Page 12 of The Way We Score

Inhaling, I straighten my back, feeling like I’m in confession. “I started picking fights over stupid things. I was jealous,and there was this one guy… He went after her hard. He talked a big game like they were so close.”

“Was he on the team?”

“He was one of the band captains, so they spent a lot of time together. They practiced together, traveled together. The Golden Girls go with the band.” Lifting my chin, I look out at the water. “I was never there, so I didn’t know what all they did.”

“You broke up with her over a band captain?”

“Worse.” Clasping my hands, I shake my head. “I gave her an ultimatum.”

“Wow.” Logan rubs his hands down his thighs, exhaling a low noise. “Dylan said Liv always wanted to dance for the Texas cheerleaders, America’s Sweethearts. She said it had been her dream since junior high, that she had posters all over her walls.”

Clearing my throat, I shift in my seat. “Yeah, and I made it all about me. I understand that a lot better now than I did when I was nineteen.”

Logan shakes his head. “That sucks.”

“Tell me about it.” That old shame twists hard in my gut. “When I realized how bad I’d fucked up, I tried to push it all down. I tried to pretend like it didn’t matter. I’d keep track of her through friends and on social media, and I saw she never got with that guy. I saw she was moving on with her life. She didn’t go to Texas to dance. She went to law school instead—at Cumberland.”

“Good school.”

“Yeah.” I exhale a bitter laugh. “I convinced myself she was happy, and I got on with my life. I moved to New York and never looked back.”

Logan studies my profile. “All this time I thought you were just trying to find the right girl. I didn’t know you never got over your first love.”

“It doesn’t matter. There’s no going back.”

“Says who?”

“Says everybody.”

“I don’t believe that. You can totally go back.” His voice rises. “In fact, I think you’d be foolish not to see if something’s still there. You’re here and single. She’s here and single…”

“She won’t go down that road again with me.” Shame tightens my chest. “I should’ve trusted her. I should’ve told her how I was feeling. I should’ve talked to her, but I was proud. I hurt her. Bad.”

I’ll never forget the tears in Liv’s pretty green-hazel eyes. I’ll never forget that night and the wind blowing in her soft hair as she told me I was breaking her heart. The truth is I didn’t just hurt her.

Yeah, I never got over it.

“So talk to her now.”

Shaking my head, I study my palm. “It’s too late.”

“Is it?”

He’s optimistic in a way that tells me he’s happy with his life. Everything is going right, and he sees every problem as having a solution with only the best possible outcome.

I’m glad my sister has made him so happy, but he doesn’t understand how bad I fucked up in the past.

“Yeah, it’s too late.”

“Do me a favor.” He reaches over to grip the top of my shoulder. “Try.”

“Tellme what you’ve got lined up.” Dylan is wearing clear goggles and plastic gloves, and her long, dark hair is twisted up in a high ponytail on her head as she stands in front of the large, metal work table in the kitchen at Cooters & Shooters.

Tonight my baby sister is mixing up her last Dare Dish before she goes on her honeymoon, and it’s a doozy—Blueberry Trinidad Scorpion sauce to be served over those little cups of vanilla ice cream they buy in bulk for emergencies.

She said it’s meant to be a pre-wedding treat, but Trinidad scorpions are second to the top on the Scoville heat scale, right under the Carolina Reaper. I read eating one can cause the muscles in your stomach to break out in spasms they’re so hot.

I can’t wait to try it.

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