I’d do it as many times he needs me to. God knows he put his life on hold for me.
“Thanks, Austin.”
“Give Palmer a hug and a kiss from us.” He snatches Easton up before he runs into the parking lot.
“I will. Love you.” I blow a kiss and Easton giggles, blowing one back.
Once I’m alone in my car, I pull out of the doctor’s office parking lot. My mind can’t stop thinking about the first time I met Jamison and how perfect our destiny seemed then.
Six
Sedona
Seventeen years old
Phoenix slams her locker. “The nerve of him. Telling me to ‘buckle down on my studies.’” My twin sister imitates our oldest brother, Austin, with a scowl.
Whereas I’ve always felt sad that Austin had to return home after college to raise us, Phoenix challenges him at every turn. What should’ve been the fun-filled years of his twenties, playing pro baseball and enjoying life, have been spent raising my siblings and me after our parents died. He’s only trying to get Phoenix to take her future seriously. He’s always stuck between the older brother and father role.
“Don’t just stand there and say nothing,” she says, leaning against her locker.
I dig into mine, switching my biology book for my calculus one. “I don’t disagree with him. I get that you’re all in for the theater group doing Grease this year, but if you want to go to college, they want the grades too.”
She shrugs, pulls out a piece of gum and pops it into her mouth, nodding to people passing through the hallways. “Maybe I don’t want to go to college. Kingston didn’t.”
I roll my eyes, remembering the fights between him and Austin. Even now that he’s graduated from the fire academy, Austin still thinks Kingston’s life should’ve taken a different path.
“If they’d give me my money, there wouldn’t be a problem.”
“You know that money is only for college.”
We walk down the hall. She’s got English while I’m in calculus. “Again, I bring up Kingston. I swear he’s Austin’s favorite.”
“I don’t think he has a favorite,” I say.
“Well, I think I’m the one he hates the most. See you.” She turns left into her classroom as I turn right.
I blow out a breath and decide to concentrate on what I can control—getting out of Lake Starlight and following my mom’s footsteps of traveling the world and writing about it. She never explained it, or maybe I was too young to understand, but I’ve always wondered why a woman who chose to be a travel writer decided to have nine kids and raise them in a small town. I guess love is powerful when it’s right. Last year when I was digging through the basement, looking for my ice skates, I found her diary from when she was sixteen. She had so many hopes and dreams until she fell in love with my dad.
Walking to my desk, I nod a hello to my classmates, who I’ve known forever. It’s rare for anyone new to move to Lake Starlight. Which means I’ll be waiting until college to meet anyone special. Don’t get me wrong, some of the boys here are cute. They just don’t do it for me. I’ll have to go to prom with someone, but as I scan the classroom, no one piques my interest.
Calculus is boring and hard, and I hate it. Why can’t I be in English with Phoenix?
Fifty minutes later, the bell rings and a pit of excitement fills my belly. It’s my lunch period, but since I work on the high school newspaper as editor-in-chief, I can go to the deserted classroom we morphed into our office.
Once I’m there, I take a bite of my turkey sandwich and boot up the computer. Grabbing the file folder in my inbox from Kasey, our sports reporter, I open it to find her resignation. Only she would actually write a resignation letter for a school newspaper. She says she doesn’t have the time to commit to the paper since she now has a part-time job at Lard Have Mercy. Great.
The information for the article I assigned her last week is still sitting there with nothing added, no research done.
She was supposed to highlight the new foreign exchange student who’s attending Lake Starlight High this year. Now that I think of it, it’s weird that I haven’t seen a new face yet. We must run on opposite schedules.
Miles breezes through the door with his tray in his hands.
“Nancy’s still mesmerized by those dimples of yours, I see.” Miles is the only person Nancy, the lunch lady, allows to leave the cafeteria with a tray.
“Actually, I think I lost her. She’s drooling over the new kid from Scotland’s accent.”
“The new foreign exchange student?”
He slides up on the desk, picking up his piece of greasy pizza. “Yeah, in fact, he’s sitting with a table full of girls right now.” Then he pretends to talk in a Scottish accent. “Look at me, I’m mister cool guy from a different country. Yeah, I play football.”
“That was a horrible accent,” I say.
He takes another bite of his pizza. “They’re treating him like a god in there,” he mumbles with food in his mouth.
“Jealousy doesn’t look good on you.”
He shrugs, finishing his pizza, and pops open the can of soda he must’ve gotten from the vending machine.
“I have to interview him. Kasey quit.”
He hops down from the table. “Good luck. The guy is a narcissist.”
“Slight exaggeration?”
He boots up his own computer. “Maybe. You know me, I hate competition, and that fucker is going to get my spot on first string.”
So that’s where all the animosity is coming from. “Hey, do you have soccer practice today?”
He nods, sipping his soda.
“Cool, I’ll try to grab him to set up an interview time then.”
“Ha! Our practices are pretty popular now. You’ll probably have to make an appointment.”
Whatever. Miles is used to being the good-looking guy in our class. He’s the managing editor for the newspaper, class president, and captain of the soccer team. All-around great guy who treats everyone with respect. Usually it’s him with the girls swarming his locker, so I’m sure this is just jealousy.
Just like I’m sure this new guy can’t be that special. The girls in our school are just tired of looking at the same old boys, that’s all.
So, I was wrong.
Miles was right. Thank God I didn’t bet him.
The new foreign exchange student, Jamison Ferguson, is hot. Like HAWT hot. He runs up and down the field, masterfully handling the ball with his feet. Miles wears a red mesh shirt to signify he’s on a different team. Jamison stops the ball with his foot, pivots, and leaves Miles stretched out on the field as he easily moves around Miles and shoots the ball into the goal. Jamison’s arms fly up and he runs to his teammates for hugs and congratulations.
Poor Miles picks at the grass and throws it back down, getting to his feet.
The coach calls practice and I walk down the bleachers, along with a bunch of other girls—Jamison’s new fan club. They wave and smile and giggle as he raises his shirt to wipe his face, showing off a set of abs that you could literally wash clothes on. My core tingles with excitement.