Page 21 of An Uphill Battle

It takes everything in me not to roll my eyes. “Don’t worry about it. It wasnothing.”

“Wasn’t nothin’ either. Something I said got you upset, and I’m pretty sure I know what. I just don’t knowwhy.”

“And what, pray tell, do you think it was?” I ask him, my spine ramrod straight and my food longforgotten.

“I started to tell you I loved you, and you got all fifty shades ofcrazy.”

“I–I... you wouldn’t understand. You couldn’t,” I tell him, hoping he’ll drop thesubject.

“How you figure?” he counters like the stubborn mule heis.

“Drake, please just dropit?”

“No way, not gonna happen. I’ve loved you since the day I met you, Azalea, and I’m tired of us dancin’ around thisthing.”

His words pierce me, like an arrow straight through my heart. I can feel the pink on my cheeks as it travels down my neck toward my chest. I gasp, struggling to inhale, because his words have sucked all the oxygen from the room. Desperate for a subject change, because God forbid we talk this shit out, I deflect. “Please. I bet you don’t even remember the day we met.” Thankfully, my words come out strong, masking the trembling mess I am on theinside.

10

Drake

Abandoning our meal,I lead Azalea over to my worn tweed couch, positioning us so damn close together that we’re almost sharing a cushion. She makes a move to scoot away from me, but I halt her movement by grasping her leg, just above her knee. She rolls her eyes before scrunching up her nose and pursing her lips, her aggravation written clearly across herface.

My cheeks split with a wide grin, because the face she’s making... it’s the very same one she made the day we met. “You know you’ve been sporting that same mean-ass look as long as I’ve known you,right?”

Insert eye roll numbertwo.

“Have not.” Her tone is petulant, and I can’t help but loveit.

“Yeah, you have. You screw your pretty little lips up and try so damn hard to look mean.” I laugh, thinking back to so long ago when we first met. “What you really look like, though, is a wetkitten.”

“Drake Collins, you’re an asshole. You don’t even know what you’re talking about. In fact, all you’re doin’ is trying to change the subject because you don’t remember a damnthing.”

“I remember it like it was yesterday.” It sounds like a line, but it’s the honest-to-Godtruth.

Azalea brushes her hair off her face and scoots a little closer to me, her eyes softening. “Tell me ’boutit?”

She thinks I don’t realize that this is all a diversion from our earlier blow-up, but I’ll let it slide. Maybe when she sees I truly do remember every little detail, it’ll open her eyes to the reality of how I feel about her. “You were standing in the field between the McGraws’ and the McAllisters’ like you fucking owned it. You had your hands on your hips and your pretty little mouth twisted up in an uglysnarl—”

“Hey! Did not!” she argues, smacking me in mychest.

“Did too.” She goes to smack me again, but this time I’m prepared, and I grab her hand before it makes contact. I don’t let it go. “Your hair was lit up by sunlight, and right then and there, I knew you were somethin’special.”

Azalea’s looking at me like I’m batshit crazy, but I’m too far into my memories to care. I’m lost remembering the way I knew exactly who she was, no introductions needed, because Simon never shut up when we’d talk on the phone about his neighbor and her friend—his little sisters, he called ’em. I took one look at the tiny little freckle-faced redhead and dismissed her on sight. She was sweet-looking, but her friend... she wasn’t. Not atall.

I remember taking her in from head to toe. There wasn’t much special about her, with her chicken legs and a chest as flat as her back. But something about that angry twist of her lips and the way she stared me down drew me in. My sixteen-year-old brain was screaming for me to get to know her. And once my eyes landed on hers, I was a goddamn goner. Green as a forest, and I was lost in thetrees.

Azalea nudges her shoulder into mine, breaking me from my memories. “Where did yago?”

“Just thinking ’bout what you asked me,” I tell her honestly. I keep that day tucked away like an old polaroid in my wallet. It’s a well-wornmemory.

“About when wemet?”

“Mmmhmm.” Looking down at my lap, I’m surprised to see I’m still holding her hand. Even more surprised she’s lettingme.

“Tell me more?” she asks, laying her head on my shoulder, cozying right up next to me so that there’s not even an inch betweenus.

I stroke my thumb over the soft skin of her wrist, causing her to shiver, and I fucking love it. “First words you said to me were, ‘What are you staring at, asshole?’ You were barely thirteen and so full of fire. Loved your silver tongue then, and I love it now, Little Bit.” I cringe at my word choice, hoping it doesn’t set her off again, but she just buries her head in myshoulder.

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