“I was just trying to help,” Beckett finally responded. “She thought no one would ever kiss her.”
“So it was, what? A pity kiss?” My heart fell. My cheeks, that had already been flaming, lit more. “Our poor little Maisey was sad, and you had to step in to help once again? You’re such a sap.”
My entire insides tightened at that word—sap. Beckett had sworn he’d never be a sap like his dad, loving women who didn’t stick.
“You’re such a bitch, Chelsea. You don’t have the first clue about what friends will do for one another.”
My stomach leaped. It wasn’t the first time he’d called her a name like that. It was the one thing Beckett and I fought over. He insisted Chelsea wasn’t the defender I’d always seen her as. But he hadn’t been around when I was five, and the kids on the street made fun of my weird jaw and teeth. She’d thrown rocks at them.
“If it means having to kiss a twelve-year-old, I don’t need friends.” Her tone sounded disgusted, even angry. “If it happens again—”
The rest of her sentence faded away as they moved deeper into the yard. All I could hear was a murmur of voices that sounded uncomfortably like my parents arguing.
When the hum stopped, I could imagine Beckett jumping from the boulder by the chicken coop onto the wooden fence post between the barbed wire dividing our yards. He’d leap like a superhero through the air, land gracefully on his feet, and still end up startling the goats.
And just like in my imagination, the bleat of the herd sounded through the air, followed by Chelsea’s feet pounding up the porch steps.
The noise unfroze me. I didn’t want her to know I’d overheard their conversation. I didn’t want her telling me that Beckett had only kissed me out of pity while warning me, again, that my crush on Beckett was going to get me hurt. She’d already told me kids at school made fun of me, not only for my looks, but because of the way I tagged after Beckett like a stray dog. Like the Hunchback in that animated movie, fawning over the Romani girl.
Beckett was kind to me, but that didn’t mean he was going to fall head over heels in love with me. No one would ever fall for the freak show who’d barely learned to read.
I grabbed the bag with my facemask in it and hurried into the tiny bathroom I shared with my sister.
There was only one thing to do from here—pretend Beckett Romero had never kissed me at all. I’d put the entire memory in a box, lock it away, and forget it had ever happened.
And maybe in a few weeks, I’d be able to look at him again without embarrassment swarming through me like gnats on an apple core.
Chapter One
Maisey
THANK YOU AIMEE
Performed by Taylor Swift
FOURTEEN YEARS LATER
HIM: Are you coming to One-Eyed Frank’s tonight?
HER: Nope. I have leftover enchiladas and a new book calling me.
HIM: I need protection, Maisey-girl. Your protection.
HER: You’re six foot four and roughly the size of a barn. What kind of protection could I possibly provide that you couldn’t give yourself?
HIM: If I’m with you, other women stay away. I don’t risk offending someone and getting slapped. You’re protecting my cheeks from taking a real beating.
HER: It isn’t your cheeks but your ego that needs a beating.
PRESENT DAY
I opened my locker door andstared at the woman who appeared in the mirror inside. I scowled at her. “You arenotgoing to Frank’s.”
Especially not looking like this—like I’d just gotten off a twelve-hour shift that had started at seven this morning. With my plain brown hair pulled back in a ponytail, makeup all but worn off my long, narrow face, and in scrubs with unicorns on them, I looked like I was sixteen instead of twenty-six.
I locked my sage-colored eyes on the reflection. “Maisey Campbell, you will not go to One-Eyed Frank’s. He will not crook his finger, and you show up.”
It was a battle I’d been waging for two decades when it came to Beckett. Sometimes I won. Sometimes I lost. And every time I lost, it reminded me I was the same idiot girl who’d fallen for the heroic boy-next-door, who’d patiently taught her to read.