I nodded at them, well aware of the clench of my jaw at the word “brother.” Rusty stepped up next to me and shook Corrie’s hand, smiling his good ol’ boy smile. “Rusty. And this is Honor.” I watched her for the little flutter effect he had on most girls when he put in any effort. She wasn’t his usual type, but she was definitely good looking. Wavy brown hair, tan skin, and sleepy hazel eyes like you see on lingerie models. She smiled in a friendly way, but not overly so, and I guessed Sam was probably her boyfriend.
As if on cue, Sam stood and smiled a more-sober version of Wyatt’s smile. “Nice to meet you guys.” He put a relaxed arm around Corrie’s shoulders and nodded at the cooler. “You want a beer?”
Rusty didn’t miss a beat. “Don’t mind if I do.”
Sam looked to me. I didn’t particularly like beer, but I learned in my brief high school party career that a girl who would drink a beer was a heck of a lot cooler than one who wouldn’t. “Sure.” I smiled. “Thanks.”
While he went to get them, Corrie pulled two more lawn chairs out of the truck, and Rusty and I brought them over to the fire ring. Sam returned with an armful of dripping-cold beers, tossed one to Rusty, and handed Corrie and me each one but didn’t bother with Wyatt, who was leaning back in his chair, humming softly to himself. When I set my chair next to him, he winked at me. Corrie walked around behind him to her chair, ruffling his hair. “Keep tryin’, Don Juan.”
She sat on the other side of me and twisted the cap off her beer. “Ignore him. He’s got a thing for girls in boots and dresses. Spent the entire trip trying to convince us to drive all the way down to Texas for that.” She nodded at my feet and smiled. “Those are cute, by the way. I like the red.”
I took a drink and was surprised at how not-bad the beer tasted. The iciness of it was a good complement to the stillhot evening, and it put me a little more at ease. “Thanks.” I laughed a little. “Guess I fit the stereotype, then. That’s where we’re from.”
“Hear that, Wyatt? Your dream girl’s from Texas.” She reached around and poked him.
He sat forward in his chair and smiled, then leaned across me and wagged a finger at Corrie. “I told you they know how to dress there.” He turned to me, forearms resting on my legs, and I sat back slightly, all too conscious of our close proximity. Wyatt didn’t notice. He smiled so big, his eyes closed, then pushed himself back up and raised his beer. “So. To girls from Texas, who wear boots with dresses.” Nobody else heard the toast, but I clinked my bottle with his and took a sip, surprised at how good it felt to be just a girl in a dress, instead of one wrapped up tight in grief.
6
“So, what’re you guys doin’ over this way?”
Sam had no way to know that when he turned to Rusty, his question snapped me out of my slight buzz and sent me into silent panic. It was a normal enough question.
I watched Rusty. Please, don’t say it. Don’t tell him about Finn or Kyra Kelley or anything. He glanced at me and casually drank from his beer, allowing me to answer. I silently thanked him. You never knew what might come out of his mouth, but at least he realized the last thing I wanted was to explain what we were doing there.
I kept it vague and casual. “Just a road trip.” When I said it, its unspoken meaning tugged at the edges of my composure. Really, it was hard to believe what I was doing—that the day after my brother’s funeral, I was on my way to California for a concert, sitting around a campfire drinking with strangers. And Rusty. From the moment I’d found out about Finn, nothing felt real. This didn’t either, which made me wonder if that’s how it would be from here on out—if I’d always feel so lost. But Finn’s letter had given me something to hold on to in the midst of it all, and I wasn’t about to let go now.
Since Rusty had told Wyatt I was his friend’s little sister, the next logical question would be to ask where my brother was, so I steered us away from that one quick. “How ’bout y’all? What are you here for?” Nobody else seemed to notice the change in my tone of voice, but Rusty’s eyes flicked over to me, and I wondered what he thought of my not mentioning Finn. It felt wrong to me, but I didn’t want to hear it. Especially from him.
Wyatt laughed like I’d said something funny, and Sam chuckled before he answered. “We’re here for the scuba diving, of course.”
I didn’t know if he was kidding, and my expression must’ve said so, because Wyatt turned to me, once again mock serious. “You think he’s joking. He’s not. Corrie here dragged us all the way down here to scuba dive in the middle of the desert. We live in California, for cryin’ out loud. At the beach.”
Corrie nodded like she’d been hearing it all the way from California, then smiled good naturedly. “Yes, but we don’t have a blue hole in California that you can see the stars from the bottom of, through eighty feet of water.” She shrugged. “Besides. It’s an adventure, and you guys are always talking about how you need to have more of those.” She turned to me. “I read about it in a magazine. It’s called a cenote, which is like an underground cave but filled with water. There’s a spring at the bottom of it that keeps it filled with the clearest water you’ve ever seen. And it’s warm all year round.”
Sam leaned over and patted her leg. “So her plan is for us to get up while it’s still dark, dive down so we can see the stars, then watch the sun come up. From the bottom of the Blue Hole.”