Page 85 of Breakaway Goal

I chuckle. “Wonder if Tuck’s gonna come home with his whole face swollen again.”

Tuck’s badly allergic to Hudson’s cat, Salsa, who lives with Summer now. Summer and Olivia are roommates. With Tuck being Olivia’s boyfriend, the girls try to keep Olivia’s room and the common areas of the house as cat-hair-free as possible, but sometimes Tuck still pays the price for risking it.

It’s a price I know he’d gladly pay any day of the week, though. For what a player he was the first two and a half years I knew him, he’s sure fallen hard.

And so have I.

A pulse of intense realization rockets through me.

Obviously, my feelings for Maddie are nothing new. I’ve been smitten with her for years. But it was the kind of love that accepted its own impossibility, that accepted that one day I’d have to move on, have to live with seeing her eventually end up with another guy.

I loved Maddie the way a great sculptor might think of an incredibly ambitious sculpture; a sculpture that needs to live in his dreams for years before he can even begin the endeavor of creating it; a sculpture that he implicitly accepts he might never be able to bring to life.

Now, I love Maddie the way that sculptor would love his three-quarters-finished work of art, seeing the fruits of maybe decades of dreams and years of labors now so close to complete—something that, if it were to be damaged or destroyed, more than half of his heart would die with it.

Ever since that first kiss Maddie and I shared, I’d worried that us finally sleeping together would be the end of this thing we’re doing.

But this morning sure as hell didn’t feel like the end. It felt like a new beginning.

But does Maddie really want something more than physical—with me? Does she want our emotional relationship to leap far beyond the bounds of our decade-long friendship?

And if she does, will I have to choose between the girl I’m in love with and the best friend who I’ve considered a brother for most of my life?

43

MADDIE

“Trick or treat!”

“Aww, look at you!” I coo as a group of three adorable little girls dressed as witches climb up the steps to Lane and Rhys’s place. I hold out the big pumpkin-shaped bowl full of Halloween candy, and they select their pieces.

“I hope we have the kind you like in there, so you don’t turn us all into frogs,” I joke.

They giggle as they drop their candy in their pillowcases. “Thank you!” they cry as they hop back down the stairs and race to the next house.

The hockey guys have a bunch of chairs and a table set up on their porch to hang out as we hand out candy to the many trick-or-treaters swarming the streets of Cedar Shade.

It warms my heart to see this tradition still alive here. There are young families with their toddlers; groups of young elementary school kids with their parents hanging a couple paces back, giving them a measure of independence; older kids prowling in groups and horsing around; and, of course, some surly teenagers wearing hoodies who are only in it for the candy.

Rhys steps from inside the house and hands me the can of Coke he went to retrieve. My heart vibrates when I see him. Just like it has every time my eyes have alighted on him since I came over about an hour ago.

There’s a hum singing through my body every second I’m close to him since last night. I wonder if he’s feeling the same way? I know that every time our eyes meet now, a smile pulls on his lips that’s somehow different from all the smiles he’s angled at me before.

Ever since I broke down and asked him to give me my first time that night weeks ago, I’d worried that after we finally slept together, things would naturally end.

But earlier this evening when I came over, and Rhys found me alone in the kitchen and whispered in my ear that he was going crazy waiting for a repeat of what happened last night, all those worries scattered to the wind.

Nothing between us ended last night. Now I’m wondering whether what we’re doing even has an expiration date.

We passed the big exit ramp without turning—the question is, what exactly is our destination?

I know it’s not smart of us to delay finding the answer. But when Rhys folds himself into the chair next to me and I feel waves of calm and delighted contentment radiating off him just from us being close to each other, it’s hard to hold on to any worry for long.

Hudson and Tuck stumble out behind him, both looking groggy.

“Why’d you make me drink so much last night?” Tuck groans at Hudson.

“Me? You’re the one who coaxed me into taking more shots at Summer and Olivia’s place,” Hudson growls back.

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