An unflattering heat bloomed in my stomach, pushing up my throat, hot and lethal. He was wrong. Peyton’s impetuous nature would have kept up with Jagger. In ways I never can. “No, Peyton would have been right there with Jagger, figuring out how to get the bear upright on the lawn! She may have been your best friend, but she was my sister. Don’t you dare act like you knew her better than I did.” I shook my head and threw my hands up. “She wouldn’t recognize who you’ve become. Where’s the boy who left for West Point with her? The one with the thick southern accent that disappeared while he was in New York? He’d have been out there, too, strapping on the last PT belt. He’d have been friends with Jagger.”
His shoulders dropped, and his voice softened. “I may have lost my accent, Lee, but I didn’t lose my honor, which Bateman has none of.”
“His honor had him dive off a pier to save my life, Will. Give the guy a chance. Not everyone goes to West Point.” Or changes like you have.
“What he did was wrong.” His voice was low, hard as concrete.
“The world isn’t always as black-and-white as you see it. Jagger pulled a prank. The class prank, if I’m not mistaken, which you are a part of, right? You chose not to participate, which I get, but sinking your classmates?” Same class. But if they were in the same class, then why…? Ice ran through my veins.
“Someone has to set the example.”
“Jagger was at SERE with you these last three weeks.”
His forehead puckered. “Yes?”
“But you…you said you weren’t back until yesterday. Jagger came by the library on Thursday.”
He paled. “I was…I was home Wednesday night.”
I waited for pain to streak though me, but all I felt was annoyance. “I’m sorry?”
“I was home, but I had a ton of work to get done, so I told you Friday so I could get it done and spend all my time with you this weekend. You know how important flight school is to me, Lee.”
“So you lied. Honor and all?”
His face crumpled. “God, Lee. I’m so sorry. I didn’t think of it like that, I swear. I just didn’t want you to come over and see me with my face in a study guide. You deserve 100 percent of my attention, and so I didn’t tell you until I could give it to you. I promise that’s all it was.”
My eyes flicked to his fingers, which always rubbed together when he was lying. They were still. “Well, it hurts. I know we don’t have this passionate, insane relationship or anything, but you could have at least wanted to see me.” No burning.
“I did, I swear. But I didn’t want to half-ass my time with you. I won’t make the same mistake again.”
I locked my right arm to my side, protecting my tender skin as he pulled me into the familiar spot against his chest. With Will, it would always come to this; our friendship meant forgiveness. “Okay. Just remember this moment when you’re snapping to judgment on someone else.”
“Bateman.”
“He saved my life, and he’s…” I swallowed. “He’s my friend. Can’t you please cut him a little slack?”
He cupped my face in his hands and brushed a kiss softly across my lips before shaking his head. “I love you, Lee, but you’re too damn trusting. I’ll teach you to swim if you want, but please stay away from Bateman. There are two of us in this relationship, not three. This isn’t an ultimatum, but I’m asking you not to let him come between us.”
I wanted to refuse, to draw my line in the sand just to make me bigger in his eyes, but that wasn’t a relationship. He’d asked something I was capable of giving, which meant I needed to be mature enough to give it to him. “I won’t swim with him anymore.”
“Okay.”
I hadn’t lied, but I hadn’t exactly told the truth, either. I looked at the picture of Peyton’s impish grin on the mantel.
“Thank you, Lee.”
Lee. I closed my eyes and inhaled the scent of hundreds of summer days, and Will…and home. When I opened my eyes, she was still there, perpetually smiling.
He followed my line of sight. “God, I miss her, too. She really was the best of us.”
Usually that declaration made me feel closer to him, acknowledging our shared grief. But today it shriveled a tiny piece of my heart.
Will was wrong. There were already more than two of us in this relationship, and I was the third wheel.
Boom! One of the players slammed into the glass walls around the ice, and I jumped. Jagger did this for fun? He hadn’t responded to my texts, and when I’d gone by the house, Masters told me he was here in Montgomery, playing hockey.
I claimed a seat on the almost empty bleachers and yelped. The bench nearly froze off my girly bits. Maybe a skirt hadn’t been the way to go, but I hadn’t changed after Sunday services, just jumped into the car. My impetuousness was about to earn me frostbite.
I needed to sort out what had happened yesterday, but I also wanted to see him, which was utterly wrong now that I knew who he was and how much Will despised him. What if he didn’t want to see me? What if our friendship, as new as it was, had been squashed by simply knowing how our lives intertwined?
Which one was Jagger, anyway? They looked the same under all that gear.
“I have an extra hoodie, if you’d like it.” A girl my age sat down next to me, a black zip-up hoodie in her hand. Her auburn hair was piled in a twist, and the smile she offered reflected in her blue eyes. She was beautiful without being overly made-up, which made me instantly lean toward liking her.