Reclaim - Aly Martinez Page 0,35

as I passed it back to him.

“Heads or tails?” he asked, turning the bill in his hand.

“Heads,” I whispered.

“Good choice,” he murmured. Flattening the bill across my shoulder so he could bear down, he wrote his address and phone number in Alberton just above the image of the US Treasury. “There.” He handed it back to me along with the pen and offered up his shoulder in return.

I blushed as he peered down at me while I wrote my address and Thea’s phone number beside Alexander Hamilton’s photo. It was unnerving to be that close to him, but it also felt so ridiculously comfortable, like it was the most natural thing in the world.

“Leaning Oak Drive, huh?” he asked, smiling down at me, his mouth only inches away from mine.

My breath caught, and unable to find coherent words with him that close, I nodded.

We stared at each other for a long beat, making no effort to move away, his hypnotizing blue eyes holding me captive.

His Adam’s apple bobbed, and I licked my lips.

I didn’t know what was running through his mind in that second. But I knew what was running through mine. And it had not one damn thing to do with me going on a date with Josh Caskey.

Camden cleared his throat and suddenly walked away, leaving me standing there, holding our ten-dollar bill in midair, the pen still poised over it.

“How long until you have to leave?” he asked, walking to the same big rock he’d spent at least half of last summer perched on top.

“Like an hour.”

He smiled. “All right. Well, fill me in on all things Nora Stewart before you go.”

Now, that I could do.

Camden stripped leaves on the rock beside me while we caught up. I strategically left out all the pissed-off, bitter, and depressing parts of my year. It didn’t leave a lot to be told. He filled me in on the happenings in Alberton. To hear him tell it, it still stunk literally and figuratively. He hadn’t had much luck in the making-friends department, but he’d read a couple of really cool books. This digressed into long, animated stories of complex sci-fi plots I didn’t care about in the least.

But I listened, rapt and with a smile on my face, for no other reason than it was Camden talking. He was so excited to tell me about aliens and distant planets he didn’t even notice when I slipped the ten-dollar bill into his pocket.

I’d really missed that nerd.

Choices. Everyone makes them.

And my choice that day was to leave the best, truest friend I’d ever had to go out on a date with a boy I no longer cared about in any way, shape, or form.

And in a matter of hours, that choice would ruin us all.

“What the hell are you doing?” Josh hissed as he opened his grand front door complete with two golden lion head knockers. I’d always thought they were hideous and kind of snobby, but so was the six-foot-tall iron fence that surrounded the mayor’s mansion. In a world where you could buy anything, why get golden lion head knockers? Being rich must have been weird.

I smiled at my date. “I had to pass here to get to the baseball field. I figured we could walk together.”

Josh slid outside and quietly shut the door behind him. “Have you lost your mind? People might see us.”

“Excuse me?”

He nervously glanced around. “Ramsey can’t find out about us. You’re still in middle school. And if people see you over here, you know word will get back to him before you can sneak back home tonight.”

“Why are you so worried about Ramsey? I bet if we just talked to him, he—”

“Nobody can know!” he whisper-yelled. “I already told you that, like, a million times.”

“Okay, okay. Sorry. Relax.”

He let out an irritated huff. “Just go wait for me in the dugout. I need to grab my stuff. You didn’t tell anyone where we were going, right?”

I rocked back on my heels, not at all impressed with his tone. “No.”

“Good. Now, get out of here, and I’ll meet you there.”

I nodded, and as soon as I turned away, I rolled my eyes. Great. He was in a bad mood. Just what every girl dreamed of on their first real date. I should have just canceled and hung out with Camden or not shown up at all. I’d felt like a jerk leaving him at the creek on his first day back, and if I was being