Page 518 of Forbidden Billionaires: Vol. 11
Before you threw my heart into oncoming traffic. Yeah. I remembered too. “Well...since then. Being single isn’t fun. Notwhen all your friends are always in relationships. I’m the seventh wheel half the time.”
“A little secret for you,” he said.
I looked up at him.
“You are never the seventh wheel. Because no matter who I was seeing...you were always more important.”
I wanted to cry. Because it was so easy to hear his words and twist them into more. I was always more important to him. Because...he loved me back? Or because I was one of his best friends? I so badly wanted it to be the first thing. But I kind of knew he meant the latter.
“You know what else I remember from when we were kids?” he asked.
I wanted to ask him a million questions about his last statement first. But...did I really need to? Sure, Axel was always dating someone. But whenever we needed each other...we always showed up for one another. I mean, he’d been sleeping in my bed for over a week because I’d watched a scary movie. We were best friends. And we always would be.
I cleared my throat. “What do you remember?”
“I remember when we were little and you used to make me play Pretty Pretty Princess with you.”
I laughed. “I definitely remember that.” He’d been a trooper. And I was surprised he had a picture of us playing in his room after all these years.
“So you remember what I told you whenever you didn’t win?” he asked.
I swallowed hard. I remembered. But I didn’t say a word. Because I wanted to hear him say it. It felt like I’d been waiting a lifetime for him to say it again.
Axel reached up and took off his crown. “I always told you that no matter what, you were still the prettiest princess I ever saw.” He placed his crown on top of my head.
Now I really wanted to cry. This wasn’t about being one of his best friends. This felt like more.
“It definitely looks better on you,” he said.
“Axel...” my voice trailed off. I’d been silently begging for him to notice me again for years. Wishing for it every birthday when I blew out my candles. And wishing on every single shooting star in the sky that I’d one day be his again. And with all the lit up stars above us on the ceiling...maybe this was the moment. Maybe all my wishes were about to come true.
He knew I still liked him. I’d told him I always thought my first kiss would be with him. He needed to tell me his feelings changed. Not the other way around. I took a deep breath. “Why do you want us to both be single? Is it so that we both won’t be single for long?”Because we’ll be together?
“What would be the point of a vow of singledom if it didn’t last a long time? Like I said...I want it to last the rest of the year.”
“I don’t understand,” I said. He gave me his crown. He said I was the prettiest princess he’d ever seen.Wait. No.He didn’t. He said he always used to tell me that when I lost the game. He didn’t say he still thought it. He just said his crown looked better on me.
He shrugged. “What’s not to understand? It’ll be fun.”
It didn’t sound fun to me. It sounded like slow torture. Like the rest of my life had been. Sure, he wouldn’t be dating anyone else. But it would be like a ticking time bomb. Just waiting for the year to end. When he’d start dating someone else and I would have wasted another year of my life. On him.
“I thought you didn’t want to waste any more time,” I said.
“And I won’t be. By not wasting time on some girl my senior year that means nothing. Especially when I’ll be going off to college and we’ll have a time limit on it anyway.”
“So you’re planning on leaving everything behind when you go to college?”
He shrugged. “Isn’t that what everyone does?”
I shook my head. “No. Not even close. My dad, Uncle Rob, Uncle Mason, and Uncle Matt were friends in high school and are still friends now.”
“Yeah, but they were childhood friends. That’s different. Like us.”
Childhood friends. Yeah.I loved Axel. I think a part of me always would. But I think it was time that I grew up. He’d always be my first love. But he wasn’t going to be my last. He couldn’t be. Because he’d never love me back the way I loved him.
We’d be friends. Forever. But that was it.
The realization should have hurt. I should have been crying and melting down onto the dance floor. But if I was being honest with myself...I already knew the truth. I’d known it for years.
