“I don’t?—”
“I like Amber, okay?” he cuts me off. “I have fun with her. She’s a cool girl. So what if we don’t sit around unpacking our childhood traumas and swapping our deepest dreams or doing whatever bullshit you seem to think makes a relationship real?”
“Is that what you think you and I are?” I ask, my voice suddenly brittle. “Bullshit?”
He rakes a hand through his dark hair, tugging hard at the roots.
“That’s not what I meant.” He exhales hard, leaning back in his seat, gripping at the wheel like he needs the anchor. “This isn’t about you and me. How I feel about Amber has nothing to do with you. I care about you both, just in different ways. What’s wrong with that?”
His words hit me like an uppercut. I knew it, sure,but to hear him say it out loud stings even more than I thought.
He still wantsher.
“It doesn’t work like that,” I say. “Amber doesn’t share. Sooner or later, she’ll want all of you. And I’ll get even less than I do now, which is basically nothing.”
“We’ll make it work.”
“How?” My voice rises, jagged and sharp. “You’ll squeeze me in for a few seconds between frat parties and football and hooking up with my sister? Am I supposed to be grateful for whatever scraps you toss my way?”
“That’s not fair.”
I laugh bitterly. “Yeah, well, life’s not fair.”
He slams a hand against the dashboard. “Seriously? What’s your fucking problem, Al? You want me to choose, is that it? You or Amber?”
Panic tightens around my chest.
Shit—no. That’s not what I want at all.
I didn’t mean to push an ultimatum on him. Because if I force him to choose, he won’t pick me. He’ll choose her.
“No,” I say, backpedaling hard. I can’t lose my best friend. Even sharing half of Hayes is better than none at all. “That’s not what I’m saying.”
“Everyone keeps acting like I’m supposed to have my whole damn life figured out.” His voice cracks. “But I’m only eighteen, and I just fucking don’t, alright? I don’t have anything figured out.”
I look at him then. Really look.
The tension in his jaw. The tremble in his hands, still clenched on the wheel. The pain in his eyes that he’s trying—and failing—to hide. This isn’t just about Amber.
Something is very, very wrong.
“Hayes? What’s going on?” I ask softly. “Are you okay?”
He exhales through his nose.
“It’s my dad. If I don’t go to Europe next year to help with the business expansion, he’s cutting me off.”
“You mean go for the summer?”
He shakes his head. “I mean for good.”
My jaw drops.
“He wants you to drop out of college?”
A hollow, humorless laugh. “No football. No degree. Nome, basically.”
“But he can’t… actually make you do that, can he?”
