like you do mine. “Yeah.”
She turns away and sighs. “I don’t really have anything going on with Brogan. He found my number on a note I left for Bailey, and we texted a few times. Honestly, I’m embarrassed because when I met you, I assumed you were the guy I’d been texting. And to be fair, I may have read you a little differently if I hadn’t been thinking his words were yours.”
“You liked him?”
She lifts a freckled shoulder, and the side of her mouth quirks up in a crooked smile. “He’s sweet. He made me laugh.”
The words are a punch to the gut and they fill me with an emotion I’ve never felt toward Brogan. Jealousy. I want to be the one to make her laugh. The one she calls sweet. And I hate the idea that any chemistry between us today was created—even in part—by the things he said to her.
“I was with my last girlfriend for five months before I found out Brogan had a thing for her. He’d asked her out before we started dating, but I’d been clueless. He never told me because he thought she was special, and he didn’t want to get in the way of me being with someone like that. He’s that kind of guy.” It sucks by way of an apology, but when she lifts her eyes to mine, I know she understands. “So you see, this is the part where I’m supposed to tell you to give him a chance. I want to be the guy who’s good enough to give you that speech.”
She tugs her bottom lip between her teeth. “But that’s not why you’re here.”
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Brogan’s the closest thing I’ve ever had to a brother. I’d never pick a girl over him, and definitely not one I don’t even know. And yet here I am. I drop my gaze to my hands. “If you have feelings for Brogan . . .” What? I’ll watch them be together? Act like I don’t care when he holds her hand? When he kisses her?
“What happened with her? The girl Brogan liked?”
I lift my head and meet her soft brown eyes. “I realized later she only wanted me because I’m a Woodison. Brogan’s family never had enough money for her to give him a second glance.”
Something changes in her expression. Her eyes seem to harden, and she leans back in her chair as she stiffens. “You’re a Woodison? As in Woodison Pork. Woodison Farms?”
Figures. She doesn’t recognize me as the star football player, but she knows of my dad. “Guilty.” That’s the worst part about going to college here. Everyone knows my dad’s business, or at least knows of it. You can’t miss an empire that powerful in a place as small as Blackhawk Valley.
She shoves her book into her bag and shakes her head as she stands. “Don’t worry about this, Arrow. I’m not going to ruin a friendship just so I can be the townie who got to go on a few dates with a football player.”
She starts to walk away, and I stop her with a hand on her shoulder. “What just happened?”
She shrugs. “I won’t be choosing between you and Brogan. I don’t want anyone. I don’t have time for that in my life right now.”
When she steps out from my grasp, I let her. I watch her walk away, and even though my brain is telling me it’s for the best, that getting involved with her would be a mistake, my stomach plummets, and it’s all I can do to trap the word on my tongue: Stay.
Mia
I wander around the trailer park under the light of the street lamps, one hand in my pocket where my knuckles brush the leaf Arrow gave me. “It matches your sweater.”
“Hey, sexy!”
I spin around to the sound of Bailey’s voice and manage a smile for my friend.
“So did you talk to your boy, Brogan?” She cocks her head, and a lock of her long blond hair falls across her forehead. “Or is it Arrow?”
Sighing, I roll my eyes. “It’s neither.”
She slings an arm over my shoulders and bumps her hip against mine as we walk down the gravel lane. “Do you want to talk about it? Or do you want to pretend that having two insanely sexy men drool over you is no big?”
I nudge her with my elbow. “No one was drooling. It was a big misunderstanding.”
The gravel crunches under our feet as we walk. “Brogan told