He’s not sure how he got saddled with the drunk, and now crying, young woman named Maxwell—well, yes, he does know, he enabled her drinking and indulged her little crush on him because she’s attractive and flirtatious, and both of these things seemed to bother Ayers, which was, he thought, a very good sign—but now he’s responsible for making sure she gets home safely.

“Find her friend, her people, whoever,” Ayers says. “I’ll clean the boat by myself.”

“But—”

“And, please, Cash, don’t let this happen again. These are our guests, not our friends.”

“You’re right,” he says. “It won’t happen again.”

He half leads, half carries Max off the dock and into the streets of St. John. As they pulled into port, he’d asked Max the name of her friend from high school, but all she’d said was I dunno, and then she groaned and started vomiting again.

It hadn’t been a good look for her, for him, or for Treasure Island, though everyone else on the boat seemed to take it in stride. The parents of the six boys used it as a cautionary tale. “That,” Cash overheard the father whisper to the Stanford-bound DJ, “is what happens when you decide three shots of tequila sound good after midnight.”

There was a couple on the boat, keen snorkelers who’d brought a checklist of fish they were hoping to see, and the man said, “I could have told you how this was going to end up, but she was having so much fun, I hated to put a damper on it.”

“We’ve all been there,” his wife said. “For me, it was the Sig Ep house at West Virginia University in 1996.”

Cash tended to agree; many people at some point in their lives had overdone it like Max. Cash had sampled his father’s scotch and smoked one of his cigars when he was a week away from graduating high school, and that had ended badly. And he had taken care of Claire Bellows after she drank Jägermeister from a flask in the bathroom during their junior prom.

The town is teeming with people. All of the tour boats have just disgorged their passengers and it’s happy hour at nearly every bar in Cruz Bay. Cash has no leads on who he should hand this chick off to. No one seems to be waiting for her. Cash then tries to imagine bringing Max home to the villa, where Baker, Floyd, and his mother will all be waiting.

Nope. No chance.

“Cash!”

Cash cranes his neck, trying to figure out who’s calling his name. Then someone appears under his nose.

It’s Maia. With a boy in tow—a handsome young man with dark hair that has been highlighted in the front. He’s a couple inches taller than Maia.

“Hey,” Cash says. He’s more than a little uncomfortable bumping into…well, his little sister…with Max draped over him like a fur coat. “What are you doing?”

Maia shrugs. “Hanging out.” She nods at the boy next to her. “This is my friend Shane. He goes to Antilles.”

“Hey, Shane,” Cash says. Shane is the kid that Maia has a crush on; Cash remembers this much. It’s nice that they’re hanging out together—alone, from the looks of it; is that okay?—and Cash feels honored to be introduced, but he really wishes it wasn’t under these circumstances. Any minute, Max might projectile-vomit onto Shane’s shoes.

“What are you doing?” Maia asks, taking an appraising look at Max.

“I’m…well, this woman was a guest on the boat and I’m trying to find her friend. She has a friend who lives here, she said, but I have no idea who it is or what to do.”

“Is it Tilda?” Maia asks. “She was just here, looking for her friend who was visiting…from Chicago.” Maia turns to Shane. “Did she say Chicago?”

Shane nods. “Definitely Chicago,” he says. “But I thought her friend was a boy.”

“Was she looking for a Max?” Cash asks. “Maxwell?”

“Yes!” Maia says.

“Tilda is her friend?” Cash says. “Really? The Tilda that I know? Tilda from La Tapa?”

“Yeah,” Maia says. “She worked with my mom.”

“Right, yes, yes,” Cash says. He’s forgotten that everyone on this island is connected. “I’m going to sit with Max on this bench. Can you guys go find Tilda and tell her where we are?”

“Come on,” Shane says, clearly energized by this mission. He takes Maia’s hand and leads her across the street toward the docks. Is it okay that they’re holding hands? Cash wonders. They look pretty darn cute.

“This way, Max, easy does it, here we go,” Cash says. He sighs. He would give anything to be twelve again.

“I am so sorry about this,” Tilda says. “I’m mortified. I told her to behave herself. I told her I worked with Ayers. And I’d forgotten that you were working on the boat now too. That makes it so much worse!”

“You don’t have to apologize,” Cash says. “It’s not your fault.” Cash offered to help Tilda get Max settled at home, and now he leans back into the soft leather seat of Tilda’s Range Rover and enjoys the air-conditioning blowing full blast. Max is lying across the back seat, moaning. Tilda laid a beach towel across the floor of the car in case Max throws up again, although she’s been at it for so long that Cash doesn’t see how there could be anything left in her stomach. “I think maybe she was just nervous about going on the trip by herself.”

“She should have made some friends,” Tilda says.

“She sort of…attached herself to me,” Cash says.

“Of course she did,” Tilda says. “You’re superhot and you’re her type. You look exactly like her boyfriend in high school. Freddy Jarvis.”

Cash isn’t sure how he feels about being the reincarnation of high-school boyfriend Freddy Jarvis. If he’d seen a woman who looked like Claire Bellows, he would have steered clear. “I don’t think Ayers was too happy about it.”

“Oh, please,” Tilda says. “As if Ayers isn’t hit on herself every single charter.”

“Is she?” Cash says. “She wasn’t today.”

“That’s rare,” Tilda says. “But Ayers is used to it. She never succumbs to temptation because she loves Mick.” Tilda pauses. “Did you hear me, Cash? She loves Mick.”

“I heard you,” Cash says.

Tilda pulls up a steep incline called Upper Peter Bay and they go up, up, up until they can’t go any farther. There’s a gate; Tilda punches in the code and then they shoot down a driveway that’s so steep Cash feels like he’s on a luge or a log flume in the amusement park. They arrive, finally, at the villa, which is absolutely stunning. It’s three separate buildings in the Spanish-mission style attached by arched, columned walkways.

“Um…okay?” Cash says.

“It’s my parents’,” Tilda says. “As is this Rover. They only come three times a year, and I have the west wing to myself.” She parks the car. “Max is staying in the guest wing.”

Cash follows Tilda through the main entrance into a foyer that’s two stories high. Everything is white, with accents of palm green and the palest blue. To the right is a sweeping curved staircase; above it hangs a long, dripping chandelier that looks like crystal rain. In front of them is a white and pale blue living room and a white kitchen with a very cool curved bar around which are pale blue suede stools. Beyond the kitchen are floor-to-ceiling sliding doors that open out onto a patio and a T-shaped pool.

“That pool,” Cash whispers. He’s carrying Max like a bride over the threshold. She’s snoring.

“The pool is for Granger, my dad,” Tilda says. “He’s very intense about his swimming. About everything, actually.” Tilda sighs. “The only person who makes him seem relaxed is my mom. Now, she’s a maniac.”

Cash wants to hear more but Max is getting heavy. “Which way?”

They head out a side door and down one of the covered walkways into the guest wing. It’s two stories, complete with its own garden and plunge pool. They are so high up that Cash can see all of Jost Van Dyke and Tortola.

The bedroom is on the first floor. Tilda throws Max’s bag down and hurries to sweep back the white sheers from the side of the mahogany four-poster bed so Cash can set Max on it. It’s like they’re in some kind of weird fairy tale.

Max rolls onto her side and continues to snore.

“She needs to sleep it off,” Tilda says. “Wanna go get a drink?”

“Yes,” Cash says. “As a matter of fact, I do.”

They go back to town and Tilda picks a place called the Lime Inn, where they sit at the open-air horseshoe-shaped bar. Tilda orders them each a cocktail called the Danger, which is probably the exact opposite of what Cash needs right now, but he rolls with it.

“So your parents…”

“Run an international headhunting firm,” Tilda says. “Specializing in IT. My mother is the owner and CEO and my father is the CFO. I’m proud of them. When I was young, my mother worked in HR at a software company in Peoria and my father was a financial adviser for a lot of the top execs at Caterpillar. Then, when I was eight, my mother had an idea for this business. We moved to Chicago right before I started high school and by the time I was a freshman at Lake Forest, their company was everywhere—India, Australia, Eastern Europe, South Africa.”

It’s not so different from Cash’s own story. Russ took the job with Ascension when Cash was sixteen and life changed—for the better, he’d thought at the time.

“My parents want to invest in a business for me,” Tilda says. “But I’m not sure what I want to do yet. So I’m living down here, waiting tables at La Tapa, and I volunteer at the animal shelter.”

“You do?” Cash says.

“I love dogs,” Tilda says. “But I can’t have one because…a white house.”

“I have a golden retriever named Winnie,” Cash says. “She’s my world.”

“I’d love to meet your world sometime,” Tilda says. “Should we have one more Danger or do you have to go?”

Cash thinks about it for a second. “Let’s have one more,” he says.

Tilda is cool. And she’s really smart. She has a degree in economics from Lake Forest. She gave business school some thought, but she’s grown attached to St. John.

“I’m thinking about starting an eco-tour company here,” she says. “Hiking, kayaking, snorkeling. But I’d want to provide lodging too, I think, so I’ve been checking out real estate. I’m not going to jump into anything.”

“I wish I’d been as savvy as you,” Cash says. He taps his fingers alongside his glass, wondering how in depth he wants to get with Tilda. “You know that my father was killed in the helicopter crash with Rosie?”

“You told me,” Tilda says. “A few weeks ago, when you were hitchhiking and I picked you up. You remember that night, right?”

“Kind of,” he says. He remembers Tilda picking him up; he hadn’t recognized her as working at La Tapa until she reminded him. That was the night he’d gotten drunk at High Tide after his fight with Baker. He can’t recall a thing that he and Tilda talked about. At that point, Tilda had been a minor character, someone in the background. But now that Cash is getting to know her, he’s intrigued. It’s enough of a plot twist that she’s a child of enormous wealth, but it’s an even greater twist that, despite this, she works her ass off and volunteers and is researching business ventures. “So what did I tell you about my dad?”

“That he had been killed in the copter crash, that he was Rosie’s lover, and that he’d bought you two outdoor-supply stores in Denver that went under.”

“I told you that? Ouch. I can’t believe you’re still sitting here with me.”

“You invited me to Breckenridge to ski!” Tilda says. “You made me promise I would come.”

Cash laughs. “Did I?”

“And…” Tilda fiddles with the straw in her drink. “You told me that both you and your brother were in love with Ayers.”

Cash drops his head into his hands. “Idiot,” he says. “I’m an idiot.”

They decide to stay at the Lime Inn for dinner. Tilda gets the grilled lobster, which she says is the best on the island, and Cash gets the guava pork ribs, and when their food comes, they push their plates together and share.

“Eco-tourism, huh?” Cash says. “Do you like to hike?”

“Obsessed,” Tilda says. “I’m trying to do every hike on the island this year.”

“I told Maia I’d do the Esperance Trail with her,” Cash says.

“To see the baobab tree?” Tilda says. “I haven’t done that one yet!”

“Well, let’s plan a time and you can come with us,” Cash says.

“Are you asking me on a date?” Tilda says. She leans into him, much like Max did at lunch, but instead of being irritating, it feels nice. Tilda smells good. She’s tomboyish, which he finds sexy. Her short hair draws attention to her light brown eyes.

“A date?” Cash says. “Aren’t we on a date now?”

“Are we?” Tilda says.

“I don’t know, aren’t we?”

“Maybe we shouldn’t examine it too closely,” Tilda says.

“Maybe you’re right,” Cash says. “The hike would be with Maia. So I don’t know how romantic it would be.”

“No kissing under the baobab tree?” Tilda says.

Cash puts his hand over Tilda’s. “I wouldn’t rule it out.”

Tilda turns her hand so that it’s clasping his. Cash feels a rush. Does he like Tilda?

“Just do me one favor,” Tilda says.

“Okay?” Cash says.

“Don’t use me as a substitute for Ayers.”

“What?” Cash says. “I know what I supposedly told you in the car, but I was very drunk. Ayers and I are just friends.”

“I’m not stupid, Cash,” Tilda says. “And I don’t blame you. I get it. Ayers is a queen. She’s the complete package. I know you and your brother both have a thing for her—”

“Baker might,” Cash says. “But I—”

“You do too,” Tilda says. “Trust me, I get it. If I were still in my lesbian phase, I’d go after Ayers.”

Cash takes a deep breath. This has been a very long, very strange day. “Lesbian phase?”

“High school,” Tilda says.

“Max?” Cash asks.

Tilda swats him. “Come on, let’s get a nightcap.”

They walk hand in hand over to La Tapa.

“It’s kind of a thing we do,” Tilda says. “Whenever we’re out on our nights off, we stop in for a drink.”

“I would think it’d be the last place you’d want to go,” Cash says.

“Except we all love it,” Tilda says. “It’s so gratifying to watch everyone else work.”

“Ohhhhkay,” Cash says. He wonders if Ayers will be there and, if she is, what she’ll think when she sees him with Tilda. Will she be jealous? She had been jealous of Cash’s attention to Max, that’s for damn sure.

Cash worries that he is using Tilda. But he likes Tilda and he doesn’t want to stop holding her hand.

Maybe he shouldn’t examine it too closely.

By the time they reach La Tapa, service has ended. Ayers is nowhere to be seen, though there are still a few people sitting at the bar. Cash and Tilda take seats on the corner and Skip, the bartender, looks between the two of them and glowers.

“Hey, Skip,” Cash says.

“So, what, are you two together now?” he asks. He glares at Tilda.

“I’ll have a glass of the Schramsberg, please,” Tilda says.

“Beer for me,” Cash says. “Island Hoppin’. Please.”

“I’m helping these people right now,” Skip says. He holds up a bottle of wine for the couple sitting next to Cash to inspect. “This is the Penfolds Bin Eight Cab. It has notes of imitation crabmeat, hot asphalt, and a one-night stand.”

Nervously, the couple laughs.

Tilda says, “Don’t do this, Skip.”

Skip opens the bottle with a flourish and pours some in the woman’s glass. She brings it to her lips. “I can definitely taste the one-night stand,” she says. “The asphalt is harder to detect.”

“He’s a maniac,” Tilda whispers.

“What’s going on with you two?” Cash asks.

“Nothing,” Tilda says. “And I do mean nothing.”

“But something did happen, right?” Cash says. “Let me guess. You had a thing, then you broke it off and he’s pissed. That’s the vibe I’m getting.”

“A very short thing,” Tilda says. “A very insignificant thing.”

Cash puts his hand on the slender stalk of Tilda’s neck and pulls her in close. “Tell you what,” he says. “I promise not to use you as a substitute for Ayers if you promise not to use me as revenge for old Skippy here. Deal?”

Tilda pantomimes picking up a glass—her champagne has not yet, and may never, arrive—and raises it to Cash. “Deal,” she says.