Ellis tells me about River Depot and everything that goes on there. How I’ll do a little of everything to start, until they figure out where the best fit for me is. I’ll ring up customers, stock shelves, scoop ice cream, and make hamburgers and hot dogs, but I’ll also work the canoe and kayak trips, hauling boats and reading the rules to riders and sending them on their way with paddles and life jackets and inflatable coolers in tow. That’s where they really need someone, he tells me. When he’s done, he pulls out flat plastic-wrapped red shirts from the podium. “Here are these.”

I look at the shirts I’ve just been handed. “Is that … there’s no interview?”

“I can ask you more questions if you want.” He looks like he’s serious. “Otherwise you can start tomorrow. We need all hands on deck to start orientation. They’ll be here before you know it.”

And by “they” he means the tourists. The thousands of summer residents and visitors who will take our tiny town from a two-thousand-person ghost town to a bustling summer destination. We may have a week before they start to trickle in, but by the Fourth of July, Riverton will be unrecognizable.

“I can start tomorrow.” I smile, because I had no idea it would be this easy. That for the first time in weeks, something could go right. And so easily.

“See you at nine.”

And just like that, I am officially employed for the summer.

AIDEN

Hauling canoes all day is suspiciously similar to baseball camp: I’m tired, hungry, and probably going to hurt in weird places tomorrow. Ellis hands Olivia a pile of red clothes, shakes her hand, and makes his way back to the riverbank, where I’m standing with an armful of red cushions.

“You hired her? Seriously, Ellis?”

He looks shocked. “She was nice. And she seems like she’ll actually show up. She called four times yesterday.”

I can’t help but groan. This is not how my low-key summer at River Depot is supposed to go.

“You should have said something if you had a problem.”

“You didn’t give me a chance. You had to offer her a job on the spot?”

Ellis rolls his eyes and gives me a fake pouty face. “Oh, I’m so sorry you have to work with a nice, cute girl all summer. My sincerest apologies for burdening you.”

I roll my eyes, because of course Ellis would have no idea who Olivia is or why I wouldn’t want her around—he doesn’t go to Riverton, he goes to South Hills, one town over. And yes, she’s cute, I guess. But she’s also got a boyfriend I’m not interested in running into this summer.

“Just hire some cute guys for yourself and don’t worry about me. Please.”

“What exactly is wrong with her?” he asks.