“I wasn’t afraid to touch your nose,” I snap back, my eyes still glued on the boy in front of me.
“What’s she talking about?” Remy asks, unaware of what happened in pre-k since he wasn’t in our class back then.
“Nothing.” Preacher rolls his shoulders. “Ten seconds, or I’m telling the whole class you caught cooties from zombie boy.”
I shoot him a glare before turning to Trigg. “Give me your arm.” He slowly extends his arm. “Who wears long sleeves in the summer?” I ask as I push up his sleeve. His brows tug together before I look down, and my mouth parts as a little whoosh leavesmy lungs. The underside of his arm has bruises running from his wrist to his elbow.
“It’s okay,” he says, his other hand reaching for the hem of his sleeve.
“No.” I stop his hand. My eyes dart up to his. “I’ll be quick.” I lick my lips and clear my throat as I hold up my index finger. “Circle, circle, dot, dot,” I say, my finger tracing the design over what looks like an old scar. “Now you have your cootie shot,” I finish, and our eyes stay focused on the spot where my finger touched his skin. It’s pebbled now, and when his eyes finally trace up to mine, my stomach does something funny.
“Whatever,” Preacher says with a huff, drawing our gazes to him. “Recess is almost over. Let’s go play kickball.”
We watch as he turns on his heel before running toward the kickball field with Remy.
"Thanks," Trigg says, tugging his sleeve down.
"Yeah, well, don't make me regret it." I swing my legs back and forth.
"How would I do that?" He tilts his head to the side.
"You're a Hale. It's in your blood." I point at him like I'm solving a mystery.
"What does that mean?" He scoots a little closer, making the whole monkey bar wobble.
"Your ranch is right next to mine." I wave my hand toward the direction of our houses.
"So?" He shrugs his shoulders and kicks at the air like he doesn't care at all.
"So...your ranch is the competition! Your family and mine both breed horses. You're the enemy." I cross my arms and almost lose my balance.
"Oh," he says, blinking real slow, like I just told him the sky is blue, and he never noticed before.
Now I’m the one with my eyebrows tugged together. Maybe his parents don’t speak freely around him about the business. I’ve never known anything but horses. It’s in my genes. I know one day Fairfield will be mine. My mother has told me this as far back as I can remember. I don’t know much about his family. The little I know comes from my father’s rants. Trigg is my enemy because the last name attached to his is one my father despises, but that doesn’t mean he has to be mine. Does it?
“What did you mean before when you said you weren’t afraid to touch his nose?”
“I punched him in the nose on my first day in pre-k. He was making fun of me for missing my mom.”
He laughs. “So, it’s not your dad I need to worry about; it’s you. Are you sure your name is Asha and not Trouble?”
I smile and bite the inside of my lip so it doesn’t take over my whole face. “Hey, I didn’t go looking for trouble. He poked the bear. What about you? How did you get those bruises on your arm?”
“I just got out of the hospital a few weeks ago,” he says, shifting his weight.
“Are you sick?” Maybe after all that, Preacher was right.
“I was. I’m not anymore. I had a kidney transplant.”
My eyes go wide. “That sounds serious.”
“It is. I could have died if they didn’t find a match.”
“I’m going to punch him. I’m going to punch him square in the nose just like I did the first time,” I spit, and my cheeks flame as I look across the playground at Preacher kicking around a ball without a care in the world about the hurtful words he said to a boy he never took a second to know.
“You’d do that for me?” he asks, his dark chocolate chip eyes finding mine.
“Yeah, that’s what friends do.” The words are out of my mouth before I can think them through. He's supposed to bethe enemy, or at least that’s what my dad says, but he looks like he could use a friend, and since that’s the word I used, it’s the word I must have meant. My mother always says there are no such things as accidents, only things that were always going to happen.
