2. Blake
BLAKE
“You can’t be serious, Addie.”
Blue-green eyes snapped in my direction.
“Why would I joke about that, Blake?” Her cheeks pinked, and she cast her eyes down to the textbook in front of her. “Is it so far-fetched to believe he’d ask me to Prom?”
No.
The word burned as I swallowed it.
The issue was that too many guys wanted to take Addie to Prom. It was bound to give Adam a stomach ulcer or something.
But no way in hell would I admit that to her.
Leaning back in my chair, I eyed her across the Barrows’ dining room table. “I’m just surprised you said yes, that’s all. The guy’s a tool.”
Adam coughed beside me, choking on a sip of water.
I slapped his back, pretending not to notice the shift in Addie’s expression from embarrassment to righteous indignation.
She tightened her grip on her pencil before tossing it aside. It rolled across our pile of forgotten homework as she rose from her seat. Steam practically billowed out of her ears, and when she slammed her hands down, she hit the table so forcefully that our water glasses shook.
“A tool? Says who, the great Blake Hawthorne?” She scoffed, pinning me with a steely look that rivaled one of her mom’s best stares. “Football god and playboy of the senior class?”
I regretted opening my mouth.
Her voice rose in pitch but stayed quiet enough to stop it from echoing through the house. “Just because you’re busy screwing your way through the senior class, Blake, doesn’t mean every guy in our grade is, or should be, doing that.”
Awed by her restraint, and slightly terrified, I swallowed.
Then I linked my fingers behind my head and smirked. “Don’t knock it ‘til you try it.”
“Typical jock response.” Addie flicked her gaze over me, unimpressed. “The guy being used for his dick delivery skills sounds like a bigger tool, if you ask me.”
I rolled my eyes.
Sensing that I planned to stick my foot further in my mouth, Adam interjected. “Hey, you two, maybe we should take a break. Finals. Pressure. I need a soda.”
He got up from the table and left the room, studying Addie and me warily as he went.
Adam didn’t do well with conflict, and with the way she and I interacted, he firmly believed we thrived on it. This wasn’t the first and wouldn’t be the last time Adam left the room so we could have it out.
“You’re going to give him a stomach ulcer.”
Addie scoffed. “If your revolving door of cheerleaders hasn’t done that yet, nothing will.”
“Someone sounds jealous,” I taunted.
Because I just couldn’t help myself.
She made a show of throwing her head back to laugh. “I prefer my body free of STDs, thanks. Have you had your monthly check yet, by the way?”
“Har. Har.”
I snapped my textbook closed, forcing that jab to roll off my back as I began gathering my things. Addie crossed her arms over her chest and refused to budge.
Despite needing to calm the situation down, I kept speaking. “Five bucks says your date expects you to put out at the end of the night, Addie. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
Catching sight of my retreat, she smirked. “Someone sounds jealous.”
“As if I’d try to compete with a sure thing like Todd.” I scoffed a laugh. “Have you asked for his most recent physical and medical clearance form yet?”
As unlikely as that was, given the horror stories Adam and I had shared over the last two years, teasing her about it didn’t make me feel better. It only irritated me more.
I shoved my stuff in my backpack and zipped it up, suddenly eager to leave.
I sure as hell didn’t expect what came next.
“Of course, I have,” she growled.
My head shot up.
“Todd is clean and will make a perfectly acceptable lover.”
With her stare resolutely pointed at the table, Addie’s golden-brown hair fell forward to shield her face. Instead of tucking it behind her ears, she fiddled with the corner of the nearest object, like she always did when she was nervous.
I tugged the Calculus sheet from under her grasp. “You’re planning to sleep with him?”
She yanked it back. “Not that it’s any of your business, Blake Hawthorne, but yes! I am. He’s booked us a room at the after-party hotel.”
Adam returned, his eyes wide at his sister’s admission. His gaze ping-ponged between us before he backed slowly out of the room again.
Talk of his sister’s dating life ranked even higher than conflict on the list of things Adam liked to avoid. That left me as Addie’s defender on more than one occasion, a position I simultaneously hated and eagerly filled.
Color filled her cheeks as she snatched her textbook off the table and hugged it to her chest. She lowered her voice. “Why do you even care? I’m sure you’ll be dick deep in whatever sophomore you’ve lined up for the night, anyway!”
We had drilled the warnings into her head repeatedly. Hadn’t she realized high school boys were idiots by now? Hadn’t she seen that enough with me?
She sure insulted me like she had.
For Adam’s sake, she should just stay home.
“You barely even know this guy, Addie!”
She pointed a finger at my face. “Todd has been my lab partner for the last three years, Blake. You’ve just been too busy chasing skirts to notice anything outside your sex life.”
My hands tightened into fists at my sides. “Why should I? You’ve clearly been paying enough attention for the both of us.”
Addie lifted her chin, somehow being superior and infuriatingly na?ve all in the same breath. “It helps to know which seats to avoid, lest I catch something you’ve left behind.”
“Lest? Who fucking says that?”
“I do!” she yelled, flinging her textbook back onto the table.
It hit the wood with a resounding thud, silencing us both. The dining room filled with the sound of our heated breaths, and I stared hard at Addie while her chest heaved with fury.
Despite my best intentions, the tension filling the room sent my blood rushing south.
Why did I care?
If anything happened to her, Mr. and Mrs. Barrow would be devastated. Adam complained any time she got a damn paper cut. He’d be completely wrecked.
And me?
I didn’t know what the hell I’d be.
But I cared too much about all of them to let anything happen to her.
Even if she hated me for it.
“He’s not good enough for you, Addie.” I shook my head, desperate to clear it. “You’re making a mistake.”
“Yeah, well, it’s mine to make.” Her voice wavered, doubt creeping into her facade.
“I’m not going to college a virgin or pining away for my one true love to swoop in and make it special.
Todd is nice. He sees me for what I am. And despite what you may think, I’m not a naive little girl anymore, Blake. ”
I should’ve let it go. It was her body. Her choice.
But the thought of her giving her first time to Todd-fucking-Weebly stirred something inside me I couldn’t go near. My hackles rose, and I lashed out before I could stop myself.
“It sure sounds like you are to me.”
I wanted to pull the words back in the second they left my mouth. Tears filled her blue-green eyes, effectively skewering me.
She lifted her chin higher, pushing through the slight wobble in it to stare me down. “Well. It’s a good thing I don’t care what you think of me.”
Then she left the room without another word.
Adam peeked around the corner into the dining room. “Yeah…I made that mistake a few days ago.”
I squeezed my eyes shut, praying for mercy. “Thanks for the heads up, dickhead.”
He shrugged. “Wouldn’t have stopped you either way.”
Long after he left the room, I stared at the collateral damage from our fight. Standing by myself in the only place I’d never truly been alone, his words echoed in my head. Even if I didn’t understand why, I forced myself to admit the truth.
He wasn’t entirely wrong.
PROM NIGHT, 2017, AGE 18
A month later, on prom night, I left my date in the suite housing the after-party and wandered down to the hotel lobby. I ended up outside, staring at the vacant pool.
Midnight had come and gone.
By now, Adam would be sound asleep at home, where he’d been most of the night. Ever since his obligatory hour at the dance had ended.
Addie and Todd would have sealed the deal, too.
I couldn’t stop thinking about that.
Hoping to clear my head, I ignored the sign listing the pool hours. Moonlight shimmered over the water as I approached the deep end. I took off my shoes and sat down to dunk my feet.
Discontent gnawed at my chest.
I didn’t particularly enjoy it, sure I had no right to the feeling at all. It only worsened as I kicked my legs, and waves crashed around my shins.
Then a shadow fell over me.
When I lifted my head, Addie stared down at me, her far-too-womanly but painfully perfect figure displayed in a way she rarely allowed. If we hadn’t grown up together, and I hadn’t seen her change, it would’ve surprised me.
But I’d witnessed every minute.
Every summer, I’d been simultaneously thrilled to be on vacation with the Barrows while increasingly anxious one of them might notice my body responding to her.
Hormones were a bitch. And even the most modest one piece couldn’t hide Addie transforming from Adam’s lanky, spitting image to who she was now.
What she was.
Todd-fucking-Weebly wasn’t the only one with eyes and half a brain. Everyone saw it. As the moonlight shone behind her, it illuminated every inch of the woman she’d become.
It taunted me.
Just like her words had last month.
“I’m not a naive little girl anymore, Blake.”
My response, and her reaction, plagued me, and her cerulean dress hugged her curves as if crafted to make me eat my words.
I swallowed the ones I wanted to say now.
She tilted her head, returning my stare with a question in her eyes. When I said nothing, still lost in my own thoughts, she broke the silence between us.
“What are you doing out here, Blake?”
My eyes flicked down to the pool where I kicked my feet, but they quickly returned to her. I shrugged, predicting her reaction before I told her the truth. “Worrying about you.”
That earned me an all-too-familiar scoff.
Shimmying her dress up at her hips, Addie pulled the skirt to just below her knees.