Reclaim - Aly Martinez Page 0,30

front, but Nora had never cared about that anyway.

When she didn’t turn around, I moved closer and repeated, “Catch anything good?”

“I heard you the first time,” she snapped. “What do you want?”

Well, I guessed my voice had changed more than I’d thought. She didn’t recognize it at all. “Nora, hey, it’s me. Camden.”

“Oh, I know exactly who you are.” All at once, she stood up and spun on me.

Or at least I thought it was her.

Gone was the freckle-faced little girl who wore glitter barrettes and tie-dyed shirts. She was taller, though nowhere near as tall as I was, and makeup rimmed her golden-brown eyes. A pair of silver hoops hung from her ears, and it struck me that I didn’t even remember if she’d had her ears pierced the summer before. Her denim skirt was short, but nothing the girls at my school weren’t wearing too.

But the icing on the holy-shit-who-is-this-girl cake was the red tank top hugging curves that I was absolutely one million percent positive had not been there before but still made my mouth dry.

Holy shit, Nora Stewart was gorgeous.

“Wow,” I breathed like a total idiot. But that was all I had. “Wow” was the literal height of my intelligence in that moment.

Her cheeks pinked as she crossed her arms over her chest and glared. “Why are you here?”

“What do you mean why am I here? I came to see you, crazy.”

She barked a laugh and stomped past me, her shoulder clipping mine when I didn’t move out of her way. A wave of honeysuckle lingered behind her.

Damn, she smelled incredible. That was new too.

Roughly folding her towel, she avoided my gaze. “Look, I already have worms for today. I paid for ’em and I’m going to turn ’em in, but if you want to work tomorrow, that’s fine. I’ll stay gone.”

“That’s gonna make hanging out a little difficult, don’t ya think?”

She scoffed. “Hanging out? Could I be so fucking lucky? Must be nice coming and going whenever you want without a care in the world.” Folding her hands in prayer, she brought them to her lips. “Oh, yes. Please, Camden. Hang out with me. I’m so, so desperate.” She rolled her eyes with a skepticism that had never been aimed at me before. “Ha! You wish.”

Confusion slapped me across the face. “What the hell are you talking about? I’m not coming and going whenever I want. I just got back to Clovert, like, three minutes ago and came straight here. If anyone looks desperate, it’s me.” I paused. Given her current attitude, it wasn’t the easiest thing to admit, but it was the absolute truth, so I said it anyway. “I’ve missed you.”

Yanking and tugging, she fought with the zipper on her backpack. “Bullshit. Don’t feed me that crap. You didn’t even care enough to say goodbye last year and left me sitting here all damn night.” Hoisting her bag onto her back, she started past me.

I stepped in front of her, blocking her path. “That’s not what happened. I tried—”

“I don’t care!” She craned her head back. “Get out of my way.”

“Not until you listen to me.”

“I don’t want to listen to you, okay? It’s not a big deal. Just because we tolerated each other last summer doesn’t mean we have to do it again this year.”

I flinched as her words slammed into me with the force of a sledgehammer. We tolerated each other? What the hell was that? She was my best friend. I'd been busting my ass day and night all year to make sure my parents would let me come back to Clovert. But apparently, she’d only been tolerating me.

I could barely speak with the knife hanging from my back. “Why are you acting like this?”

“Move, Cam. I don’t give a damn if you do look seventeen now. All it’ll take is one kick to the balls for me to drop you.”

That kick would have hurt less, but I stepped out of her way.

“You can have tomorrow, but fifty worms only. Got it?” She stomped to the container I’d dug into the ground all those months ago and pulled out a plastic baggy with something inside.

My eyes narrowed on the shake of her hand as she struggled to get the baggie into her pocket. Every time she’d get part of it in, the air inside would redistribute and cause a bubble that forced it right back out. I could see some numbers written on the piece of paper that could have