“Waters and your sister showed up at the cottage a while ago. According to Lily, Waters is raging. Lily is pretty pissed too. She called me a ball-licking anus pimple.”

“She’s creative. Is Waters upset about us taking his car?”

“Probably? It’s hard to tell from Violet’s messages. She mentions something about the poison ivy and veggie man. There’s a lot of autocorrect going on.” Randy scrolls through my messages. Some of it is probably personal, but he knows most of my business anyway. He flips back and forth between his phone and mine.

“Fuck.”

“What?”

“The exes came back to the cottage.”

He hits a button and brings the phone to his ear, tapping the dash with anxious fingers. Whatever’s going on can’t be good. “Hey. Shit. I’m glad you finally answered. I was getting wor—”

He stops abruptly, his eyebrows pulling down. “Whoa. Hold up a second. What do you mean you’re leaving? He can’t do that—Can you stall? We’re on our way back now.”

I can hear Lily through the phone, her voice high. Randy bangs his head against the back of the seat. “Come on, Lily. It’s not like that.” After a brief pause he holds the phone away from his ear and checks the screen. “Fuck.”

“What now?”

“She hung up.”

“On purpose?”

“Maybe? I don’t know. I could hear Waters in the background. I think he might have been fighting with Sunny, but there was too much yelling to tell. We need to get back. I think there’s a lot of misinformation happening, and it’s making us both look like assholes.”

I rub my forehead and take a bend in the road too fast, almost fishtailing around the corner. Waters will have my balls if I ruin his car. Randy checks my messages every few minutes, but the ones from Sunny stopped about an hour ago. The last one I received from her was about Waters being at the cottage and how he wasn’t happy.

I almost ram Waters’ car into the back of the camping trailer when I pull into the driveway. They’re backing out as I’m pulling in. The unsettled feeling from earlier slaps me in the face as I park the car, blocking them.

Bushman sticks his fuzzy, patchy face out the open window. I shift the car into park. I can see Sunny in the back window, twisting her hair around her finger.

“Get your car out of the way, asshole, before I back over it!” Bushman yells.

“Go ahead and run it over, Tiny Dick!” I jump out of the car, leaving the door wide open, and head for the trailer. Bushman backs up, almost hitting me. Before I can get to Sunny, the door of the cottage slams open.

Waters takes up almost the entire frame. “I’m gonna fuck you up, Butterson!”

We’re close to the same size. I’m a little broader and I might have a few pounds on him. He’s a center; I’m defense, so being lighter works in his favor on the ice. I don’t think the slight size difference is going to mean much if we get into it. He looks pissed.

For a split second I consider running back to the car and locking myself inside. He’s not going to beat on his own car. At least I don’t think he will. He probably has a spare set of keys, though, so he’ll get in eventually. It’ll also make me look like a pussy, which I’m not.

“Alex!” Violet grabs his arm and hangs off it.

He stops with the stalking business and gives her his attention. “I just want to talk to him, baby.”

“You said you were going to fuck him up!”

“With my words.” He pries her off his arm and goes back to stalking toward me. He’s wearing flip-flops. They slap against the ground and kick up stones with each step. He doesn’t acknowledge Randy when he gets out of the car. His rage is all for me.

Randy decides now is a good time to come to my defense, and his own. “I think there’s been a misunderstand—”

Before he finishes the sentence, Sunny throws open the trailer door. She must not realize how close I am; the steel frame hits me in the face, the sharp edge bashing into my forehead.

“Oh God!”

“Alex, don’t!” Lily yells.

I don’t have a chance to recover before Waters’ fist slams into my face.

There’s a crunch inside my head. Pain explodes, turning my vision white.

“Alex! What’s wrong with you?” That’s Violet screaming.

“You didn’t need to punch him in the face! He’s already hurt!” Lily yells.

I don’t know why the hit is unexpected. Waters has been dying to get me back for breaking his nose when he screwed Violet over. I fall backward, like a cut tree. Pines and birch rise around me, blue sky broken by fluffy white clouds. My head hits the gravel. The sun is a bright ball in the middle of it all. It expands, filling up the blue and eclipsing the clouds until it’s everywhere.

I blink and the clouds are gone. There’s just white and a spot of black in the center. I try to sit up, but I can’t. I have a feeling that was a hard hit.

I hear screaming. Girl screaming.

“What happened to using words?” Violet’s yelling again.

“Baby, calm down. He’s fine.”

“He’s not fine! You knocked him out!”

A disembodied hand appears in my vision. I think it’s mine. I swipe across my face. My palm comes back wet. Pain radiates through my skull in more than one location, multiplying the black spots in my vision. White turns to red as I bring my hand up in front of my eyes. Those black spots take up more room.

Gravel digs into the back of my head, and there’s a huge rock under my right shoulder. I want to move, but I’ve had the wind knocked out of me. I might even be concussed.

Sunny’s voice permeates the fog. “Oh my God! He’s bleeding!”

I want to tell someone to make sure she doesn’t come near me; Sunny and blood aren’t a great combination.

“Sunny, you should sit down,” Lily says. She must know what happens when Sunny sees blood.

“Catch her!” That’s Randy. He’s a good friend, watching out for my girl.

I should be the one to do that. I struggle to sit up, but Alex moves fast, getting to her before she hits the ground.

A shot of cold has me sitting up in a rush. It’s Bushman, with a bottle of soda. Asshole. Jesus, Waters hits hard. Bushman empties the rest of the soda on my face.

“Keep it up, Bushman, and I’ll shove that bottle up your dick hole!” Randy yells.

With Waters as his bodyguard, the little fucker has grown a set of balls. He sprinkles the last few drops on the ground next to me and backs away.

“Get her in the trailer,” Waters orders.

Bushman struggles to pull an unconscious Sunny up the two steps into the vehicle. Once she’s mostly inside, Lily pushes him out of the way and drops down beside her. I try to stand, but I’m way off balance. Waters is definitely going to gloat about this. I manage to get to my feet as Bushman turns over the engine.

Randy hands me a shirt to wipe my face with. It’s sticky from the soda. And bloody from one of my face wounds.

I take a stumbling step towards the trailer. “You can’t send Sunny home with him.”

Waters puts a hand on my chest and pushes. I drop back to the ground on my ass.

“Enough, Alex!” Violet gets between us. It reminds me of what she did in the locker room after I discovered Waters banging her there—except that time she was defending Alex, not me. “Do you realize what a hypocrite you’re being? I don’t even like you right now!”

“He’s been fucking my sister around for months!” Alex shouts back.

She throws her hands in the air. “No, he hasn’t!”

“Get over your goddamn ego, Waters,” I shout from the ground. “If you yell at Violet again, I’m gonna beat your ass.”

“You can’t even stand up right now, Butterson.”

“Alex! Just stop!” Violet seems as pissed as he is.

Commotion inside the trailer stops the yelling match, which is good, because it’s making my headache worse. Sunny opens the door again, more cautiously this time. Lily is right behind her, looking likes she’s prepared for fainting, round two. Sunny elbows Bushman out of the way and holds on to the door frame, still unsteady.