“Miller and I are—”
“Just friends. Uh huh. Does he know that?”
My head whipped to her. “Of course, he does. Why? Has he mentioned something to you?”
Shiloh looked at me for a long moment, then said, “No. He hasn’t.”
I eased a small sigh of relief. “Good.”
Shiloh rolled her eyes. “Because you’re afraid of messing things up and you don’t believe in real love anyway.”
“I believe in love, but yes, I’d be afraid of messing things up with Miller. He’s too…special to just date or whatever and then have things go south. It’d ruin us.” I shook my head. “I nearly lost him once, Shi. I can’t do it again.”
“So Miller lives permanently in the friend zone but River gets a free pass?”
“I’ve had a crush on River since always, you know that. But he’s the most popular guy in school, in his senior year, and on his way to a storied career in the NFL. I’m completely busy studying and prepping for college. Neither one of us have time for anything serious. I mean, he’s barely spoken to me, but yeah…we could date. That would be nice.”
“You mean safe.”
“Well, yes. I don’t want to get to college with zero experiences, but if it turns out there’s no college money, I’ll have to work even harder than I am now.”
“So, you want to date River and have what kind of experiences? The kind that require birth control?”
“Maybe.”
Shiloh’s brown eyes widened. “You’d let him punch your V-card?”
“What? You think because I’m a dork who spends all her time in the library that I don’t have the same sex drive as everyone else? I’m a geek, Shi, not a nun. And God, I haven’t even been kissed yet. I’m ridiculously behind.”
“It’s not a race,” Shiloh said. “And anyway, you’re not a geek anymore. You’re going to be in the Homecoming Court and probably Prom Queen. Especially if you start dating the future Prom King.”
“No way. Evelyn’s got Prom Queen locked up.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure.” Shiloh leaned back in the grass on her elbows. “What if you fall in love with River, despite your best attempts to remain a casual slut? What if he falls in love with you?”
I laughed. “If something happened with us—and that’s a pretty big if—we’d be practical about it. I’m going to UCSC, which doesn’t have a football team. River has to go somewhere else, like Alabama or Georgia. It would be stupid to get serious and then go our separate ways.”
“Wow, you have it all figured out, don’t you?”
“I have big plans, Shi. Trashing my heart isn’t one of them.”
“We don’t always have a say in what our hearts want,” she said in a quiet tone I’d rarely heard her use. “You know that, right? Didn’t you tell me you loved Miller?”
My stomach inexplicably fluttered to hear her say that out loud. “I do. You know he’s like…a brother to me.”
The words tasted sour in my mouth, but I didn’t take them back.
“Have you seen your brother lately? You’re not the only one who’s matured into a stone-cold hottie.” She arched a brow at me. “You haven’t noticed?”
“No. I mean, yes. But I don’t think of him…in that way.”
Shiloh stared at me a moment more and then shrugged. “If you say so.”
More words to protest rose up, but she was right. I had noticed that Miller was no longer the skinny, underfed thirteen-year-old he’d been when we met. He’d grown taller, bigger, his shoulders broadening, his muscles defined. His handsome features had become more chiseled, more masculine, his jaw and cheekbones more angular. A shadow of stubble and his longish hair—paired with his usual flannel shirt and knit beanies—gave him a scruffy, alternative rocker vibe.
It was very easy to picture him on stage at a festival, thousands of fans—girls—clamoring for him as he sang in that rough, soulful voice of his…
“Hey.” Shiloh nudged me gently from my thoughts, her voice uncharacteristically soft. “I get it. You’re protecting something precious.”