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PROLOGUE

CHARLIE

“Charlie, wait!”my twin brother, Casey, yells.

“No chance, sucker! Too bad I’m faster than you. Better catch up, Case!” I shoot back at him.

My twin brother and I are running around the field just outside the playground in front of our school. It’s near the end of the school year, so the weather is getting hotter every day. Sweat is running down my back and dripping along the sides of my face. I’m used to it though. I’m pretty much a tomboy. That’s why I prefer to go by my nickname, Charlie, instead of my full name, Charlene. My brother is my best friend, along with Beckham, the boy who lives across the street.

Beckham, his dad, and his younger sister moved in a few years ago. He was quiet at first, but Casey and I pulled him into our gang of two, so now it’s the three of us, thick as thieves.

To say we like to get into trouble is an understatement. Like playing baseball inside Beck’s house and breaking the glass in the front window. And making a homemade Slip ’N Slide to play a football game in the mud in our backyard, which destroyed my mom’s flower garden. But Slip ’N Slide Bowl was worth getting grounded for three weeks.

We’re together all the time. In the same class all day and running around the neighborhood all afternoon and into the night.

Casey and Beck have started playing tackle football together. I was so mad that I couldn’t join the team, too, but my parents thought it was too rough for a girl. Even though they know I’m just as strong as Casey, if not stronger.

I can’t play on the football team with them, but they never leave me out. Like today, on the playground. We’ve been racing our classmates, basically for the right to say who is the fastest in the fourth-grade class. I’m not gonna lie—I win a lot. The only person who can catch me is Beck, who is currently right on my heels.

“I’m coming for you, Charlie,” he says with a laugh in his voice.

“No way, Beck. I’m almost to the tree. You won’t catch me!”

Our marker for our races is a huge oak tree that sits near the edge of the field, and I’m almost there. Just another six steps, and I’ve got him.

Just as I’m reaching out to touch the bark, I see Beck’s hand out of the corner of my eye. I really want to beat him this time, so I reach out as far as I can, but it makes no difference. He touches it first.

“Dang it, Beck! I almost had you. Can’t you let me win just once?”

“Aww, don’t be a sore loser, Charlie. I can’t help it that I’m faster. When I make it into the NFL someday, I’ll get you tickets to my games.” He smirks.

Huffing, I start to walk away, but he grabs my hand and pulls me behind the tree. He’s got a look on his face I can’t read. His grayish-blue eyes are looking from me to the kids who have given up on the race now that they’ve lost, but his brows are scrunched, and he’s moving his mouth from a smile to serious and back.

“What are you doing?” I say as I try to pull my hand free from his.

“Shh … I just want to tell you something. Don’t say anything to Casey because I know he probably wouldn’t like what I’m about to do.”

“What are you about to do?” I ask.

“This.” Then he pulls me toward him and places a kiss on my lips.

My eyes are wide, my heart is pounding, and I think I forget to breathe for a second as the sweet sting from Beck’s kiss zings on my lips.

I’ve never been kissed before. If there was a boy who was going to steal my first kiss, I’d want it to be him.

He pulls away, and my eyes are still closed as my heart, which was already thumping wildly from our race, is now about to beat out of my chest.

I open my eyes. My lips part as I try to calm my racing nerves from the surprise that Beckham Linson just kissed me.

Beck swallows and then starts speaking rather quickly. “I’ve been wanting to kiss you lately, so I thought we could try it. You’re one of my best friends, but I like you more than that. I want you to be mine.”

Standing here, looking at him, I start to feel embarrassed by the heat that creeps up my cheeks, and it’s not from running. “What do you mean? Like, you want me to be your girlfriend or something?”

“I don’t know what to call it, but I just know I don’t want other boys looking at you. And you feel like mine, so that’s what you are,” he claims.

I shrug my shoulders, trying to feign indifference even though the butterflies in my stomach are going crazy by the way he’s still holding my hand with one of his and playing with one of my braids with the other. The look on his face is fierce, and I can tell he’s settled into this decision.

One thing about Beck is that he might only be ten, but I think he’s seen a lot more than other kids our age. He had to mature quicker than most—at least that’s what my parents told us. They didn’t tell us the details, but I heard them talking one day about how hard Beck and his sister had it before they moved here, although I didn’t really understand what that meant.