Stone’s lips twitched, not looking offended in the slightest, and his huge shoulders bounced in silent laughter. “Damn, you’re stubborn.”
I shrugged because it was true. But it did shut him up.
Or so I thought. “You know what I think?” he asked a few seconds later, turning into my subdivision. “I think you like picking apart what I say just so you can ignore me when you know I’m right.” He shot me a smug look, and I made a face. Stone laughed under his breath. “I also think you do it to change the subject.”
My eyes widened. “Now why would I do that? You’ve heard my entire life story by this point. Let’s keep it going. Is there anything else you could possibly want to know?”
Stone stayed silent as he pulled into my empty driveway and put the truck in park. He kept the engine running but turned to me, the skin around his eyes pinched in apology. “Honestly? There is something I’d like to ask, but I’m not sure how to do it.”
I tilted my head, curious in spite of myself, and unhooked my seatbelt. “I have a feeling I’m gonna regret saying this, but ask away.”
He still seemed hesitant, but he unhooked his seatbelt, too, and leaned his back against the door, like he planned on staying awhile. After a moment, he gave me a small, sympathetic smile. “I was wondering…well, hoping actually, you’d tell me about your mom. You don’t have to. Ma told me the basics. I just thought I’d get the full story from you.”
Outside my window, my neighbor Mrs. Tracy stepped out to get her kids from the bus stop. She did it every day, rain or shine, and she often had her dog Riley on a leash. They were a beautiful, perfect family who had pool parties in the summer, barbecue tailgates in the fall, and decorated their house every Christmas. Kind of like we used to do.
I swallowed the lump in my throat and pressed my face against the window. “You mean how she died?” I asked, my voice barely above a whisper.
Stone hesitated, then mumbled a, “Yes,” and I watched Mrs. Tracy walk away.
“She was diagnosed with Stage Four pancreatic cancer,” I told him softly, “around the end of eighth grade. I sometimes wonder what would’ve happened if we’d caught it any sooner. If we would’ve had more time. She tried chemo for a while, enough to lose her beautiful red hair and feel even weaker, but ultimately decided to live her life as fully as she could until the end. I guess that’s where Ilusiòn came in.” I smiled sadly. “You were right before. I’m not normally the type to skip school over a cold, or anything else, really. I’ve always liked learning. But I didn’t have a perfect attendance record before this year. First semester of freshman year? Total disaster.”
I shook my head with a dark laugh, and Stone sat quietly, waiting for me to string together a cohesive story out of a past filled with blurred edges.
“In the beginning, my priorities were Mom first, school second, and everything else way after that,” I said, waving my hand through the air. “I didn’t go to social events, except for the one football game because Mom made me, and I lost touch with all my friends except for Sydney. We were in crisis mode, and everything happened so fast—Mom died before Halloween.”
My voice broke, and Stone stiffened, his eyes tightening before he hesitantly reached out and took my hand. I squeezed it tightly, letting his strength anchor me. “Everything after that is a blur until we came back from Christmas break. That’s when Mrs. C got hold of me. I escaped into schoolwork, and the teachers let me retake tests and basically redo our first semester. But by the time I was caught up, life had gone on without me.”
Stone slowly brushed his thumb over the back of my hand and asked quietly, “What do you mean?”
I stared at his perfectly neat, squared-off nail as a slight shiver swept up my arm. “Sydney was busy taking care of her siblings. Everyone else was occupied with clubs and activities, and new cliques had formed. Dad couldn’t handle losing his best friend, so he kept taking more and more consulting jobs.” I lifted a shoulder and dropped it. “It seemed easier to continue burying myself in schoolwork, too.”
It was as if my life had been divided into two sections: With Mom and After Mom.
With Mom, people had known me as the fun girl who never backed down from a challenge. Attention hadn’t bothered me, and I’d had a lot of friends.
After Mom, I was the girl whose mom had gotten sick, and people pitied or sent me uncomfortable looks—until they stopped looking altogether. Dad was rarely around, and when he was, we never talked. It was like he’d stopped seeing me, too.
“Sometimes, I wonder if people would notice if I wasn’t here,” I mused aloud, and Stone’s hand turned into a tourniquet around my fingers. I sent him a look. “First off, ow. Secondly, calm down. I’m not depressed or anything. I just mean, if a tornado swept me up to Oz tomorrow, would anyone notice, or would life simply go on as usual?” My head fell back against the seat. “Sydney’s great, but she’s got her family and student council. Dad’s always traveling. Other than that, the rest of the school barely knows my name. I’m like a ghost walking the halls. People see right through me. In a way, it’s how I like it. The me who liked attention feels like a whole other girl…but I’m not immune to loneliness, either.”
When I chanced a glance at Stone, he had a strange expression on his face, lips pursed and eyes gazing off into space.
“What are you thinking?” I asked, torn between worrying it was about me or something else entirely. He shook his head, going for the fake-smile thing, and I released his hand with an incredulous look. “Seriously? You’re really gonna try that mess with me, after I sat here and told you all that?”
He winced. “Good point.”
“You think?”
Stone blew out a breath. “I was just thinking, it’s the exact opposite for me. People pay too much attention.” He drummed his hands on the steering wheel. “It’s like they have to know what I’m doing or what I’m thinking every second. They talk about what girl I’m seeing, what college I want to go to. When I’ll enter the draft once I get there. Everything’s discussed, with or without me even being there, but at the same time, they don’t really care about the answer, either. They just want me to say what they want to hear. I guess that’s why I do the ‘QB thing.’” He made air quotes as his cell phone chimed in the cupholder. “It’s easier to play the part and be who they want me to be.”
Seizing the phone, Stone looked at the display, gave me a panicked look, then quickly hit accept. “Hey, Ma.”
Viktória’s animated voice reached me all the way on the other side of the cab. I couldn’t decipher what she was saying, but I fought a smile as Stone cringed and his ears turned pink.
“No, Ma, I’m not dead in a ditch somewhere. I had to take Lily home.” He paused for more spirited words, which seemed only slightly less frazzled. “No, look, her car wouldn’t start, so I brought her home, and Gabriel’s gonna swing by and pick up her keys tonight. I’m heading to the studio now.”
He sent me an apologetic look, and I grabbed the strap of my enormous book bag, heaving it up onto the seat. Stone rolled his eyes and nodded, reaching around to put on his seatbelt. “Okay, Ma, I promise, next time Lily gets stranded and I bring her home like the nice guy you raised, I’ll be sure to call or text.”
I snorted under my breath, and he shot me a wink.
“Ma says hello,” he said after hanging up, and I smiled as I closed my hand around the latch. Instead of bolting, though, like I would’ve expected to do after such a revealing conversation, I felt the desire to linger. To keep talking and see what else came out. Weird.
Not wanting to risk the ire of Viktória, however, I tugged open the door and mused aloud, “Maybe you and I aren’t so different, after all.”
Stone’s hand snagged the strap of my bag, stopping me. “What do you mean?”
“I don’t know.” I slipped out of the truck, biting my lip, and turned to lean into the open door. “It’s kind of like we’re both hiding in our own ways. Me behind my books. You behind yo
ur QB smiles.”
A wrinkle settled over his brow as he let the strap go, and I tugged my school bag toward me, hiking the heavy weight over my shoulders. “Thanks again for the ride.”
Chapter Eleven
Stone
Five thirty in the morning.
The sky was pitch-black, the neighboring houses were dark, and I was still half asleep, sitting in Lily’s driveway with the truck idling and coffee on standby in the holder. I got why Coach scheduled practices early. In Texas, it was the only time the heat wasn’t completely unbearable, and once we got out there, I was ready to go. Right now, though, I just wanted two more minutes of sleep…
Slam. My eyes snapped open as my heart jumped in my chest. I blinked rapidly, searching the yard for World War III, and saw Lily marching across the lawn, the front door shut behind her. I exhaled a heavy breath, sagging against my seat, and choked out a laugh. Thank God Chase wasn’t here. I’d have never lived that shit down.
I slapped my face to wake up and reached for my cup. Warmth filled my hands while scented steam rose upward, chasing the mental cobwebs away. The truck’s headlights illuminated Lily’s shirt as she rounded the hood, and I bit back a laugh as I read the snarky words she’d chosen for the day: I’m Silently Correcting Your Grammar.
This girl was something else.
“Morning!” she exclaimed, hopping up into the cab with a smile. I grunted at her perkiness. Shit, she was a morning person. Lily laughed as she set her book bag on the floorboard, but when she took in the second cup in the holder and the brown bag on the seat between us, her forehead crinkled in confusion. “Uh, is…is that for me?”
I gave another grunt and took my first sip of caffeine, enjoying the heat as it poured down my throat and ignoring the sting on my tongue. Everything worth having comes with a sacrifice. After another bracing sip, I took a deep breath, feeling a bit more human, and glanced at her.
“Breakfast,” I mumbled.
Lily’s jaw dropped, and her hand flew to her chest. As she stared at me in awe, I shifted uncomfortably in the seat. “I didn’t make it myself or anything,” I muttered, returning my cup to the holder. “It’s just a breakfast sandwich and strawberry smoothie. I would’ve gotten you coffee, but I remembered what you said about no caffeine.”
Instead of helping, that seemed to make everything worse. Lily’s blue eyes widened almost comically behind her lenses, and if the dim lighting inside my truck wasn’t playing tricks on me, they even looked shiny. What the hell? My face flared hot, and I turned back to the windshield, putting the truck in reverse.
Lily’s hand closed around my forearm, and my entire body stilled. “Thank you, Stone. It’s just, it’s been a while since someone took care of me.” She gave a short laugh and fidgeted with her seatbelt. “Not like you’re taking care of me, or even think of it that way.” She bit her lip. “You’re probably thinking I’m gonna go stalker-level clinger on you over stupid Starbucks, huh?”
She shook her head, staring at my hands on the steering wheel. “I know I’m being ridiculous. Maybe it’s because it’s so early and I’m tired…” She trailed off, and while I sat there thinking this was her tired, she finally raised her eyes, soft and filled with gratitude. A warmth that had nothing to do with coffee spread over me as she said, “It…it means a lot. Thank you.”
I swallowed hard. Hell, I’d just been hungry this morning. When I got to Starbucks, I’d figured she would be, too. I hadn’t thought much beyond that, other than not wanting to get her sick again with caffeine. But the way Lily was staring at me reminded me of how Angéla looked whenever I did both our chores or brought her a snack when she was studying.
All because of a damn four-dollar sandwich and a smoothie.
“You’re welcome,” I said, hating how rough my voice sounded. I cleared my throat and took my foot off the brake, reversing out of her driveway while the heat in my face spread to my neck.
We were quiet for a full minute while I drove through her subdivision. My pulse thundered in my throat, and it was strangely difficult to catch my breath. When I got to the main road, I chanced a glance over to see Lily hesitantly reach into the brown bag and withdraw the wrapped bacon and gouda sandwich. Mine had been inhaled the moment I left the drive-thru.
She peeled back the paper and whispered, “Oh, yum.”
A shifting feeling clenched my chest. Eager to change the subject, even if that had been cute as hell, I asked, “So, uh, what is it your dad does, anyway? You said he travels a lot?”
Lily nodded as she took a big bite, and after swallowing it said, “Dad’s a tech genius. He created software major corporations use, and they fly him around the world teaching their employees how to implement and use it.” Her head fell back against the seat with a contented sigh. “Mom used to go as his assistant sometimes, and if it was in the summer, they’d take me, too. We went to some incredible places.”
The way her smile went plastic implied it’d been a while since that happened, but then she took another bite and true happiness returned. Not wanting to see her sad again, I switched to a safer topic.
“Do you have plans after school?” She raised her eyebrows curiously, still chewing, and I explained, “I figured you might need another ride. Today the team has our family meal, but it’s not until five. I can swing you back home before that if you want.”
She pursed her lips. “If you don’t mind, that’d actually be great. Our librarian, Ms. Joice, was friends with my mom, and I normally tutor her son every Tuesday and Thursday, but Liam’s got a doctor’s appointment today. My plans now involve homework and a date with my latest book boyfriend.”
I grinned, remembering her shirt from the festival. “How many books would you say you read a year?” I guessed it was something crazy like fifty or a hundred.
“Oh, I don’t know.” Lily tilted her head back and forth, did some counting on her fingers. “I’d say at least two hundred.”
My eyes popped wide. I did a double take, certain I’d misheard her, and she busted out laughing.
“You recall I don’t have a social life, right?” she asked with a wide grin. “Besides, I love reading. Exploring another world, trying on a different skin. It’s my favorite way to escape. Sydney and I like to buddy read, and we always text each other, freaking out and swooning over what’s happening. Even when we’re both swamped with school or busy with life, books are something we can share, and it’s almost like we’re in the same room.”
I stopped at the intersection, fighting to keep my smile while I waited for the fancy BMW to make its turn. This girl broke my fucking heart. First, she was over the moon because I’d picked up breakfast, and now she was stoked because she exchanged texts with her closest friend over fictional worlds. To be clear, there was nothing wrong with reading. Angéla was a proud book nerd, and I wasn’t afraid to admit I’d swiped a few books from her shelves over the years. But nothing compared to actually living life.
“I see you over there judging me, Mr. McJudgey.” She thrust her pointer finger into my biceps but didn’t look offended. “Tell me, then, what do you like to do that’s so riveting?”
I accelerated past the four-way stop and repeated the question with a laugh. When she blinked at me, I shrugged a shoulder. “Football,” I replied, like it should’ve been obvious.
“No. Football is the sport you play that’s almost like a job. I want to know what you do to unwind and have fun, away from the field, and don’t give me one of your canned responses, either. I want the real, unfiltered Stone Torres. Hit me with the truth, QB.”
I frowned at the road. What did I like to do, other than football? What the hell did she want to hear? If this had been an interview for the school paper, I’d have said I liked helping with the peewee league during the summer and hanging out with friends, going to parties.
But did I genuinely like that stuff?
The truth was, the kids were cute, and it was fun watching the one or two who showed promise, but the hero
worship wore thin by the end of the season. As for parties, the monotony was getting old there, too. It was all about hooking up, which I was on a break from, and rehashing the previous game or looking forward to the next. I couldn’t relax. Everyone watched my every move. It felt like I was on a stage. Other than that, though, I drove around with Chase, played video games, or worked.
When I didn’t say anything, Lily changed tactics. “How about this, then? What do you want to be, like after college? Have you thought about what you want to major in?”
I shot her a side-eye. “I’m not falling for that. It’s a blatant attempt to get me to break a rule, and it’s not gonna happen.”
She rolled her eyes. “I believe that rule is more for me than you,” she replied, and I laughed because she wasn’t wrong. “Please?”
I took the turn onto Winchester and sighed. To tell the truth or not to tell the truth. Finally, I admitted quietly, “I don’t know.”
I waited for the inevitable gasp of shock from the girl who mapped out her entire life, but it never came. When I looked over, Lily merely looked curious, and maybe a bit sympathetic.
“Do you want to play in the NFL?” she asked, and I shrugged again. “Be a dancer?”
I laughed out loud. “Uh, definitely not.”
“What’s wrong with being a dancer?”
“It’s not that there’s anything wrong with it,” I explained, turning into the mostly empty lot of Brighton High. Only football players dared to arrive this early. I drove down the line of recently painted senior spots, feeling her watching me, and pulled into my designated slot. I put the truck in park, sliding her a look.
“Listen, dancing’s in my blood, but other than my family and the regulars at Ilusiòn, the only people who even know I dance are you, Chase, Cameron, and Ashley. Mambo King doesn’t exactly fit with the vision most people have in mind for their football captain.”
Even if my classmates were cool about it—which, other than a few idiots, they probably would be—other people wouldn’t. This was Texas, after all. Land of the cowboy. Old-school Boosters wouldn’t think twice about commenting on a Twinkle Toes quarterback, and reporters and DJs would do the same for ratings. They’d all shown their colors when I dated Cameron last year, questioning my focus and implying my priorities were split just because I had a girl. My entire life was dissected for sport. If they got wind of me dancing? Hell, I’d never hear the end of it.
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