“Yes.”
He’d broken up with her because of me. At least partially, because of the way I’d grinned when she was sobbing into my neck. I wasn’t sorry they broke up, but I could imagine what that guy must’ve felt like, watching his girlfriend cry into some other guy’s neck on national television. Was there a single thing about me that was decent? Or did I just live to hurt her?
She sat up. “Jonah and I had barely started dating. Anyway, we’d just paid at the gate when they announced you. I didn’t think that would be fun for him. Or me. So we turned around and went home.”
I sat there for a moment, watching her. The hurt in her expression, the beauty that she seemed to possess to her core. “All to pieces?” I asked. She’d hinted that it meant something.
She crinkled her nose like it hurt her to think about it. “We used to say that to each other. Like ‘I love you’ wasn’t enough. Maybe for other people but not us. We had to top that so we’d say, ‘I love you. All to pieces.’
The memory of our first kiss, the first time she’d said it to me, ripped through my mind like a meteor lighting up the night sky. Every part of it. The way she smelled, the softness of her lips, the argument I’d just had with my dad. All the emotions, like it was yesterday. She was right.All to pieceswas our thing.
“Blue?” she asked, brow furrowed.
My head gave a small shake, bringing me back to now. How could I have ever been intimate with Lacy after loving Anna? How could I have gone out with anyone else, ever? It was making less sense instead of more.
I rubbed my temples. “Why did I move?”
A host of emotions crisscrossed her face before it settled on feigned indifference. “Football. Always football. Your dad and your uncle, who lived in California, found a spot for you at some fancy high school that was a feeder for the top ten football colleges in the nation.”
I shook my head. “Did I want to go?” I didn’t see how that was possible with the way I felt about her right now.
She shrugged, eyes on her lap. “I don’t know. You said you didn’t but…” She met my eye. “Youwent.”
The way she said those two words told me exactly how she felt about me leaving her. She didn’t buy it. She believed I’d wanted to go. That football was more important to me than she was and she wouldn’t have gone if it were her.
I reached over and squeezed her hand. “I’m going to fix this. I promise. You’re going to trust me again.”
She leaned back, pulling her hand from mine. “I don’t think you’re in any position to make promises right now. None at all.”
I leaned forward grabbing her hand again. “I don’t care. I’m making it anyway.”
CHAPTER 13
blue
FALL OF HIS SOPHOMORE YEAR OF HIGH SCHOOL
Ipeeled my helmet off and shoved my bangs out of my eyes, scanning the crowd for Anna.MyAnna. Man, I loved the sound of that. Beneath the west scoreboard, closest to the parking lot, she pushed up on her tiptoes and waved. I grinned and jogged faster.
We’d been in a situationship since the second week of school. It had taken a month and a half before I got up the guts to call her Duncle Silas and ask if I could take her on a real date. My heart had almost come up out of my throat when he told me no. But then he’d revised his statement saying she was too young. But I was welcome to hang out with her at their house. Which I did. Every chance I got.
So after three long months of knowing her, staring at her gorgeous face every second we were together, and dreaming about her whenever we weren’t, we’d finally made things official two weeks ago. But Silas had her on lockdown.
He took the dad thing seriously. Like right now. He may have been chatting with Mr. Alvarez, the athletic director, but he was giving me a stern side-eye.
I tossed my chin up at him as I ran by.
He said, “Nice game, Blue.” But it sounded like it hurt him to say it.
“Thanks,” I threw out and kept going.
The man was determined to hate me. I was doing everything in my power to change his mind. But if he knew my plans for tonight, he’d probably deadbolt Anna in her room and make her finish her freshman year online. You’d think I was going to kidnap her and take her to a South American country to marry her and never return.
I just wanted to kiss her.
So badly. And the best part was, she wanted it too. We’d talked about it for weeks. Covertly, of course. We spoke in code, in case he checked her phone. So tonight, after the game, we were supposed to meet up so she could give me back my “sweatshirt.” Except sweatshirt was really code for kiss.
“Blue!” Mom called from behind where the cheerleaders usually stood. She waved me over.
