“Text her now.”
Missed you today.
She writes back almost immediately. Had a fight with Colton.
What does that have to do with skipping community service? But I don’t write that. Everything okay?
It will be. I should be there Thursday.
Good.
Who’d you buddy with?
<3
Oh realllllllly?
I peek at him to make sure he’s not looking at my phone. I’ll tell you about it later.
Can’t wait.
I tuck my phone into my coat pocket and he slides his arm around my waist.
“She okay?”
My heart gallops at his sudden nearness and my concern for Drea. “I don’t know. She said she had a fight with her boyfriend, but why would that stop her from coming?”
His arm stiffens around me, pressing into my lower back. The same place Drea had that bruise. “How much do you know about her boyfriend?” he asks.
I replay everything she’s said about him, but nothing stands out as a warning. “I’m thinking not enough.”
Drea didn’t show Thursday either, but this time she texted me ahead of time. Her excuse was different, but after the way Xavier reacted when I mentioned her fighting with her boyfriend, now I’m wondering what she’s not telling me. I’ve texted her a couple times to see how she’s doing but her answers are vague.
Xavier wasn’t there either, and he didn’t text.
I’m still thinking about Drea when I arrive at Echo Mountain Saturday morning. Xavier didn’t bring up his season pass again, but I feel bad making him pay when I’m the one hiding from my friends. Or former friends. So I’ve come up with a plan: get there first, buy both our lift tickets, then tell him I had a two-for-one coupon and got his for free. Boys can be weird about girls buying them things, especially if he’s thinking this is a date, so now I just seem thrifty.
Ha.
We agreed to meet at ten, so I’m through the line and pacing out front a few minutes before. The lot’s pretty full so my first sight of him is walking across the parking lot, his jacket half zipped and his board balanced on his shoulder. My stomach does the little quiver that seems to be standard when I first lay eyes on him, and his face lights up when he sees me.
“You been here long?” He leans toward me like he’s going to kiss my cheek, but hesitates before getting too close.
“Just a few minutes.” I hold up the passes. “I had a two-for-one thing so I went ahead and got our tickets.”
“Can I pay you for half?”
I hand him his ticket and smile. “Buy me lunch instead?”
He grabs my hand holding the ticket, but instead of taking it, he pulls me into a hug. “Thank you.” This time he does kiss my cheek, then steps back. “You ready to shred this mountain?”
I snort, and quickly cover my mouth. I cannot believe I just made that noise in front of him.
But he doesn’t seem to care. He grabs my hand and leads me to the rental counter, where he once again sweet talks the guy into giving me nicer equipment. It’s not until we’re on the lift that the nerves kick in.
“I feel like I forgot everything you taught me. Also,” I pat my belly. “You need to show me a way to do this without destroying my abs.”
“Were you sore?”
“Understatement.”
He brushes his hand over my belly and even though he’s wearing thick gloves and I’m buried under three layers, my body reacts like he’s touching my bare skin. “You should have told me.”
“I’m fine now.” I bite my lip, not sure if I should ask what’s been on my mind. My curiosity wins out. “Where were you Thursday?”
His face darkens. “I had to help my sister again.” He rests his forearms against the bar holding us into the chairlift and stares out at the trees.
“Is everything okay?”
“I keep thinking it is, then she goes and does something stupid again.”
I run my hands over the railing. The scrape of my gloves on metal fills the silence. “You don’t have to talk about this if you don’t want to.”
His forehead drops to his hands and for a moment I’m not sure what to do. Keep talking? Wait him out? This is uncharted territory for me. I reach for his shoulder but pull back when he straightens.
“I don’t wanna dump all this on you.”
I point at the ground twenty feet below. “I’m not going anywhere.” Only after I say the words do I realize the extra weight they carry. If he trusts me now, will I still run? And does this mean I’ll need to be honest too? I’m not sure if I’m ready to let him see the whole me.
“She used to be a good kid. But ever since our dad left she’s changed. My mom got promoted and started working extra hours so it’s been on me to keep her out of trouble, but it’s like nothing I say gets through to her.”
“That’s a lot of pressure on you. Does your mom know?”
He shakes his head. “A little. She figured out most of it when I got arrested. After that, Lily promised to stay straight, but now she’s doing the same shit all over again.”
With each word he says, more questions spring to my lips. What she’s doing? And how is he keeping it from his mom? But the biggest question bursts out of me before I can stop it. “What did your arrest have to do with Lily?”
He rolls his neck. “She was dating this guy who’s a couple years older than her. I vaguely remembered his name from school a few years back but he dropped out, and from what I heard, he was in a gang.”
“Is that where those tools got that story from?”
“Probably. It was bad enough she was getting mixed up with them, but then she started hiding things from me. We’re only a year apart so we’ve always been close, and I couldn’t get through to her. One night she came home so high she could barely walk straight, and that’s when I saw bruises on her.”
My hand covers my mouth. I want to close my eyes and shut out his words, but it’s like watching a train derailing. It’s going to be awful and tragic and there’s nothing I can do to stop it. And in this case, the damage is already done.
“She tried to play it off like it was no big deal. When she sobered up, I wouldn’t leave her room until she told me everything. This asshole was treating her like a piece of property, but because he said the right things and had enough drugs, she convinced herself it was love.” He scoffs. “Barely sixteen and she thought she was in love.”
“So what did you do?” I feel like I already know the answer but I need to say something.
“Nothing at first. Made her check in with me when she was out, that kind of thing, but nothing changed. A few days later she came home with a busted lip and a bruise on her cheek and it’s like something flipped inside me. I waited ‘til she went to the bathroom, then took her phone and texted him, pretending to be her.” He bites his lip and swallows hard. “He said all this crap, apologizing for what he did. I was pretending to be her so I said it was okay and asked to meet him. I wasn’t stupid enough to try to go to his place, so I suggested a park near our house. I didn’t think he’d agree, but he did.”
“Xavier…” My voice is barely a whisper.
He looks at me as if he forgot I was here. He reaches for my hand. It’s clumsy with our gloves, but I rest my hand in his and wait for him to continue.
“I took her phone so she couldn’t warn him, then headed to the park. Even then, I wasn’t sure what I was gonna do, I just knew I had to do something. When I got there, I realized I didn’t even know what he looked like, so I scrolled through her phone to see if she had pictures.” He covers his mouth and I squeeze his hand. “You don’t have siblings, right?”
I shake my head. The Seconds hardly count.
“Let me tell you, you don’t ever wanna see the pictures I saw. My baby sister with this… guy, doing things I haven’t even done yet. And in some of them—” he takes a deep breath.
“You don’t have to tell me this.”
“I wa
nt you to understand why I did what I did.”
I already understand whatever he did, and that’s without knowing the full story. “Okay.”
“There were a couple pictures of her naked and her boyfriend wasn’t the only guy in the picture.”
My stomach twists. “Oh my god.”
“It seemed like they just were watching, but it was my baby sister.” His voice cracks and tears burn my eyes. His love for her and imagining what he saw breaks my heart. “I finally found a picture of just him, and I burned that into my mind. It was getting dark out, but when a car pulled in, I could tell it was him.”
Part of me doesn’t want to hear the rest of the story. Knowing he got arrested for fighting is enough to fill in the pieces.
“I went up to his car and pounded on the window. That’s when I realized I probably should have brought some kind of weapon, but I still didn’t know exactly what I was gonna do. I didn’t have a plan. He rolls down the window and starts yelling at me, telling me to back off before he beats my ass, that sort of thing. But there was no way I was backing down. Not after what he did to Lily.”
His grip tightens on my hand, like he’s reliving that night.
“I told him who I was and that he and Lily were over, and he started laughing. He laughed at me. So I punched him through the window. After that, it was all a blur. He got out of the car and landed one punch before I slammed his head against the car. He dropped to the ground but I couldn’t stop. It’s like I went out of my body and watched myself beat this guy until he was a bloody mess.”
“Holy shit.” I want to shut out the image he’s painting, but I can’t blame him. I’ve never had the kind of connection he has with his sister, but I’d like to think I’d do the same thing for someone I loved.
“The scariest part is I could have killed him. It was dark. No one else was there. But I climbed back in my head and stopped myself. Then I called an ambulance and drove to the police station.”
My jaw drops. “You turned yourself in?”
He holds out his hands. “What else was I supposed to do? That wasn’t me. I’d been in fights before, sure, but it was all stupid middle-school crap. This was life and death. By turning myself in, I got to tell the whole story, including what he’d done to my sister. The prosecutor wanted to let me off but the judge insisted on community service.”
“What happened to him?” He still hasn’t mentioned how the gang fits into this and I’m terrified to find out.
“I broke a bunch of bones in his face, so he was in the hospital for a while. Then he was arrested for drugs, child pornography, and a bunch of other things I had no idea about.”
“You’re like a super hero.”
He looks at me, his jaw hard. “He’s in a gang. He’s no one important, but now they know who I am and he’s promised to pay me back.”
My breath catches. Hearing him say the words is so much worse than just suspecting. “Can’t the police do anything?” Is he scared? How do you go through your day knowing a gang is after you?
“Not really. They said they’d keep an eye on him once he got out of jail, but he’s not their biggest problem.”
“And Lily?”
“There was a lot of crying. Mom never found out the full story and Lily promised to get out of that world, but now she’s slipping back in. Different guy, but the same signs are there.”
I’m so lost in his story that I jump when he lifts the guard rail. We’re thirty feet from the top of the chairlift and I’ve completely forgotten to be nervous.
“Remember. One push with your free foot, then ride the board down.” His voice is thick with emotion. He hooks his arm through mine and I’m grateful for the help.
Our boards hit the snow and I do as he says. It’s easier with him keeping me upright, and we glide to the side, out of the way of the people in the next chair.
I stop him before he sits. “Xavier, I don’t know what to say. Thank you for trusting me.”
He flips his goggles on top of his helmet. His eyes shine and he smiles down at me. “I wanted you to know the truth. It sucks having the arrest on my record, but it’s not who I am.”
“You were helping your sister.”
He nods, and touches my chin. “Thanks for understanding.”
My heart feels so full for this boy who put himself at risk to help someone else that I need to do something. Now. Without thinking about where we are or who can see us, I push up on my toes and press my lips against his. Or at least I try. My goggles hit his nose and our helmets clink, stopping the kiss before it starts. He lifts my goggles off my face and rests them on the top of my helmet, but that’s not good enough. I unclasp the strap beneath my chin, yank my helmet off, and toss it at my feet. “That’s better.” The breeze lifts my hair, swirling it in my face. He brushes it back, his dark eyes locked on mine, then our mouths crash together.
We don’t waste time with soft or gentle. His lips are cool against mine, but his tongue is hot and fills me with a desire that warms me from head to toe. He pulls me tight against his body—or as tight as we can get with two snowboards strapped to our feet—and my hands roam his back. I want to unzip his jacket and really feel him, but reality pokes through the fog in my brain, and laughter and whispers reach my ears. I break the kiss, keeping my face pressed against his. “I kind of forgot where we were.”
He laughs, a deep rumble in his chest. “Not me.” He presses a more chaste kiss to my lips. “Don’t care.”
My arms drop to my sides and I step back, but I can’t take my eyes off him. Who knew getting arrested would lead to this beautiful boy with gorgeous eyes, full lips, and a heart that’s bigger than anyone I’ve ever met?
He reaches for my arm. “Tell me what you’re thinking.”
“Snowboarding is overrated.” He laughs, and his gaze flicks over me, keeping the heat in my belly simmering. “But we are here…” My helmet rolled away while we were kissing and I have to hop several feet to grab it. I brush the snow from it and glance at the lift and freeze.
A boy from school is staring at me, his mouth open.
And not just any boy.
Luke.
One of Blake’s best friends.
Someone who knows firsthand how awful I can be and could ruin this—whatever this is—with Xavier before it even gets started.
I’m still standing with my helmet in my hand when Xavier touches my back. “You coming?”
Luke’s eyes dart from me to Xavier to us. I silently plead for him to keep his mouth shut and be on his way, but an easy smile spreads over his face and he shuffle-hops toward us.
“Hey, man,” he says, holding his fist out to Xavier.
“Luke, what’s up?”
They bump fists as my world crashes around me, then Luke nods at me like it’s the most natural thing in the world. “Brianna.”
“L-Luke.” My voice comes out shaky but my face doesn’t reveal the panic I’m feeling. Please don’t say anything please don’t say anything please don’t say anything.
“You slumming?” he asks, and Xavier’s head whips toward me.
My mouth falls open, but I quickly snap it shut. “Turning over a new leaf.”
He seems to consider this for a moment, and smiles. “Cool.” Then he shuffle-hops away, leaving me to deal with the consequences.
“What was that about?”
I look up at Xavier.
Confusion is clear on his face, mixed with frustration and a hint of anger. “I think it’s about time I got the truth.”
Edge Rule #7: The scariest part of falling is just before you land.
“You’re right.” I move toward him but the tenderness from before is replaced with irritation. I reach for his chest and rest my hand over his heart. “If I promise to tell you my deepest darkest secrets, can it wait until we’re back on the chairlift?”
His eyes never leave mine but I can’t tell what he’s thinking. Then he lifts the corner of his mouth. “Sure.”
We ma
ke our way closer to the edge and strap ourselves into our boards. My senses are still humming from our kiss, but dread is slowly taking over. I knew this moment would eventually come, but I was hoping it’d be later, when I was more confident about where we stand. This is still new enough that it’d take very little for him to decide he’s done with me.
And my truth is not very little.
“Show me how you’ve been getting up,” he says, interrupting my thoughts. He’s sitting next to me, knees bent, the edge of his board in the snow.
I mimic his position, then swing my arms forward to jerk myself upright.
He shakes his head. “Try to use your legs more.” He plants his hands behind his body and pushes up, balancing his weight on the edge of the board until his body is over the board, then he magically stands.
“Oh, is that all?” The sarcasm drips from my voice and he smirks.
“Just try.”
I sit back down, then push off like he did and while I end up on my feet, it certainly isn’t as effortless as he made it look.
“See. You’re a natural.”
I roll my eyes. “You must have abs of steel.”
He runs a hand over his belly and shrugs.
And just like that I’m imagining him with far less clothing. I shake the thought from my head. “Are you leading or am I?”
“That depends.”
“On what?”
“On if you’re planning to stall.”
It’s spooky how well he knows me, even though there’s still so much he has to learn. I punch him lightly in the chest. “I’ll go first.”
I set off down the hill, stopping when we reach the edge. He’s right behind me, but instead of stopping, he turns and cuts back across the hill and waits for me on the opposite side. Okay, I can do this. I head straight for him, shifting my board every couple feet to slow down, and when I’m almost to him, I shift my weight and cut back across the hill. This time I keep the fist pumping inside my head, and before long I fall into a rhythm that leads me to the bottom of the hill.
The Edge Rules (The Rules Series Book 3) Page 13