“Where are your clothes, Crosby?” I zipped up the jacket, covering her midriff.
“Wet in a bag in my locker. Asa dunked me, duh. Weren’t you there? Callie lent me some stuff.”
“I see that. Do you guys know how to play air hockey?” Maybe I could distract her, distract myself from that body. The attraction, the pull—whatever you want to call it—felt guilt-inducing, wrong, and totally fucking exhilarating.
Entire point being, she beat me that day. Fair and square. Crosby was sharp, and she was fast. She was sixteen, and I was going to hell for staring at her ass. Amid the whistles and the bells, the revving engines and the bad music, through the shouting teenagers and growling zombies, her score inched higher and higher on the board as mine fell with a negative buzzer. Her smile grew wider, and my gut grew heavier with disgrace. I’d defend the girl to death—she was the closest I’d ever had to a sister—but every time she made eye contact with me, my neck hair stood on end, I felt a charge in my lower spine, and a buzzing energy filled my head. Crosby felt it too; I could tell by her demeanor. But she couldn’t feel as fucked as I did because, to her, it was all new—the hormones, the crushes, flirting and teasing. But I was in college and I already knew. Crosby would be the end of me, and I knew it on the spot. She creamed me 7-1. Her game was good. Her innocence coupled with her beauty, though—that’s what obliterated my heart.
2
Crosby
“Mom, I can’t find my flip-flops. Can I just take yours, and then you can have mine when they turn up?”
Mom laughed and went over to the hall closet to look through the rack. She pulled my turquoise flip-flops from a large wicker basket and tossed them my way.
“I love your logic, BeBe, but mine are designer, and yours are from Target.”
I pouted my lower lip in her direction, but it was all in good fun. She’d sacrificed enough already for me to be able to spend my junior year of high school abroad. I knew it wasn’t cheap. I knew Mom and Dad had worked so hard to recover from the crash. Working in real estate meant feast or famine, and they’d had to make hard decisions over the years. My stellar grades got me the offer, but the time I spent in Italy wasn’t free. I could have waited until college to travel, but my mom would hear nothing of it.
“BeBe, lightning doesn’t strike twice. I don’t want you ever to feel like you missed an opportunity. No looking back, no regretting the things we didn’t do.”
There were no better parents in this world than mine—my whole damn family was pretty spectacular—Asa included, even though his and Weston’s overprotectiveness was, more often than not, suffocating. My own father was more lenient than those alpha-dog assholes.
“Mama, if I can get that internship that I applied for in Milan, I’m bringing home more designer clothes for you than you can fit in your closet.”
“Just bring yourself home safe and sound, and, of course, speaking fluent Italian.”
“And an Italian husband with ties to the Amalfi Coast,” my dad piped in. Dad was the most lighthearted out of all us. I got my sense of humor from him, along with my sense of adventure.
“Hey, watch it!” Asa chimed in as he and Weston came up out of the basement. They were both in college and lived in the dorms, but they had come home for the weekend to celebrate with me—an impromptu going-away party organized by Callie’s mother. We were going to the bowling alley, planning on eating dinner there, and then being home by midnight so I could get some rest before my long fight in the morning.
Asa had moved his room downstairs during his senior year of high school. Dad, along with the boys, redid the entire space so Asa practically had a bachelor pad underneath our two-story English Tudor style house on Covington Street. Weston had his own house and his own parents, but you’d be hard-pressed to tell, gauging by the time he spent with my family.
West shook my dad’s hand, and Dad pulled him into a bear hug. He kissed my mom’s cheek and then approached to kiss mine. My heart beat like a bowling ball falling down the stairs. Interactions between Weston and me had been strained for some time now. He was overprotective to the point of being obnoxious. I was almost seventeen and had never been on a date because all the guys at school were terrified of the repercussions. Mom said it was just because Weston loved me as if I were his own little sister. But at the rate I was going, I’d be flying solo for both homecoming and senior prom. At least my year abroad would give me a much-needed breather.