Chapter 12 #2
Not that I minded.
I’d go anywhere with him.
We take the winding coastal highway home, the SUV hugging cliff edges above the Pacific Ocean. I roll the windows down, letting the cool, salt-laced air whip through my braids. Overhead, the full moon rises—huge and molten orange.
The Harvest Moon.
The name always makes me think of that old ’80s horror flick Children of the Corn.
The one where the kids in a creepy small town kill off all the adults to guarantee a successful harvest. Hayes and I watched it together in junior high.
I remember Kora joking afterward that a good harvest is worth a few sacrifices.
She was kidding, of course.
At least, I think she was.
It was one of the few times I remember Hayes’s mom talking about her past. She grew up in a small farming village in Eastern Europe with her mother, working the land from a young age. She talked about the harvest like it was sacred.
Kora rarely mentions her childhood.
No talk of siblings. No extended family. No funny uncle stories or crazy aunts. I don’t even know what happened to her mother. It’s like Kora moved to Athens, met Hayes’s father, and that was the end of the narrative.
Hayes’s father is the same. No talk of where he’s from, no relatives, no roots. It’s as if the two of them just appeared one day—fully formed, incredibly successful, and inexplicably private.
In that way, I guess Hayes and I aren’t so different. Neither of us comes from big, sprawling families.
“On a scale of one to ten,” Hayes says, grinning as we pull off the highway, “how pissed do you think Ambs is that I bailed on her tonight?”
I laugh, the sound catching in my throat.
“Eleven.”
He tosses me a wink. “Your sister wants me—bad.”
“A little full of yourself, aren’t you?”
He pauses, the mood in the car shifting just slightly. “You think she’s serious this time? Or just playing games again?”
“No clue.” I shrug. “She says the breakup was a mistake, but… who knows. Still—do you really think getting back together is a good idea?”
“Aw, no need to be jealous,” he teases. “You know you’ll always be my number one girl.”
I punch his shoulder, maybe harder than necessary.
“I’m not jealous, you moron.”
“Sure you aren’t.”
“I’m not! I couldn’t care less about you and my damn sister!”
Hayes goes quiet for a beat, his hands tightening on the wheel.
“Relax,” he finally says. “I was just messing around. I know you’re not jealous. I’d probably die of shock if you ever showed real interest in a guy—especially me.”
I fold my arms and look away.
“I like guys just fine. They just don’t like me.”
“That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.” He scoffs. “My friends all think you’re hot. Dylan wouldn’t shut up about you last weekend.”
I grimace.
“You’re not seriously suggesting I go for Dylan Masterson, are you?”
“Definitely not.” His lips twitch. “I’m just saying, if you wanted to date someone, you could. A lot of someones.” He glances at me again, slower this time—more searching, more curious, a flicker of something unguarded in his eyes. “So… why don’t you?”
“Because I don’t want someone. I want a guy I actually like.”
“Okay, but how do you know who that is if you never try?”
I roll my eyes.
“Oh, is that why you date every girl who smiles at you?”
“I don’t date every girl,” he protests, then smirks. “Haven’t hooked up with anyone on dance team—yet.”
“You’re such an idiot.” I laugh, shaking my head. “So is that the logic behind dating Amber again? Just trying to see if you ‘like her’?”
“Ha ha. Funny.”
“Honestly, I don’t get it.” My voice tightens.
“Sure, she’s beautiful, but what do you even have in common?
She doesn’t like our music, she refuses to hike or box or do anything that might ruin her nails.
She hates anything even remotely spooky—she won’t even watch Beetlejuice, and that’s basically a comedy.
” I turn to him, my jaw clenching. “Also? She’s still in high school, Hayes. She’s a kid.”
“She’s one year younger than us.”
“Whatever.”
The car goes quiet for a moment as he stares out the windshield, eyes fixed on the road. He takes his time, thinking hard.
“I can’t explain it,” he says, turning the SUV into my apartment complex. “Amber just… fits into my life.”
“She’s a superficial cream puff!”
He lifts a brow. “Maybe I like cream puffs.”
“Then you should open a fucking bakery.”
I stare out the window, biting the inside of my cheek. How could someone like Hayes—smart, deep, complex—want someone like my sister? It doesn’t make any sense. It never has.
“Do you guys even talk about anything real? Like we do?”
“Sure.”
“Like what? Hair products?” I shoot him a look.
He throws the car in park and turns toward me, his movements sharp and clipped. His eyes blaze with frustration—and something else. Darker. Rawer.
“Why does this matter so much to you?” he asks, voice rough. “Why do you even care?”
The air thickens between us.
“I don’t—”
“I like Amber, okay?” he cuts me off. “I have fun with her. She’s a cool girl. So what if we don’t sit around unpacking our childhood traumas and swapping our deepest dreams or doing whatever bullshit you seem to think makes a relationship real?”
“Is that what you think you and I are?” I ask, my voice suddenly brittle. “Bullshit?”
He rakes a hand through his dark hair, tugging hard at the roots.
“That’s not what I meant.” He exhales hard, leaning back in his seat, gripping at the wheel like he needs the anchor. “This isn’t about you and me. How I feel about Amber has nothing to do with you. I care about you both, just in different ways. What’s wrong with that?”
His words hit me like an uppercut. I knew it, sure, but to hear him say it out loud stings even more than I thought.
He still wants her.
“It doesn’t work like that,” I say. “Amber doesn’t share. Sooner or later, she’ll want all of you. And I’ll get even less than I do now, which is basically nothing.”
“We’ll make it work.”
“How?” My voice rises, jagged and sharp. “You’ll squeeze me in for a few seconds between frat parties and football and hooking up with my sister? Am I supposed to be grateful for whatever scraps you toss my way?”
“That’s not fair.”
I laugh bitterly. “Yeah, well, life’s not fair.”
He slams a hand against the dashboard. “Seriously? What’s your fucking problem, Al? You want me to choose, is that it? You or Amber?”
Panic tightens around my chest.
Shit—no. That’s not what I want at all.
I didn’t mean to push an ultimatum on him. Because if I force him to choose, he won’t pick me. He’ll choose her.
“No,” I say, backpedaling hard. I can’t lose my best friend. Even sharing half of Hayes is better than none at all. “That’s not what I’m saying.”
“Everyone keeps acting like I’m supposed to have my whole damn life figured out.” His voice cracks. “But I’m only eighteen, and I just fucking don’t, alright? I don’t have anything figured out.”
I look at him then. Really look.
The tension in his jaw. The tremble in his hands, still clenched on the wheel. The pain in his eyes that he’s trying—and failing—to hide. This isn’t just about Amber.
Something is very, very wrong.
“Hayes? What’s going on?” I ask softly. “Are you okay?”
He exhales through his nose.
“It’s my dad. If I don’t go to Europe next year to help with the business expansion, he’s cutting me off.”
“You mean go for the summer?”
He shakes his head. “I mean for good.”
My jaw drops.
“He wants you to drop out of college?”
A hollow, humorless laugh. “No football. No degree. No me, basically.”
“But he can’t… actually make you do that, can he?”
He’s quiet for a long moment, like even answering is too painful.
“Mom promised to talk to him,” he says. “But yeah, he can. He can do whatever he wants. It’s his empire. And at the end of the day, she’ll stand by him, no matter what.”
“But what about what you want?”
He scoffs. “You know my dad. Legacy. Family. Tradition. That’s what matters to him.” He stares down at his knuckles, white from how hard he’s holding the wheel. “What I want doesn’t even make the list.”
“That’s not fair,” I say. “You have to stand up to him. Fight for your future.”
His parents have always seemed reasonable to me. I know how much they love him. Maybe if he just tells them how much this means to him, they’ll meet him halfway. Work out some sort of compromise.
“You don’t get it. It’s not that simple.”
“You don’t have to do this alone.” I reach out. My hand finds his thigh, the muscles tense, coiled like a spring. “I can talk to Kora. I’ll make her understand. Your dad, too—”
He flinches, pulling back like my touch has scorched him.
“I don’t want you to do that. It’s not your problem,” he says. “Just drop it.”
“But, Hay, I want to help—”
“I said no.” His voice slices through the air like a blade. “This is why I like your sister—at least she knows when to shut up.”
The words hit like a slap. I jerk back, breath caught, throat tight.
“Fine,” I whisper, reaching for the door handle. “If that’s how you really feel, I’ll go.”
His hand shoots across the console, locking around my wrist before I can open the door. His grip tightens, his eyes wide with regret.
“Al, wait—I’m sorry. You know I didn’t mean that,” he says. “Please don’t be mad at me. I couldn’t handle that right now. Not with everything else.”
“I’m not mad,” I say, even though something inside me is already bruising. “I just hate that you keep shutting me out. Whatever’s happening, I want to be there for you. I just wish you’d let me.”
“Believe me,” he murmurs, his voice thick, “there’s a lot of things I wish were different, too.”
“Like what?”
His expression flickers, like he’s balancing on the edge of a confession. Like he wants to tell me everything.
Then he leans in, slow and deliberate, until the heat of him sinks into my skin. His comforting scent—that warm cedar smoke and something darker, spicier—folds around me, tugging at something low in my stomach.
My breath catches. Every muscle in my body goes taut, waiting, straining toward him before I can stop myself. His eyes flick to my mouth for the briefest heartbeat, and the air between us tightens, charged enough to make my pulse stumble.
For a suspended second, I think—hope—he might kiss me.
But he doesn’t.
Instead, he veers higher, his lips brushing the side of my temple, feather-light. Gentle. Far too gentle to mean anything.
Then he reaches past me and opens the door.
“It doesn’t matter,” he says, his voice rough with restraint. “There are things you don’t know. Things I can’t tell you. And I can’t change any of it, no matter how much I wish I could… and neither can you.”