Page 85 of Broken Ties (Rixon High 4)

Poppy

The summer before tenth grade…

“Oh my God, Aaron, stop,” Sofia shrieked as the boys cannonballed into the pool for the fifth time that day.

“Chill, Sofe. You’re in the pool anyway, what does it matter if we cannonball?”

“It’s annoying,” she said, and I smothered a laugh.

“Poppy doesn’t think it’s annoying, do you, Poppy Star?” He turned his full attention on me and I held up my hands.

“Don’t you dare.”

I wasn’t fully submersed in the water yet, preferring to dip my legs in instead. The spray from the cannonballs was refreshing but I didn’t want to get soaked.

“Come on, Poppy Star. Come play with me.”

Heat streaked through me at Aaron’s playful words. They were innocent: half-teasing. half-challenge, but they affected me in ways I could never tell him.

He splashed me, and I yelped. “Don’t you dare get me wet.”

Cole snickered and I pinned him with a dark look. “I didn’t mean it like that,” he said.

“Like what?” Aaron asked with a frown.

“Seriously, bro, if you have to ask…”

“Oh, oh.”

“Seriously, can we just move on?”

“Not until you’re wet,” Aaron smirked. “Soaked, in fact.”

God, he needed to stop saying those words to me.

Play… wet… soaked.

The way they rolled off his tongue. So wicked and dirty.

“Aaron, I swear to—”

He grabbed my arm and pulled me in with such force we crashed under the water together. I kicked my legs furiously, gulping for air as I broke the surface, gasping for breath.

“Oh shit, Poppy, I didn’t—”

“You asshole.” I lunged for him, slapping his sun-kissed shoulders.

“I didn’t mean— ow,” he cried as I nipple twisted him. “Shit, Poppy. Ease up, yeah?”

“I said I didn’t want to get wet.” I glowered at him and a ripple went through the air and then he exploded with laughter. Cole too. Both of them howling at my slip of the tongue.

“Such immature babies,” I muttered, swimming away from him. Giving my thundering heart a chance to calm down.

Things were changing. I couldn’t be around Aaron these days without thinking about things. Things I had no right to be thinking. I was only fifteen. I’d been kissed a couple of times and neither were the toe-curling, heart stopping momentous events I’d dreamed of. I wasn’t even sure I liked kissing. Sam Freeman, the second boy I’d kissed had stuck his tongue so far down my throat I’d almost choked. It was disgusting.

But I was starting to think that maybe I was kissing the wrong boys. Because no one made my heart flutter in my chest the way Aaron did. But he was my friend, not a potential kissing partner.

It was all very confusing.

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