My brother obviously doesn’t realize we’re supposed to support one another and be a team.
This whole semester has been a painful realization of where I stand with Ben. When we lived on opposite sides of campus, it was easy to rationalize the distance since we didn’t grow up together after our parents died, but now that he lives across the street, I can see he’s not interested in having a relationship with me.
She squeezes my arm.
“I’m okay. I usually try to forget all of that stuff, but with Poppy being in this situation, I felt I had to speak up, you know?”
“You did the right thing,” Bree says. “Those dumbasses will thank you someday.” Rider coughs dramatically, and Bree smirks. “Yeah, you heard me right back there.”
I glance behind me and see Rider’s lips tugging up.
Bree nudges me. “How’d you end up doing so well in school given everything you went through? Going through foster care? Not having parents?”
“I kept to myself mostly.” I shrug. “School and studying were always safe. Books don’t level you with a backhand to the face or a kick to the ribs.”
When I see the horrified look on her face, I cringe. “Bree, I survived. A lot of other kids have it worse. Which is why I’m really glad we’re protecting Poppy.”
She stops to hug me, and I smile. I’ve had so few hugs in my life, I forgot how good they feel. She sniffles and waves her hand at me. “Ignore me. I’m not crying.”
Over her shoulder, I catch Rider’s fierce expression, but I don’t want his sympathy. I don’t need anybody’s sympathy.
I resume our trek down the aisle and change the subject before this gets any more awkward. “So how freaked out are the guys who are babysitting right now?”
Bree snickers. “They’re prolly shitting their briefs.”
When Rider picks up a random box off the shelf, Bree cackles. “Chief, we don’t need that unless you’re planning to breastfeed.”
“Oh, shit.” He puts the manual breast pump back so fast, we crack up.
But his laughter is long gone once we’re at the checkout, and he gets the bill. “How can one small child cost this much?”
Remembering back to when my mom struggled to afford stuff for Ben and me as a single mom, I almost sympathize, but then I remember this is Rider, the golden boy. Everything always works out for him. He doesn’t need my concern.
Bree has to make a phone call, so after loading up Rider’s old Jeep, I find myself alone with this man for the first time in three years.
It’s more unsettling than I anticipated.
Sitting in the back seat, I try to appear absorbed in people-watching out the window and ignore the sense of déjà vu that almost overwhelms me.
The soft scent of his cologne threatens to whisk me back three years ago to that time we rolled down the windows and drove around through winding back roads in the Hill Country.
I remember it clearly, that night he finally kissed me, and I made the mistake of thinking he meant it.
“Gabs, can we talk a second?” He clears his throat.
Nothing good ever follows that statement. I brace myself for what’s sure to be an awkward conversation.
“I just want to apologize for our… misunderstanding freshman year.”
I’m silent for a moment, but the rush of anger that spikes my pulse has me responding before I think better of it. “You’d call it a misunderstanding, huh?” I roll my eyes. “Funny, I didn’t think I misunderstood anything, but if you want to mansplain it to me now, go for it.”
Why make this easy for him?
It’s always been difficult for me to make friends, but for some reason, Rider slipped through my defenses.
I was assigned to tutor him in English. I remember meeting him in the library, and the shy smile he gave me. He was embarrassed to need help. It was the most endearing thing I’d ever seen, and I swear when he leveled me with those big gray eyes, the ground fell out beneath me.
I’m a practical girl, but foster care made me cynical, and ending up with my aunt did nothing to help my outlook on life. But Rider was funny and sweet, not to mention ridiculously good-looking, and I went over faster than a felled log in a forest.
This was before he was the golden boy of the football team. When he was just this guy Rider from some speck-of-dust small Texas town like me.
Even though he rode the bench, I went to all of his games, and we’d grab pizza afterward and talk until late in the night. Although he didn’t outright say it, I knew he had a rough home life. He mentioned that his father was an ass. I wanted to wrap my arms around him and make it better.
And I thought I meant something to him. That what we had was special.
Until he became the starting quarterback.
He runs his hand through his hair. “It’s just that I needed to focus on football. I had all this pressure, and—”
“And you wanted to sleep around and fuck all the pretty girls while you weren’t playing. I totally get it. And I was just some little virgin who couldn’t possibly comprehend your need to sow your wild oats. See? No misunderstanding at all.”
“Jesus, Gabby, it wasn’t like that.”
I’ll admit he gave me one awkward-as-hell conversation where he cancelled our tutoring session and mumbled something about needing to focus on football. How he couldn’t get too serious about anything.
I thought he meant partying and socializing. I didn’t realize he meant me.
My teeth bite into my bottom lip as I think back to that weekend.
It was the first time I’d gotten a little drunk. That night I told him about being in foster care. About losing my parents and being separated from my brother. Things I didn’t tell anyone. Ever.
He kissed me. Held me in those big strong arms. For the first time in years, I felt safe.
And then the asshole ghosted me.
I catch his searing gaze in the rearview mirror. Even now, years later, those intense gray eyes hit me squarely in the chest like a grenade. But I breathe through it and remind myself he doesn’t care for me. Not one bit. I won’t be fooled again by the sincerity in his expression.
It means nothing. It never did.
I shouldn’t have a laundry list of offenses ready so long after our “entanglement” ended, but I do. And it erupts out of me before I can tamp it down.
“Really? Then how do you explain suddenly not returning my phone calls or texts? Or blowing off our study sessions? Or pretending I didn’t exist when we ran into each other?”
The fact that he knows I blocked his number means he eventually tried to contact me, but I didn’t do that for at least a month.
I vowed never to be so dumb again, and in a binge of junk food and angry music, I swore off Rider Kingston and all men like him. I decided then and there never again to be duped by a pretty smile and some bulging muscles.
Jocks like Rider can suck a dick, because I’ll certainly never get down on my knees for a douchebag.
Blinking rapidly, I wish I could take back everything I just said. Because I know I shouldn’t care this much three years later.
He clears his throat again. “I’m sorry. I was an ass. I’m not denying that, but what I’m trying to say is that it had everything to do with me and not you.”