Page 9 of I Was Always Yours (RCA: Royal Crown Academy)

My body follows willingly, and I’m helpless to look at anything but his hand wrapped around mine as we run together.

My hair is loose and flying around my face, my smile is at full stretch, and I’ve never felt more alive.

When we reach the clearing, we see the other three boys standing there, waiting for us.

Phoenix releases my hand before they have time to notice he was holding it in the first place and whistles at them to get their attention.

Rogue turns and takes one look at us before a dark smirk stretches across his face. “Of course he went looking for you.”

“Shut up,” Phoenix answers him, stopping me from asking Rogue what he meant by that.

“It’s your turn, Sixtine. Feel free to come find me,” Rhys says with a grin, “I’ll be waiting for you.”

Phoenix violently shoulder checks him as he walks past him, but Rhys only laughs.

“Alright,” I say, turning away and putting my hands over my eyes, “One… two… three…”

I start counting and when I reach one hundred, I take off running. I have an inkling of where Phoenix would have gone, but I can’t look for him. It won’t be fun for the others if this game goes in circles between the two of us, so I run in the opposite direction.

I find Astor in less than three minutes and tackle him to the ground when I spot him. We roll around, fighting for dominance, shrieking and laughing loudly for a few minutes until we hear a throat clear from above us.

Looking up, I see Phoenix standing there, shooting daggers down at us.

“You won, ladybug.” Astor acknowledges with a breathless laugh as he stands and helps me up.

I shake off Phoenix’s stare and smile at Astor. “I kicked your butt, actually.”

Astor turns towards Phoenix. “How did you know you were safe to come out?”

“I didn’t.” He bites out.

“Cryptic,” Astor says with another laugh, “Use your words, Phoenix.”

He stuffs his hands into his pockets and looks away, refusing to meet my eyes.I watch the muscle in his jaw twitch.

“I heard Six scream, I wanted to make sure she wasn’t hurt.”

My heart squeezes at his concern and I throw my arms around him in a hug. He remains stiff, his hands never leaving his pockets.

“I’m alright, thank you for checking.” I say, my cheeks turning pink with embarrassment.

He stomps off towards the clearing, not bothering to acknowledge my hug or wait for Astor and me.

“Very interesting,” Astor says under his breath, watching him walk away.

“What is?”

“Nothing.” He says, shaking his head.

“Now you’re the one being cryptic.”

He shrugs and throws his arm around my shoulder, guiding us both back to the meet up point.

We play a couple more rounds until the sun sets and darkness wraps around us.

I don’t get caught again and while half of me is happy, the other part of me is sad that I didn’t get any more one-on-one interactions with Phoenix.

Soon enough it’s time for dinner, so I wave goodbye to the boys and run back up towards my house.

---