“Mel…”

“I know, I know—don’t say it. I’m not listening!” She’d botched her chance with him in tenth grade. I’d told her a hundred times that he was clearly the type to whom over is over, unlike Clark, who jerked her around until the day he loaded his Jeep and headed for Missouri State. We’d begun our senior year with her life in shambles because she was single, no take-backs, for the first time since ninth grade. Between bouts of fury, she moped. I wanted to shake her like a Magic 8 Ball that keeps giving the same undesirable answer.

“Also, your mama is on her way to another continent, Pearl. Live a little! Put on that hot pink bikini—the one we got at La Mode two months ago that I haven’t seen on you even once? You can’t arrive at college a virgin for chrissake. Wear that bikini tonight and you won’t.” She made virginity sound like a disorder.

My reason for holding back had nothing to do with morals or repression and everything to do with trust. While I understood virginity to have no real scientific significance, I was still intimidated by the notion of being that intimate with another human being. I’d spent my life in this small Gulf Coast town and knew everyone in my age range. Weekends and summers meant hanging out at the beach, sometimes tolerating a sloppy kiss from some alcohol-emboldened boy in the light of a bonfire. I’d had a few dates, some good, some not, and had survived a wave of gossip when Parker Guthrie told his friends I’d “given it up” in the backseat of his Bronco.

I hadn’t bothered denying it because that would have required acknowledging the rumor, but my reaction wasn’t good enough for Mel, who started a rumor of her own concerning the size (miniscule) and shape (like a boomerang) of Parker’s penis. He’d tried to prove otherwise with photographic evidence to the contrary, which got him suspended from school for a week and almost arrested. He’d been pretty much shunned the rest of high school.

At some point during the afternoon, Melody, visions of Landon in her head, came up with the idea of having a private pool party.

“There’s no way Landon will come if Boyce doesn’t,” I said, hoping to deter her.

“You’re right. Crap. I’ll just have to convince both of them.”

Later that night, we were on the beach with practically the entire senior class, and my brain was flooded with second thoughts. A party? In my parents’ house, while they were out of town? Which would undoubtedly include sexual activity, alcohol consumption, and possibly drug use? I closed my eyes. Aside from being parentally and legally prohibited, it was just so clichéd.

Before I could back out, Melody began issuing verbal invitations. Shit. The party was happening. If I wanted something to happen with Boyce, it was now or never.

“There they are,” Melody said, starting forward as my stomach lurched like the bottom had dropped out of it.

Boyce’s eyes were already on me, ignoring Mel in her black bikini and sheer tank dress, glossy blond hair swept into a flawlessly mussed updo. Floral-patterned board shorts hung low on his hips, the dark orange and hot-pink blossoms the perfect adornment for a body that was nothing but hard and ripped and male. His pulled-low Astros cap shaded his face but couldn’t hide the glint of his eyes. My hands fluttered down the center of my chest—ascertaining that I was still wearing the protective navy sundress—and I burned wherever my fingers touched, as if he’d touched me.

“Hey, Landon.” Mel grazed Landon’s arm with her manicured fingertips.

“Miss Dover.” Landon clearly didn’t give two flips. He looked more annoyed than tempted, but she wasn’t ready to give up.

“We’re throwing a spontaneous graduation party at Pearl’s pool in half an hour. Her parents left for Italy right after graduation—so they won’t be around. If y’all wanna come over, that’d be cool. PK and Joey are bringing vodka. Bring whatever you want.”

Eyes on her, I still felt Boyce’s gaze sliding over my skin again as certainly as I felt the warm breeze off the gulf. That wink during my commencement speech had replayed itself in my mind all day, driving me insane. I’d worn the fuchsia bikini under the sundress, at which point Mel had scowled and said I was almost-seventeen going on forty. Somehow, under Boyce’s penetrating inspection, I felt naked anyway. I pretended to watch some semi-intoxicated boys screwing around near the bonfire.

“We’ve got a beach, in case you girls didn’t notice,” Landon said. “Bonfire lit, beer in hand. What would we want with a pool?”

I heard the trace of rancor in his voice and felt embarrassed for Mel, but he exchanged a brief glance with Boyce and then shrugged.

Boyce, ignoring Melody, addressed me as if he’d caught sight of my internal struggle and meant to challenge it head-on. “All right. We’ll be over in a bit. Don’t start the party without us.”

They turned to go, and I released a cautious breath, nervous about my impetuous seduction plan, trying to approach it as logically as possible. I had no delusions about what a night with Boyce would mean to him. I just wanted what I wanted, before I went away to college to begin the eight years of intense coursework staring me in the face. Before Boyce fell in love or knocked up some girl and moved beyond my reach forever.

That thought made my chest tighten possessively, which felt an awful lot like panic.

There were at least two dozen people in the house by midnight. I’d locked the doors to my parents’ bedroom and Thomas’s study before anyone arrived and opened the french doors of the living area to the shale-paved patio. Dancing with my friends, I held a stereotypical red cup, still half-full. I took a sip from it and grimaced. Cheap beer didn’t improve at room temperature.