He stares down at me for another second before a smile breaks his lips. He shakes his head before answering, “Meet me in the horse barn,” he says. “I'll be right behind you.” I nod, thankful to move from my spot in the backyard.
I run along the side of the house, making sure to avoid the motion sensor lights that line the barn and outside buildings. There's a dusk to dawn light near the machine shed and I give it a wide berth, wanting to stay in the shadows. My shoes slip in the dewy grass. My pulse is ragged by the time I reach the horse barn. With a deep grunt, I slide the heavy wooden door to the side, opening it just enough to slip my slender frame through and quickly shut it behind me. Even though Lukas is on the way, I don't want to chance someone else peeking out the window and seeing it hanging open. Once the door closes behind me, I'm shrouded in complete darkness. A hint of moonlight peeks in through the slats in the back door, illuminating the shadows of the horses. A few of the horses shuffle in place at the noise, their soft exhales and curious steps the only sound as I wait. A minutelater, the door opens again and Lukas slides through, shutting it behind him just like I did.
“Mags?” he asks into the darkness.
“Right here,” I answer, reaching an arm out for him even though he can't see it. A small beam of light nearly blinds me as Lukas flicks the flashlight on. He reaches for me, and once I take his extended hand, he laces our fingers together, pulling me past the row of stalls that house some of the horses, leading back to the back tack room.
A small overhead light is flicked on, illuminating the space, and I look around, pretending to be focused on the halters and reigns that hang from nails along the wall, and not the close proximity between Lukas and me. He shuts off the flashlight and pockets it, his hands moving to tuck into the front of his sweatshirt.
“What's going on, Mags? Are you okay?” He takes a step back as his brows pull together. “And how'd you get here?”
I bite down a nervous smile, knowing that when I tell him I rode my bike here at midnight, he's going to be mad. Lukas turned sixteen a few months ago and has his driver’s license. I just had my birthday but haven’t taken the road test yet to see if I’ll get mine. I plan to, but honestly, it’s been so fun having Lukas cart me around all the time that I haven’t had a need to.
He groans, his head falling back. “Don't tell me you rode your bike here, Mags. There could be a drunk driver on the road, or a wild bear, for crying out loud.” He runs his hand through his hair, mussing it even more than his pillow had. “What if you got in an accident, and no one knew? What if—” I step forward, covering his mouth with my hand to shut him up.
“I know,” I agree. “I know it was stupid. I texted your phone a bunch and then realized that since you're suspended, I'm sure you're grounded, and that you don't have your phone.” He nods against my hand, but doesn't try to interrupt, so I keeptalking. “Everything happened so fast today,” I continue. “One minute, I was crying in the bathroom, then you were there, then you were gone, and then you were back, dragging Billy by his sweatshirt.” I giggle a little at the memory. Billy, who normally only gives me the stink eye, looked scared enough like he was about pee himself. Lukas smiles at that, and I drop my hand, letting it graze down his side before I reach for his hand and squeeze it. “I know your parents are so pissed, and so are some of the teachers, and I was worried that they’ll suspend you from baseball.”
“Yeah, my parents are pretty pissed at me. And so is Mr. Brown, but thankfully, the week of suspension is the worst of it. I’m grounded for the rest of the month, but my phone and extra barn chores are my only punishment.”
We might be only sixteen, but Lukas is going to play baseball professionally, we all know it. There are rumors that real scouts are going to be at his games this season to watch him pitch. Once we turn eighteen and graduate, he might get paid to do what he loves the most.
“I’m glad…” I trail off. The guilt would have eaten me alive if he sacrificed his baseball career for me.
He takes a step forward and the tips of his cowboy boots hit my sneakers. “Even if I knew that they wouldn’t let me play, even if they took a whole season away from me, you know I still would have done what I did today, right?”
My breath catches in my throat, and I know I’m blushing, but that’s what Lukas does to me.
We've been friends ever since we were kids; since my family moved to Copper Ridge when I was nine years old. Lukas and his friends were playing basketball during recess. I didn’t have anyone to talk to, and spent most of the time swinging on the swings by myself. I saw this skinny boy laughing with his friends, and something about him struck me. I eventually worked up thecourage to walk over to them and asked to join. The other boys looked at me, but didn’t say anything.
Not Lukas, though. He smiled, shrugged, blushed just the slightest bit, and then tossed me the ball. By the time we turned ten years old, we were inseparable—riding our bikes to meet up in town during the summer and convincing our parents to let us play at one another's houses in the winter time. We talk every single day, but our friendship has started to change over the last year or so.
I think I’ve always had a crush on him, even when I was too young to realize what it meant to really like someone. I liked him because he gave me butterflies, but good butterflies. The kind that make you happy, giddy, even. The kind that usually has me falling asleep at night with a smile on my face. Every girl in our grade has had a crush on Lukas at some point. He’s the tallest boy in our class, with lean muscle, and sandy brown hair that always looks messy but styled. He's quiet and comes off as a little moody, and to some he can be. But they don’t know him like I do. They don’t know that deep down, he's the sweetest boy I've ever met.
They don’t have what I have with him. He cares about me in a way that I can't explain, in a way that doesn’t need words spoken. My mom says it’s like we have some sort of telepathy. Not just where we finish each other's sentences, but where one can sense if something is wrong with the other, even if they aren’t around. I’ve spent the last year wishing that he'd ask me to be his girlfriend, and since he hasn't, I just chalked it up to him wanting to stay friends, or thinking maybe he's just a little flirty. But then I catch him looking at me, really looking, and the way he stares has me thinking that sometimes, he’d like to kiss me.
“You would have?” I whisper, averting my gaze from his crystal blue eyes. “I’m really glad I came here to say thank you, then.”
“You came here at midnight just to say thank you?” Lukas adjusts his stance, and it brings him another few inches closer to me. He hit a crazy growth spurt this year, shooting up so fast that he's got to be over six feet tall at just sixteen years old. He tilts his head down and his sandy brown hair is illuminated by the dim yellow light in the room.
“Yeah,” I tell him, jutting my chin up. “I wanted to say thank you, and…” I trail off, twisting my hands together behind me to ward off the nerves. Blowing out a pursed breath, I find the courage, lifting my right foot and pointing my toes en point, dragging them into the sawdust at our feet. “I guess, I'm just curious why?” I practically whisper the question, and when Lukas doesn't answer, I break my stare from my toes and look up into his magnificent blue eyes.
“Why, what?” he asks just as softly.
“How come you're so good to me? It’s like you know when I need you the most.”
He shrugs, pulling his hands from his sweatshirt and sticking them both in his back pockets. He rocks on his heels once before giving a lazy shrug. “I’d do anything for you, whether you asked me to or not.”
“But why?” I prompt again.
“Because you're my Mags.” He says it like that alone should answer all my questions.
“I’m your Mags?” I question, shuffling my stance so we're close enough I can feel his soft exhales on my face. He tilts his head down, lips parted as he watches me. “Is it because we're friends and all? Would you have done that if Billy picked on anyone in our friend group?”
Lukas swallows thickly, his strong jaw working back and forth. “I would’ve had words with him for sure, but…” he trails off, and thatbutignites a spark of hope in my chest.
“But what?”
“I guess, it's different with you, in a way,” he answers.
