“I can’t see the stars anymore.” Aiden sounds a little sad, and I’m tempted to reach over Ellis and pretend he isn’t there. “It’s all muddy, like they’re hiding behind a curtain. Or it’s like I’m seeing stars on top of stars on top of stars.” He sighs. “Too many stars.”

“No such thing,” Jaz mumbles.

“Sorry, bud.” Ellis sounds almost as sad as Aiden. “Getting old is hard.” Ellis laughs and throws his empty bottle behind him in the sand. A little spray of liquid showers over us.

“Shut up, you’re nine days older than me,” Aiden fires back.

“Yeah, but you see worse than Grandpa Tate, so…”

I tense up—I hate that Ellis is picking on Aiden right now, when he’s sharing something that he obviously doesn’t talk about much. Aiden laughs, and I relax a little. Boys are so weird.

Next to me, Jaz is shifting around. She jabs me with her elbow and when she sits up, she’s in only her bra. She wiggles her shorts off and stands. “I’m going in,” she says, already barreling toward the water. It’s a still night, the kind where the water shimmers like a pane of black glass in the moonlight. Ellis is up next, stripping off his shirt and sandals and t-shirt until he’s just a blur of underwear tripping toward the water.

Bathing suits and underwear are basically the same thing. Somewhere deep in my brain, I know this. They cover the same parts—hell, my underwear covers more than some of my bathing suits. So why does it feel like I’m about to get naked in front of Aiden? It’s just the two of us left on the sand, but we have a gaping hole between us now, where Ellis’s body used to be. Aiden turns his head to me and reaches for my hand. “You wanna swim?”

There’s no pressure behind the words, no note of irritation at the idea that I may not want to. And I really wish we were alone, because lying this close to him in the sand, our fingers barely touching, I want to pull his shirt off myself. Feel the warm skin underneath, touch mine to his. But not with an audience. So instead I sit up and I pull my shirt over my head. My bra isn’t the prettiest one I own, but it’s black and covers everything important. Aiden pulls his shirt off while I stand and push my shorts down to my ankles, kicking them off along with my flip-flops.