Page 6 of Honeysuckle
“That’s just absolutely jinxed us.” Cael chewed on his lip.
“It’s not about getting theteamto work with him,” Ella interjected. “You guys act tough, but you’re a bunch of softies, andyou,” her eyes rolled over Arlo before she finished, “love strays more than a crazy cat lady.”
Arlo grumbled something under his breath as she nudged him with her arm.
“It’s about figuring out whatheneeds,” she said and looked over at me. “Oddly enough, for a group of emotionally chaotic men,” she softened her voice, “and luckily for Josh, you’re good at that.”
“So what, we pull out the baby gloves?” I asked.
“No.” Cael shook his head and grasped his chest dramatically. “Those won’t work—they’re for fragile, volatile angels.”
Arlo snorted. “You’re no angel.”
“Rude,” Cael huffed and threw a piece of bread at him.
“I extended my hand to him earlier, and he tried to bite it,” I said. “He insulted our team and told me he doesn’t need anything from us. How do we give him something he doesn’t want?”
“First, you figure out what hedoeswant,” Ella explained, looking over at Josh. “Go from there. And everyone should stop staring at him like he's a zoo animal.”
“Whatever.” Van shrugged.
“He can see you.” Ella pointed to where Josh had stopped throwing the ball and was staring back at us with a nasty smirk on his face.
LOGAN
Icouldfeelthemtalkingabout me.
The whispers grated against my skin like sandpaper—impossible to ignore. It was sickening how quickly the core group fell in line, casting judgmental looks as they cooked like one big happy family.
Cael had talked about how amazing they were regularly, and it only fueled the need to keep my distance from their bullshit.
We were here to play sports, graduate from university, and move on.
These guys wouldn’t follow me into the next stage of my life. I didn’t care for friendships. It didn’t matter how wonderful things started. Everyone could find something in common if they tried hard enough. But eventually, the silence would set in, and the distance would grow. The animosity for one another's hobbies would fester, and slowly but surely, they would leave. They always did.
It wasn’t about connection. It was about appearances.
The more people around you, the cooler you looked.
People would be jealous and want to be in the circle.
I didn’t want that. I wanted out of Harbor, out of this fucking cursed state and far away from the life I was working so hard to forget about.
Making friends was pointless.
I looked down at my cell phone and groaned at the lack of service. I needed to have service; I couldn’t risk the panic that would ensue the moment my mother couldn’t reach me.
I shouldn’t have agreed to two weeks in the middle of nowhere. That was my first mistake. There was too much chaos in my personal life to be cut off from it cold-turkey. I hadn’t even told her I was coming out here. The stress eroded my focus and made it hard to be in a present space.
But it was just two weeks. I could manage two weeks.
Hopefully, with minimal bloodshed.
My relationship with Dean Tucker had always been tight. Strained by the rivalry but made worse by his constant need to protect everyone. The worst of them all with his sunny smile and stupid toxic positivity. Cael needed to leash his rabid golden retriever before something exploded.
I chucked the ball again, harder this time, and it bounced off the wall too hard and fast to get my hand on it.
“This probably isn’t the best way to make friends.” Silas came up behind me like a fucking bad omen.
