,” he said reluctantly. “But if he touches you, I’ll kill him. And if he hurts you, I’ll kill him.”

“I know.”

“Does he know that?” Brian gestured toward Alex’s house next door. “Because I can go over and tell him that myself.”

“No, Dad!” Gemma held up her hands. “I’ve got it. Now, if you don’t mind, I’m going to go to bed so I can get up early tomorrow to swim.”

“Tomorrow’s Sunday. The pool’s closed.”

“I’ll go out to the bay. I skipped tonight, and I want to be in the water.”

Brian nodded, letting the conversation go, and Gemma hurried up to her room. The light shone from beneath Harper’s bedroom door, signaling she was still up, probably reading a book. Gemma snuck into her own room quietly, so as not to alert her sister.