Page 12 of One Spicy Summer

Damn it. I have to adjust myself just from a whiff. Tell me I’m gone without telling me I’m gone.

I start to turn, needing just a glimpse, but her heavy footfalls echo as she bolts up the stairs.

“What’s up with her?” I ask, pretending not to care as much as I do.

“What’s always up with her? Boy drama, I’m guessing.” Rafe doesn’t even look up from his PS5. “Go check on her, will ya?”

“She’s your sister. You go.”

“Nah. She actually likes you more than she likes me.”

“That’s ‘cause you still treat her like she’s twelve.”

“Sheistwelve, in my head. Go, man. Please?”

I get up, already smiling like a fool.Truth is, I was hoping for a reason to see her.

Her parents are working late, again. Always in my favor. Gives me time to watch her without interruption. Not that I ever get enough.

After practice, we came here to chill and game, same as always. Been trading off houses since forever. Football’s getting more intense by the day, and this is our decompression time. Sometimes we study, mostly we don’t.

Both of us are eyeing the future, college ball, maybe more, but lately, I’ve been questioning it. I love the game. I do. But I don’t want to live with the fear of one wrong hit ending it all. Endingme.

As I creep up the stairs, mind spiraling, I’m not even thinking about her possibly being half-naked in her room. I mean, I’ve seen it all before.

When I said she was just one of the guys, I meant it, back when she’d dance around the house in seashells and Rafe’s boxers on her head, singing SpongeBob at the top of her lungs.Poor girl thought shelivedin Bikini Bottom, not Cedar Creek.

That girl? She loves to dance.

I used to catch her mid-mop, music blasting, windows open, barefoot and lost in the beat, thinking no one was watching.I was always watching.

Since she turned fourteen... Beautiful. Gorgeous. Talented. Mine.

My foot hits the landing. I pause. No music. That’s rare. I move toward her room.

Then I hear her voice through the door, tight with anger.

“I know, Ag, it just pisses me off that that douche had the nerve to go around telling people that. No wonder that bat and those little assholes said what they said.”

“Yeah, but fuck them,” Agatha fires back. “As long as you told your side, who gives a damn what that little dick prick has to say.”

I smirk. Where do they come up with this stuff?

“Girl, stop. I don’t want to laugh right now.”

Too late. She’s giggling.

“Too bad,” Agatha says. “Nobody should shed tears over Wiley McFucking Nag. He’s a fucking imbecile.”

“Yeah, but he made me look like a whore in front of half the school.”

I don’t even think, I shove the door open, letting it slam against the wall.

“What the fuck did he do?”

“Who is that?” Agatha says through the phone.

“Hang up,” I growl, stepping into the room, closing the door behind me.

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