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Nix wasn’t afraid. Something told me he’d shout our relationship from the rooftops if I let him. But he had to know it wasn’t that simple.
“Let’s go, Maxy.” Humor laced his words as he climbed out of the car, waiting for Max to do the same.
Nix poked his head back inside and grinned. “Go to Strike One, we’ll meet you there later.”
“Nix, I’m not sure—”
“Please, B. For me.” He pouted, and it was so freaking adorable I melted.
“Fine.”
“Good, Chloe is going to meet you there.” He winked and slammed the door.
“That wasn’t weird at all,” Celeste grumbled, reversing out of the parking spot.
I glanced back, watching Nix and Max disappear down the street. “Did he seem okay to you?” I asked.
“Who Max? Just his usual douchebag self.”
“Yeah, I guess.”
I was sure I’d seen something in his eyes though, a moment of hesitation. Of pain. Or maybe it was simply wishful thinking. That my own trauma made me look beyond someone’s cold, cruel persona and search for a reason. As far as I knew—and I didn’t know all that much about the youngest Rowe-Delacorte sibling—Max had experienced a pretty typical childhood for a kid growing up wanting for nothing.
Celeste’s cell phone vibrated and she let out a little huff of irritation.
“Miles?” I asked.
“Yeah, we had another fight earlier.”
“Why didn’t you say anything?”
“Because it’s stupid.”
“It’s not stupid, Celeste, and you can always talk to me about this stuff.”
She met my gaze in the rearview mirror. “Thanks.” She pressed her lips together, trapping a sigh. “Maybe we were better off as friends.”
“But I thought you liked him?”
“I do. At least, I did.”
“Do you know what I think? I think you need to push all thoughts of a certain brooding bad boy from The Row out of your mind.”
“I’m not… fine, maybe Zane is a tiny part of the problem. I can’t stop thinking about him.”
“Celeste…”
“I know, I know. I’m such a cliché,” she murmured.
“No, you’re not.” There was something about a misunderstood bad boy that called to girls like me and Celeste. Maybe it was the idea of breaking the rules, of taming the untamable. Whatever it was, I’d been there once, swept away in the fantasy. Except, my attraction to Nix was so much more than that.
It always had been.
It was something innocent that had slowly, deeply flourished into something more.
Silence filled the car, both of us lost to our own thoughts. The last time I’d been at Strike One, I’d seen Nix. It seemed like so long ago when in reality it was only a few weeks. But time was often an unquantifiable thing for me. Days sometimes blurred into each other or ran on and on and on. Sometimes, it was like time stopped and no amount of clock watching would speed it up.
Sometimes nine months apart from Nix felt like an eternity, yet at other times it felt like no time had passed at all.
