Lead Me Home (Fight for Me #3)(42)

Nikki





Fourteen Years Old





Nikki’s stomach tightened. So tight she wondered how it was possible to breathe.

Grating laughter rolled across the stagnant blaze of summer heat.

She pressed her lips together and focused on plucking at the grasses beneath her that grew thick along the riverbank and not the girl Ollie had his arms around.

They were hanging out under the big shade tree where Ollie, Sydney, and Nikki had played for all their lives along the winding river about a half mile up from the lake.

Sure, Kale and Rex were there, too. They’d become a part of their group a long time ago. They belonged.

But it felt like Meredith was invading it.

Why would Ollie bring her there?

And why did the fact that he had make her feel this way?

It was stupid.

Dumb.

But she couldn’t stop the way her insides felt sticky and gross when Ollie picked Meredith up and fell backward with her into the water.

His arms all around her as her screech of surprise ripped through the air.

The two of them were splashing and laughing as they resurfaced before he was kissing her again.

Nausea ran the length of Nikki’s throat.

Ugh.

Nikki was gonna throw up.

Boys were so stupid.

Fingers snapped in front of her face, and Sydney’s voice broke through the delirium. “Hello? Did you hear a thing I said?”

Nikki’s head jerked up. “Yeah, I heard you.”

Okay. Not at all. But she wasn’t about to admit that.

Sydney’s eyes grew round. “So . . .” she drew out.

“So, what?”

Her voice became a hiss beneath her breath. “Did Billie kiss you? I saw you walking with him behind the locker rooms at the park.”

Redness flushed to Nikki’s cheeks, and her face twisted in disgust. She hugged her knees to her chest a little tighter. “Eww. No way, Sydney. Don’t even put that vision in my head. I’m liable to puke right here.”

The thought of Billie putting his mouth on her made her want to gag.

Mix that with Ollie kissing Meredith?

She was gonna lose her lunch.

Sydney looked at her as if she was crazy. “Then why’d you go and tell him you’d be his girlfriend? You could have said no, you know? You know you don’t have to say yes, right?”

Nikki bounced her leg. “Of course, I know that. Maybe I said yes because he’s the only one who’s ever asked me.”

Everyone else had a boyfriend. Could anyone blame her for wanting to know what that was like?

“Who asked you what?”

Nikki jumped when the voice hit her from the side. She whipped her head that way. The tiny flush of embarrassment she’d been feeling at confessing it to Sydney bloomed like the red roses in her grandma’s garden when she saw Ollie standing there holding Meredith’s hand.

He had on no shirt and was dripping wet. Muscles on his arms that hadn’t been there before. And his stomach . . .

She had to duck her head when she realized she was staring, her mouth going dry and her stomach that was already in knots making this fluttery feeling that had her thinking she might take flight.

No chance of that when her belly was filled with a pile of boulders that made her feel small and weak.

It was the same thing it kept doing whenever Ollie was around. It made her skin feel hot and her palms get sweaty. Anxious and excited at the same time.

She knew everything she was feeling was just plain stupid.

This was Ollie, she was talking about. Her best friend. The third corner of their triangle, even though that triangle had taken a few new angles since Kale and Rex were always hanging around.

“Ollie . . . don’t you know when to mind your own business? We’re having an important conversation over here. It’s private,” Sydney said. She angled her head at Meredith. “Besides, it looks like you have more important things to do.”

She said it as if she actually thought it’d make him tuck tail and walk away.

They used to all tell each other everything. Their secrets belonged to the other.

The three of them had since Nikki could remember. Her heart lit in a flurry, wanting to cling to it, for it to always remain.

But she wasn’t delusional.

Things had changed.

Ollie, Rex, and Kale had started high school last year, and this fall, she and Sydney would be starting there, too.

They’d all grown.

Changed.

They used to be together constantly, sharing all of their time, but their time together was coming less and less.

Plus . . . Ollie had Meredith.

Nikki would be a liar if she said that didn’t bother her the most, her chest so heavy when she saw them together she thought it might cave in.

Ollie released Meredith’s hand and set both of his on his hips, taking that overbearing stance.

He’d watched them like a hawk for all their days.

Their constant protector.

“No one?” he all but demanded. “I just heard Nikki saying, ‘He was the only one who asked her.’ Now I want to know who he is and exactly what he asked her.”

Embarrassment ripped through Nikki when Meredith giggled at Ollie’s side while looking at Nikki as if she was a pitiful little girl.