Maverick mimics my motion, reaching in and plucking a slice for himself. He takes a large bite, staring at me as he chews. His large Adam’s apple moves as he swallows. “Another one of your contradictions, Veronica,” he says before taking another bite of his pizza. “You better watch out, before you know it, I’ll have them all figured out.”

I take another bite to avoid responding to him right away. Him figuring me out is exactly what I’m afraid of. I’m terrified that he’ll figure everything out about me, and still want to stay.

I would rather him run. He’s too good not to run.

Connor knew all about my shattered pieces, and he chose to stay. Look what it did to him.

“What do you mean, my contradictions?” I use the corner of the blanket to wipe the grease off my hands once I finish my pizza.

Maverick stares at the last bite of his slice before he begins to talk. “I don’t know, it’s something I kind of noticed about you on the first day I met you. You’re just kind of a contradiction. You have this attitude that’s supposed to scare everyone away and seems—”

“Dark?” I ask with a smirk.

He tips his pizza slice at me. “Yeah, dark. And it sounds dumb now that I’m saying it out loud, but you just have this air about you that doesn’t strike me as girly. Yet you walk around in the girliest, sweetest pair of pink floral boots. You scream goth and spoiled rich girl all at the same time.”

“What’s wrong with being both?” I ask.

Maverick grins, his mouth still full of pizza.

I wait for him to finish chewing, bumping his knee with one of my boots that, apparently, he’s put a lot of thought into.

“You can be both,” he says. “I actually love that you’re both, but that doesn’t make you any less of a contradiction.” He points to the pizza box, silently inquiring if I want more.

I shake my head at him, my appetite curbed for the time being. “Tell me more about these contradictions I have.” My hands pull at the strands of my hair as I look over at him.

His back is facing the water as he pulls his legs out of a cross-legged position and stretches them out across the blanket. We both sit with our feet outstretched on the blanket. Maverick’s propped elbow now rests right next to my foot.

“On the day I first met you, I remember thinking how odd it was that a face as beautiful and serene as yours could be giving a look of hate like the one you had on, staring at that damn board,” he says.

My teeth pull on my lip as I think back to that day, back to that dumb quote and how angry it made me. “I see.” I pull my eyes off the water to look at Maverick again.

He’s watching me closely, his fingers playing with a blade of grass. He doesn’t say anything; he just stares at me for a few moments longer with a thoughtful look on his face. Then, his gaze travels to the expanse of land around us.

It really is beautiful to look at. It’s about midafternoon, and the field is mostly silent around us. Every now and then, you can hear the rustling of the field when the wind blows. It’s peaceful, the way the tall grass dances back and forth with the breeze. We stay silent for a while, the both of us lost in our own worlds.

Maverick is too busy picking at the grass to notice me staring at him. I seize the opportunity to analyze him without having him analyze me in return. He wears a pair of jeans, and the same Adidas on his feet from the day we met.

The hoodie he has on is simple and black. My eyes make it to his face—the face I hadn’t ever wanted to admit was so strikingly handsome. That straight nose of his is sitting above his perfect set of lips. A set of lips I’m still reeling from after feeling them against my own. The way they moved against mine is something I will never be able to wash from my memory—no matter how hard I try.

I follow the sharp edge of his cheekbone, to the exact spot I’ve seen tension and frustration apparent on him. I keep moving up his jawline until I reach his hair, the hair that’s dark brown and perfectly long at the top. I wonder how long I would have denied how badly my fingers had always itched to run through the locks, to grab onto them and force his head against mine.

And those eyes. Those blue eyes the same color of the ocean that took my first love from me. The eyes that just looked up at me, framed in long dark eyelashes.

We maintain eye contact for one, two, three seconds before I ruin the moment and finally ask, “What happened with Selma?”

28

Veronica

I await his response, my heart on edge. I know he wouldn’t be here with me unless he was fully single, even if I had no intentions of taking things any further with us.

But I also know we’re past an innocent friendship at this point.

What I don’t know is what could have happened between the two of them to cause them to break up after so many years—or why he’s chosen to be here with me.

So many questions run through my head while I wait for him to answer. I almost wish it wasn’t so silent in this field—it leaves me too alone with my thoughts. An agonizing amount of time passes before he finally responds.

“We broke up. It was a long time coming, actually. Neither of us realized that. Or at least, neither of us wanted to admit it.” Maverick sits up and pulls his legs toward him, his knees resting right in front of his chest. His body now sits closer to mine.