Sign Here(69)

“So, you like her, right? Sarah?” Lily asked, watching the shadowy shapes of her friends on the beach. As far as she could tell, none of them were Silas. She swallowed the thought away with a sip.

“Yeah, I guess. I mean, she’s cool. Cooler than a lot of girls I know,” he said.

“Not cooler than me, though, right?” Lily asked, pushing his knee with her foot. He rocked the swing under them just enough to feel like a boat in calm waters.

“?’Course not.”

Lily smiled into her drink.

“Well, have you told her?”

Philip sighed, glancing once more toward the woods. “Kind of, yeah. I kind of just did, actually.”

“No way!” Lily exclaimed. “What did she say?”

“Well, I’m sitting here with you, aren’t I?”

If it had been Terrance speaking, it would’ve sounded insulting, but from Philip it didn’t. It sounded like friendship, or the beginning, at least. Lily leaned forward and put her hand on Philip’s large shoulder.

“Oh, Phil. She doesn’t deserve you.”

“I don’t know about—”

“No,” Lily interrupted, putting down her drink. It was important that he hear this, she thought. It was the most important thing he would ever hear; she was sure of it. “You are the best guy. I mean that. The. Best. Guy.”

Philip smiled just a little before he inched backward out of Lily’s grip.

“That’s nice of you.”

“No, no, no,” Lily repeated. “You’re not hearing me. You’re seriously the best. Sarah . . . there are a million girls like Sarah. You could do so much better. If you just let me, I could set—”

“No, thanks,” Philip interrupted. But he looked more comfortable than he had a few minutes before, and a few minutes before that. She was getting through to him, Lily thought with a tingle of pride. They were bonding.

“Fine,” Lily said, and took the final sip of her drink. “But can I ask—why her?”

She couldn’t see his face anymore; the dark had crept up the porch, and the dim lights from the living room only outlined the shape of him, like he was an anonymous tipster in a Mafia documentary.

“She’s smart,” he said finally. “Not just in school, though. She’s smart-funny. My dad always says you can tell the quality of a person’s brain from their humor, and she is the proof.” He shifted on the swing. “And she seems to think I’m smart too. And funny. She gets me in a different way than other people. But it doesn’t matter. She’s not into me.” He reached for his beer and tilted his head back. “She’s into someone else.”

Those last words hit Lily’s skin like electricity. As she had the whole weekend, whenever faced with the shadow of a thought she didn’t want, she reached for her empty Solo cup and then for his beer, taking it right from his hands. He let her.

“You know what I think?” she asked when she had finished it. The alcohol made her vision swim, but it helped settle the unasked question that sparked and hissed in her chest. “I think if you like her so much, you should go get her. Screw this other person. You are one of a kind, Mr. Harrison. You deserve to get the girl. Don’t give up. There’s nothing sexier than a guy who knows what he wants and is willing to fight for it.” She patted his knee definitively. “That’s what I think.”

Philip pitched forward, his elbows landing on his knees.

“Thanks, Lily,” he said, after a minute of nothing but the roar of crickets over a pop hit’s bass beat. “You know, I’m glad you’re practically part of the family.”

Lily felt dizzy from the compliment; it caught her that off guard. She knew he was mocking her; she recognized the repetition of her words. But she also knew he meant it nicely. Maybe almost in a brotherly way. She felt it so much, she almost had to lie down right there, her head in his lap. But that’s when she heard Silas’s voice roll up from the beach.

“Boo-yah! That’s a cup. Heating up, bitches!”

She stood and immediately fell back.

“I’ll go get him,” Philip said, lifting her legs onto the part of the swing his body had vacated. Lily nodded, and then there was nothing.

Nothing, that is, until she woke up upstairs, thirsty and alone.





PEYOTE





WHEN WE ARRIVED ON Jason Culver’s lawn, the sun had drained any remaining green from the grass, replacing it with more of its own white-hot yellow. Everything around us was long past water, ready, instead, to be set on fire.

I wiped sweat from my forehead and fought the urge to lick it as I rang the doorbell. That’s how much I miss salt.

“Mr. Culver, can I have a word with you about your case?”

I heard shuffling and the sudden absence of voices on the television before the door opened a crack.

“What the—oh, right. Yeah, come on in.”

The screen door stuttered to a stop behind me as I entered the musty darkness inside.

“Who’s this guy?” Jason asked, popping open a beer. I licked my lips at the sound. What can I say? I want to taste everything you’ve got.

“Hiya,” Trey said, shoving his hand between us until Jason took it. “I’m Trey Hardbody, Peyote’s supervisor. And I am just as disappointed in him as you are.”