Page 56 of Captivating

His hands on my hips.

His lips on mine.

Him... Why the hell is it always him?

“Or maybe you do know what you’re doing.” She points at my face, and I bite down on my lip as my cheeks flame red.

“It’s complicated,” I offer, not sure I want to open Pandora’s box. Not when Pandora and I have barely spoken in the week since we blew up.

“Dumb it down for me and take your time. I’ve got four hours before I have to pick up Izzy.”

“Dumb it down... I’m not sure how to do that.” Even as I admit that, I know it’ll never appease Addie.

She tilts her head and drops it to the hand cocked against the back of the couch. “Listen to me, okay? Your drama couldn’t be worse than mine, could it? Your cousin spent a night in jail for me.”

“Ours is different,” I muse softly, and she yawns. “Fine. Point taken, but if you turn this into a book, we’re no longer friends.”

Her warm smile stretches across her face, and I sip my tea, not sure I’m ready to go back there. How much drama can one person handle in a week?

“We were kids. Kids playing at being adults. Sixteen years old when it went to hell in a perfectly wrapped package. But that’s not how it started. We were inseparable growing up.”

“But you didn’t grow up in Kroydon Hills, did you?”

“I spent a few months here every year. Every spring and summer before football season started. You know my dad and Jamie’s dad both played football for Baltimore, so that lasted until they retired.” I warm, remembering how much I looked forward to coming back here each year. Wanting Dad to make the playoffs but also desperate for the season to end because the kids here were different from the ones we knew there. “Once he retired, that was it. We were back full-time, and everything changed. Uncle Murphy retired the next year, and by sixth grade, Noah, Jamie, Maverick, Killian, and I were all in the same grade, and we were our own little impenetrable clique. The girls in my class either hated me because I was friends with the guys or tried to be my friend just so they could get close to them. They’d ditch me when they realized the guys weren’t interested. At least, not until high school.”

“Okay... I can see that. Little bitches. I’m dreading when my girls are old enough to deal with the mean girls.”

“Yeah, it sucked. But I had the guys, and I had my music, and that was all I needed.” I think back to the innocence of those few years when the worst thing in the world was having your cell phone taken away as punishment or being grounded for a weekend. As we got older, innocence and freedom started to give way to hormones and other interests, like music and sports. “All I neededuntilI wanted more.”

“Okay.” She tucks her legs up under herself. “Now we’re getting somewhere. I want to hear about the hormones and waning innocence.”

“Oh, good grief, you little romance writer. Always down for the drama,” I poke, and she smiles.

“Yup. Now stopstalling. Again.”

“You’ve got to understand... by the time I was sixteen, I felt like I was twenty-six. My parents were the absolute opposite of stage parents. But they supported my dreams and helped me achieve them. But doing that meant working hard. Performing. Practicing. Writing songs. I felt like school was a part-time job before I officially dropped out for my first tour.”

“Did whatever the hell happened happen before or after you left for your tour?”

“Before,” I whisper.

The weekend before.

“Why don’t you want to go to Gia’s party tonight?” Seventeen-year-old Killian asks me from behind a heavy bag hanging in Crucible. Seventeen. How does he possibly look like this at seventeen? Even Jamie and Maverick don’t have the muscles Killian has, and they’re both looking at D1 football scholarships for college. The gym is basically a dead zone because of the snowstorm raging outside. Meanwhile, I’m a hot mess from the emotions I’ve got raging inside.

Maybe that’s why I don’t feel like going to a house party overflowing with beer, sports bros, and bitchy girls. Okay, and maybe I just wanted to soak up as much alone time with Killian as I can before I leave for the tour.

“I don’t know.” I shrug and go back to doodling on the dotted page in front of me. “I guess I don’t want to spend one of my last nights home with all the catty girls from high schoolstaring at me with daggers in their eyes because they think I’m the reason you won’t date them.”

“Listen, if they can’t handle the truth, that’s on them.” He throws a punch against the bag, and I feel it in my chest.

“What?” I close my favorite pink notebook with the tiny white strawberry blossoms on the cover and tuck my pen inside so I can give him my full attention while my mind runs rampant with possibilities. “What—what truth?”

Killian stops the momentum of the bag with his hands, then moves until he’s standing in front of me, his toes touching mine as he looks down at me. Knees bent and back against the wall, I tilt my face all the way up to him and smile. “What are you talking about, champ?”

He reaches a hand out to me and waits for me to take it.

So damn confident because he’s pulled me up from this floor a million times.

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