Page 1 of What We Bury

ONE

SAGE

“Glad you came?”

Amy’s looking at me over her cup like she’s just won an argument I didn’t know we were having. She’s curled into Tyler’s side by the bonfire, her blonde hair somehow still in perfect beachy waves three hours into the ocean wind. I should hate her for it, but she’s too likeable.

“Yeah, yeah. You were right.” I roll my eyes as I grudgingly concede. “It’s been a nice night.”

Brock’s house is obscene—the guy whose party this is.

It’s three stories of glass squat at the top of the bluff like they’re waiting for the ocean to bow to them. The wraparound deck could host a small wedding, and the Edison bulbs cast everyone in warm, expensive light, like a Vogue spread on how to do summer in the right tax bracket.

Amy told me on the walk over—new money. Family beach house.One of them, apparently, which almost made me trip on the path.

I tug at the hem of Amy’s borrowed sundress and try not to look like a girl wearing another girl’s clothes at a house shehas no business standing in. The dress is shorter on me than on Amy, and the little pink jellies she loaned me pinch at my heels, so they’re sitting in the sand beside me while I keep fussing with the fabric, hoping no one notices I don’t belong here.

“You needed this,” Amy says, taking another sip of sangria. “Even if you’reexhausted.” She makes air quotes with the hand that isn’t petting Tyler’s thigh like he’s a dog she’s gentling. “When was the last time you sat around a fire?”

“If I can count the grill at work—a few hours ago.”

“That definitely doesn’t count.” Tyler grins at me over the rim of his Solo cup. His teeth are perfectly white, just barely outshining the smug.

“Fire-adjacent, then? It’s hot in that kitchen and Iamexhausted.” I stretch my feet out in front of me, examining my toes in the sand. “I’m pretty sure I’ve permanently lost all feeling in my feet—eight-hour shift.” I wiggle them down, hiding them from view.

Amy laughs. “Of all the jobs in this town, you chose that one?”

“It pays. Barely, but it pays.”

Tyler chuckles, tightening his arm around Amy. “Around here, surviving Gull’s earns respect.”

“Only if Frank approves,” comes a voice behind me. “And Frank’s approval is basically a local ordinance.”

I turn too fast. The reflex is still new—every time someone speaks behind me my whole body braces for impact.Working on it.

The guy is tall. Broad shoulders that don’t seem to know they’re broad. Sun-streaked hair that looks like it came from being outside instead of from a bottle. He’s wearing a button-down with the sleeves pushed up his forearms, and when he smiles, lines fan from the corners of his eyes.

He sits down on the sand beside me instead of looming over me, and something in my chest unclenches by half a notch.

“You know Frank?”

He smiles. “Sure, I do. Everyone in town does. He’s basically part of the furniture at Gull’s.”

“So I’ve heard.”

“You must be Sage.” He extends a hand. “I’m Brock. Tyler’s been threatening to introduce us for two weeks.”

“If you’re Brock, then this is your party?” His handshake is brief and dry.

“Guilty.”

“Oh, I don’t know about that. But you are guilty of having a lovely home.”

“That old thing.” He laughs like mansions by the sea are no big deal. “It’s my parents’, technically. Perk of my DNA.” Brock leans back on his elbows, easy as a guy who’s never had to convince a room of anything. “So Gull’s, huh? First shift?”

“How could you tell?”

“You’ve still got that ‘I just survived something’ look. I had it for six months at my first real job. Wore off eventually.”