Turned out it was because he saw me like a little sister.
“I’m fine. Practice?”
“Four guys on the team got detention today. Coach was so mad, he canceled practice. And then Kim told me you left school ’cause you were sick. I got worried.” He pulled on my arm, so I turned to look at him.
His handsome face clouded over, those amazing gray eyes filling with suspicion and concern. “You’ve been crying. You’re not sick, something happened.” Micah seemed suddenly fierce. Like he’d fight off an army for me.
The vision of him and Christy in the darkroom flashed in my mind, and I turned away from him. “Nothing. I’m okay.”
Hurt silence filled the air between us.
I never shut out Micah.
But that was the problem.
“Valentine.” He leaned over me, brushing my hair off my face. I suppressed a shiver. “You’re really worrying me.”
“There’s nothing to worry about,” I whispered, my voice cracking as I fought back more tears. “It’s just stupid girl stuff.”
“Oh. Is it … is it your period?”
I looked at him in surprise. Most boys (even my dad!) couldn’t even say the word, let alone think it.
Micah grinned. It was crooked and boyish. And I was so in love with his smile. “I grew up with just my mom. I’m not squeamish. Girls get periods, it sounds like they suck, and I don’t envy you. Unfortunately, they’re kind of a big deal in the perpetuation of humanity, and you ladies have to bear it for us men because we have a zero-pain threshold. And the baby thing. No way we could do that. So … thanks. For all of that.”
I couldn’t help it. I laughed at his rambling.
His eyes brightened. “That’s better.” He shook me gently. “Come on, Cupid. Tell me what’s wrong.”
A tear escaped before I could stop it. “It’s not my period … I found out today that the boy I like likes someone else.”
He seemed shocked. Uncomfortable. His hand withdrew from my arm.
I turned away. “Told you it was stupid.”
“Hey, hey.” Micah leaned over me again, and I couldn’t help but meet his gaze. He studied my face like I was precious. I wished he wouldn’t. It confused me. “Any guy who doesn’t see how unbelievably special you are isn’t worth all these tears.”
Right.
Except he was.
I lowered my gaze so he wouldn’t see the truth.
“Come here.” He hauled me into his arms. A big part of me wanted to shove him away. But I loved the feel of Micah’s strong arms around me. I pressed my cheek to his shoulder and held on as he whispered against my hair, his voice gruff, “There is no one like you, Val. No one. Don’t waste your time on any guy who doesn’t realize how fucking lucky he is that you want to be with him.”
I smiled sadly and held on a little tighter as my dreams of us each being part of one whole disappeared.
I decided then and there that I would take Micah Green’s advice to heart.
Chapter Three
MICAH
AGE 18
“Are you in a mood? Is it because I danced with Steve? You know we’re just friends.”
I looked down at my prom date, trying to figure out what she was saying.
Me in a mood. Dancing with Steve. Right. I shook my head at Alison. “No. I’m not in a mood. You know prom’s not really my thing.”
Alison chuckled and then grabbed me by the lapels. “It’s your senior prom. I’m going to make it your thing.” She dragged me onto the dance floor and I did my best, pretending like I wasn’t searching the room as we swayed to a cheesy song.
The truth was, I was in a mood.
I’d been in a mood my entire junior and senior years.
That was what happened when you were deeply, miserably fucking in love with a girl you couldn’t have.
And to top off this shitty year, she was my friend’s prom date.
I couldn’t believe Graham had asked Valentine to our senior prom.
I couldn’t believe Valentine said yes.
She’d dated quite a few losers over the past eighteen months. My little pep talk when I found her crying over some guy I didn’t even know but wanted to kill had worked a little too well.
But Graham was the worst of the lot.
There had been times when I first moved in with the Fairchilds that I thought my feelings for Valentine might be reciprocated. I wouldn’t do anything about it because I couldn’t reward their kindness by going after Val, but there was a part of me that felt elated she might feel the same way. Instead, I screwed around with a couple of cheerleaders and hoped they’d take my mind off my whopping crush on the daughter of the people who had turned my life around.
It didn’t work.
Little Cupid was in my blood.
As it turned out, I wasn’t in hers. She’d made that clear by dating half the guys in my class.
“You are in a mood. I can feel the tension in your body,” Alison huffed.
Alison had been elected student body president and head cheerleader after Christy went off to college. It wasn’t that I had a thing for cheerleaders. I had a thing for smart girls who were as ambitious as I was and didn’t want to get weighed down by a high school romance.
“I need to use the bathroom. I’ll be back in a sec.”
I’d seen Valentine dancing with Graham a little while ago, his hand on her ass.
He hadn’t said it to me, because he knew I’d fuck him up, but he had to be thinking he was getting laid tonight. It was prom night.
Over my dead body.
Cursing under my breath, I escaped the ballroom of the fancy-ass club the school had rented and found the men’s room. I tried to shake off the black cloud hovering above my head before going back out there.
As I was leaving the restroom, however, something caught my attention in my peripheral. I turned toward the hallway that led to a closed-off part of the members-only club.
Cupid. Sitting on the floor, knees to her chest, her arm around some crying girl I didn’t recognize. As the girl wiped tears from her cheeks, something inside me eased upon seeing Valentine.
I leaned against the wall and watched Cupid as she comforted the girl at her side.
Eventually, she pulled the girl to her feet, hugged her, and then led her toward me. Val’s eyes brightened when she saw me. Her companion blushed and hurried away from us, joining the line into the women’s restroom.
Val and I met each other in the middle. I tried not to check her out. It was really goddamn difficult. She’d designed and made her own dress, and she was a knockout in it. Lately, she’d become obsessed with this ’50s vibe. It suited her. Over the past eighteen months, her body had changed. I’d heard her complaining about it to her mom, and it took everything within me to tell her she had nothing to worry about.
She was all tits and ass.
And the ’50s vibe worked for her big-time. It showed off her curves.
Like now, in her strapless, cherry-red dress that fit like a second skin. The hem stopped just below the knee, and the heart-shaped neckline showed off Valentine’s cleavage a little more than I’d like. I wasn’t too happy about that. Neither was her dad.