Page 8 of Hello Forever
He gave me a teenaged caveman grunt, which was all you could get out of Jaredsometimes.
On my other side, Amy grabbed my wrist. We’d been friends a long time, and it was obviously a signal. My eyes flicked immediately to the man she’d pointed outearlier.
And my heart absolutelystopped.
For a long moment I locked eyes with none other than Axel Armitage, the only boy I’d ever kissed. But he wasn’t a boy anymore. Not by a long shot. I was staring at a man—a very attractive man with dark, wavy hair and big eyes. He’d filled out over the years. His shoulders were square and muscular, and a five o’clock shadow highlighted the contours of hismasculinejaw.
I forgot the basketball game. I forgot Amy and my brothers. There was only the memory of his smile in the summer sunshine and an ache in my chest for what had happened the one time I’d acted on mylonging.
The sound of a whistle shook me out of my stupor. Axel’s head whipped back toward the game, and I tried to swallow the giant lump in mythroat.
Amy nudged me. “Youknowhim?”
“Later,” I said. There was no part of the story I could tell Amy in front of mybrothers.
* * *
When the final buzzer sounded,I stood up like a shot. “Let’s go, guys. It’s a school night.” I grabbed Scotty’s coat and held it outforhim.
Scotty looked up at me like I was crazy. “It’sFriday!Duh.”
“Um, I knew that,” I snapped. “But it’s late.Let’sgo.”
Amy gave me the side eye, but she didn’t argue. In fact, she helped me herd my brothers out tothecar.
“Are we having that drink?” she asked as I cranked theengine.
“Ohhellyes.”
Jared snickered in thebackseat.
Whatever. I drove my brothers to the home they still shared with my asshole of a father. “Night, guys,” I said as I pulled into the driveway. “Give Mark my love. And if you need anything before I see you onMonday—”
“—call,” my littlest brother finished. “Weknow.”
“Love you both,” I said as theyclimbedout.
“Love you, too,” Scotty said. “Thanks forthegame.”
“Anytime.”
“Yeah, thanks,” Jared muttered. He did not say “I love you, too,” of course, because he was too cool for that. But I didn’t mind. I said it to him because I needed him to know that I cared, and because my father didn’t do emotion. (Unless angercounted.)
Amy rolled down her window to saygoodnight,too.
It had been a mistake to pull into the driveway. Before Jared and Scotty made it inside, the kitchen door opened and my father stepped outside, a garbage bag in his hand. He thrust it at Jared. “Forgetting something? I told you hoursagoto—”
“Sorry,” Jared said quickly. He grabbed the bag and hightailed it toward thegarage.
His hustle made me incredibly uneasy. Jared was a stubborn teenage boy and not exactly the model of obedience. He wouldn’t be so eager to please unless the cost of pissing off Dad were really high. It made me wonder—not for the first time—if my father had become more abusive lately. He’d always been verbally abusive—that went without saying. But the whole reason I’d moved back to this town after graduation was to make sure he wasn’t also physicallyharmingthem.
I sure hoped he wasn’t. And that if he did, my brothers wouldtellme.
“Something the matter?” my father asked, and I realized he was staring at me through Amy’s openwindow.
“Not a thing,” I said quickly. And then I felt like kicking myself. My own eagerness to get out from under his attentions was still showing, even though I hadn’t lived in his house inyears.
My father turned and went inside without wishing me good night, and Amy rolled up thewindow.
