Page 70 of Broken Ties (Rixon High 4)

Aaron

“Areyou going to tell me what the fuck happened back there?”

I threw another stone into the river, refusing to meet Cole’s heavy stare.

“I saw her, you know. Poppy.”

“Don’t. Just… don’t.”

“Come on, bro. Talk to me. This isn’t you. Did something happen?”

“It was a mistake.” The words echoed through me.

But a mistake was supposed to feel wrong, wasn’t it? And nothing about kissing Poppy had felt wrong.

Not a damn thing.

“What? Did you two kiss or something?” My eyes finally lifted to Cole’s and his grew wide. “Fuck, you did, didn’t you? You kissed her.”

“Like I said, it was a mistake.”

“Because she’s dating Eli?”

“That and a million other things, yeah.” I blew out a weary sigh.

I’d seen Eli kiss her. Watched from the back row, anger zipping up my spine, as he’d cupped her face and pressed his mouth to hers. It had flipped something inside of me, a switch I couldn’t seem to turn off.

“I get the Eli thing, sure. But you make it sound like she’s off-limits or something.”

“Because she is,” I gritted out. “Have you forgotten that she’s Coach’s daughter?”

He scoffed. “Have you forgotten that Kaiden and Lily went off together to college a few weeks back and he was Coach’s star player?”

I flinched, but not for the reason he’d suspect.

Kaiden had been Coach’s star player and now he was playing for the Penn State Nittany Lions, on track to become one of the best quarterbacks of his class. Of course Coach had come round to the idea of Kaiden and Lily. He had a bright future ahead of him.

Kaiden had colleges lining up for him. What did I have? Nothing.

But it wasn’t just about that. It was everything.

“Our parents are best friends. What happens when it goes wrong? What if she gets hurt?” What if I lose her? “What then?”

“Jesus, Aaron. You can’t control every outcome. But you care about her, everyone can see it. Everyone except you apparently.”

“Of course I care about her. She’s… Poppy.” She was one of the constants in my life. “But I’d rather have her in my life as my friend than lose her because I wasn’t strong enough to tell her no.”

“You’re making no sense. Do you like her? Really like her? Or is this about Eli? Because you know, it wasn’t until he came around that you started acting like this.”

“It’s not what you’re thinking,” I said. “I admit that maybe watching them together got me thinking, but it isn’t anything I haven’t already thought a hundred times before.”

“I don’t know how you’ve done it. Been around her for so long and not caved before now.”

“You’re not helping matters,” I grumbled. “It can never happen again, Cole.”

“Will you listen to yourself right now? Of course it’ll fucking happen again. And it will keep happening until you both—”

The blare of my cell cut him off, and I dug my phone out of my pocket. “It’s Dad,” I said, a strange sensation creeping over me. Dad didn’t usually call. Not unless it was important. But maybe he wanted to try to apologize for earlier.

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