I can tell by the surprise in his voice that this isn’t why he came. But now I’ve opened the door, and it feels like I might as well just swing it wide open and pray that the hurricane doesn’t take the whole house with it.

“Listen, we’ve never been friends, but I don’t want it to turn into a thing, so…” I’m not sure why I feel like I’m doing something wrong. She’s his ex-girlfriend. And in a small town, if no one dated anyone’s ex, everyone would be single after fifth grade. “… We’re together. Just so you know.”

“Together?” He shakes his head at me as if I’ve said something ridiculous.

“You know what the word means, Zander.” I’m not sticking around to hash out the details of our relationship, so I turn back toward the little picnic area where my bike is still waiting for me. I let out a deep breath and a certain lightness comes over me. It feels good to say it out loud. Together. I pull out my phone so I can give Liv a heads up before I get to her house, just in case Zander is planning to turn this into some sort of drama.

Behind me, Zander’s voice cuts through the parking lot, low and biting. “You think a summer hookup is going to last long distance?” He lets out an indignant huff. “We were together for two years and I wasn’t sure it would work.”

Long distance. The words rub around in my brain and make everything hurt.

“Don’t you have enough to worry about, Emerson?” Zander’s face twists with pity, like I’ve lost a limb and it’s lying right next to me on the gravel, and I’m bleeding out as I watch. Like my life is such a mess. “Let me worry about Olivia.”

“Your ex-girlfriend?” I want to tell him Olivia can worry about herself. That she doesn’t need a babysitter, or a dad, or a shitty boyfriend. But I’m not going to get into it with Zander; not here. Not when Olivia is waiting for me, and we—apparently—have things to talk about. “Whatever.”

“There’s no way she picks you,” he says as I walk away.

In my head, I just keep going. Or maybe I calmly tell him that it isn’t a competition, because he’s out of the picture. He and Olivia are old news. But in real life, I mutter fuck you, and throw my middle finger up over my head as I walk away. By the time I reach my bike my face is hot and my chest is tight. It’s a twenty-minute ride to Olivia’s house, and I’m torn between pedaling faster than I ever have and just cruising along. Because I don’t think good things are happening when I get there.