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CHAPTER TWO

BECKHAM

“I’ve got it. I don’t need your help, Beckham.”

“Oh, but it’s my pleasure, Charlene.”

She absolutely hates it when I call her by her full first name, which is exactly why I do it. Especially when she calls me Beckham. It irritates me when she does it. I want her to call me Beck, like she used to. She doesn’t like her full name, and I don’t like thinking she doesn’t care about me anymore. Maybe it’s immature of me, but her calling me Beckham … makes me feel like she might truly be over me.

Charlie pushes her hair back, feigning indifference to me with an eye roll and a shoulder shrug. She’s got her sarcastic defenses up, and I can’t say I blame her. She trusted me once, and I broke it by not speaking up when I should have.

I know I’m the last person she wanted to see, but I really needed to come home to check in on my dad and sister, Brooke, after the latest news we got about my mom. Plus, it’d been almost a month since I’d seen them.

It’s just been the three of us for years. We’ve been through some things together that, without each other, we wouldn’t have survived.

I turn back to Mr. and Mrs. King and give her a hug first. Carol always pulls me in and does one solid squeeze before letting me go. I reach out and shake Tim’s hand. I’ve always had a great relationship with Casey and Charlie’s parents.

When we moved to Troy, Oklahoma, from Pennsylvania, I was pretty traumatized, although Casey and Charlie don’t know the half of it. The Kings took me in and made me feel like part of the family. I’ll never forget that.

Carol walks around to the other side to say one last goodbye to Casey.

Tim leans in and quietly says, “You boys will keep my son safe on the field, right?”

“You know we will. I’ll keep your girl out of trouble too,” I say seriously but with a smirk.

“Yeah, you do that.” Tim laughs and pats my shoulder before turning to walk to Casey.

I pull the passenger door open and climb into the front seat. I casually look into the back to see Charlie glaring at me. Or at least trying to. It’s kind of cute really.

“Why are you the way you are?” she asks me.

“And how would that be?”

I do love to rile her up. Because if I wind her up, that makes me feel like she still cares about me. And I really want her to care.

“Oh, you know, you act like this perfect gentleman to everyone.”

“I am a gentleman.”

“Ha. Yeah, right. Sometimes, I think my parents love you more than us,” she huffs.

“Nah. You know that’s not true. Although I am pretty great.” I add a wink just to see what she says next.

“Turn around, Beckham. I’m trying to find my Zen.”

Before I can respond, Casey opens his door and climbs into the driver’s seat.

“You have everything you need, sis?” he asks Charlie.

“Yep, I’m ready. Let’s get going. The faster I can get out of this truck, the better,” she mumbles.

As he turns on the car, Taylor Swift starts blaring through the speakers.

“Dude, really?” I say.

“Bro, don’t knock Tay. She’s the queen.” He laughs. “Actually, Noelle and I were listening to it yesterday after we dropped off some new fishing line at her dad’s marina.”

Noelle is Casey’s other best friend. She grew up with us, but she wasn’t really into the athlete scene, so we didn’t hang out a bunch in high school. She and Casey have some sort of bond that Charlie and I were never really a part of, but we liked having her around.

Noelle went to Walker with us last year too. She’s awesome, but she dated this super douche, which was kind of a surprise to Casey because she had never shown any interest in athletes before. She liked the more studious types. Trey Grant, the douche, played baseball at Walker, and we knew him a little before they started dating. Never really had a problem with him until he did Noelle dirty. I still don’t know everything that happened. Casey won’t betray her trust like that.

“I mean, did you forget that you went to a Taylor Swift concert with us when we were thirteen?” he adds.

Laughing, I say, “All right, all right, I validate that Tay Tay is, in fact, the queen. I’m not really knocking you anyway. Turn it up, brother.”

When “You Belong with Me” starts playing, I can’t help but look in the side mirror at Charlie, who just so happens to meet my eyes. I see a flash of hurt before she looks down.

“Come on, guys. Don’t leave me hangin’. Sing with me. Char, sing!” Casey says.

“Charlie is not available right now. Please leave a message, and she might return your call,” she snarks back at Casey.

“Charlene May King, if you don’t sing with me, I’ll call Mom and tell her you’re planning to get trashed tonight at the Lambda Xi house,” he threatens.

Wait, what?

“Gasp! Casey, you are a dirty, filthy liar! Blackmail doesn’t look good on you, brother . Besides, I wouldn’t touch those guys with a ten-foot pole. They’re nasty,” she claims.

“Charlie, no one actually says gasp ,” he says, laughing.

Releasing the breath I didn’t realize I had been holding, I laugh along with him and then say, “I got you, bro. Let’s turn this up.”

If I can keep myself distracted on this ride to campus, I might make it there without cracking a tooth. I can feel Charlie glaring at the back of my head, so I do the next worst thing and move my seat back a little, taking up more space, watching her reaction in the side mirror.

Even though it was my idea to come get her to bring her to campus, the sooner I can get out of this car, the better. Smelling her peony perfume is driving me crazy. And that stretch of freckles on her nose—the ones she thinks no one notices, but I do—yeah, I can’t help but stare.

I’ve always been drawn to her.

I was eight years old when I first laid eyes on Charlene King. I was helping my dad bring boxes off the moving truck. We moved into a new house, and Charlie moved into my heart. Yeah, sounds cheesy, but that’s just the truth. She was a little bossy at first, which made me laugh. She was this little thing in baggy overalls with long brown hair braided into two pigtails, golden-brown eyes, and a smile that looked like trouble, especially because she was missing her two front teeth. She gave me a four-leaf clover, and I wanted to be her friend immediately. Then Casey came chasing after her, and from that point on, it was the three of us.

I miss that.

I miss her.

Turning my eyes from the side mirror, I pull my phone out and play Block Puzzle and sing with Casey. I can’t say I have a good voice, but neither does Casey. Aside from Casey and me singing along to literally all of Taylor’s albums, the rest of the ride is pretty quiet.

I’m lost in thought, plotting how I’m going to get my girl back.

Phase one is in motion. She’s coming to Walker.

I’m going to make her mine again. She just doesn’t know it yet.