Page 54 of The Only Goal

“I know.” I laugh, finishing my tea and grinning at him. “We were kids for probably way longer than was necessary, but that was all part of the fun. I mean, we used to play Simon Says all the time. Remember that teacher we had in junior year, I think it was? Mr. McCaulkin. He was super strict.”

“And super boring.” Baxter bulges his eyes.

“Which is why I started that game again. Remember? I passed you that note…”

His gaze grows distant as he shakes his head, obviously reliving the scene. “Simon Says make a fart noise.”

“And you did. You actually did it.” I can hear the glee in my voice as I’m transported back to that classroom and the laugh I could barely contain as Baxter put his hand to his mouth and let out the loudest, wettest fart sound I’d ever heard.

The class erupted, and Mr. McCaulkin spent the next five minutes trying to figure out who made that noise. No one gave Baxter up… and they kept me safe, too, when ten minutes later I was reading his note.

Simon Says: Do the Taken speech in the Batman voice.

He knew I’d memorized those epic lines by Liam Neeson, and when Mr. McCaulkin’s back was turned, I quickly rushed out the words in the deepest, roughest voice I could.

The girls behind me started tittering, and the guys turned with impressed grins as I got to the end of it before the teacher spun with an angry glare and shouted, “Who keeps disrupting my class!”

“Man, we played that game all year.” I grin, loving this reminiscing.

“It definitely turned algebra from the worst class to my favorite that year.”

“Oh yeah, it did.” I raise my hand, and he gives me a quick high five.

Just like old times.

Just like us.

We keep smiling at each other until I drop my hand, curling my fingers back around that mug.

“We were the best, BB.”

“Yeah,” he croaks.

“Senior year wasn’t the same without you.”

His brow buckles in confusion. “I was still there.”

I shake my head, my eyes starting to glisten. “No, you weren’t.”

CHAPTER 24

BAXTER

Shit. I don’t want to do this right now.

She’s blaming me for not being there for her senior year?

She pulled away from me.

She was the one who just wanted to be friends.

But you weren’t her friend.

You pulled so far back, you became nothing.

“Bax, that day by the swimming hole…”

Fuck, she’s not going there.

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