Lead Me Home (Fight for Me #3)(57)

I paused for a second, gathering my thoughts, my words. They trembled with the quiet truth. “Stayin’ away from you is getting harder to do.”

She weaved her fingers through mine and pulled our entwined hands to the thunder of her heart, so loud it ricocheted through my room. “Things are changing, Ollie. I can feel it.”

What terrified me most was that I felt them changing, too.





18





Ollie





Sixteen Years Old





The sound of water crashing below them filled their ears, the spray of the falls cooling their skin as they stood at the edge of the cliffs with the sun beating down above them.

“Hey, pussies, are you coming, or what?” Rex hollered from the lake below, his head bobbing as he treaded water, moving out of the way so the three of them could jump.

Kale was already swimming back toward the beach so he could climb back up to jump again.

“Don’t be an asshole, Rex,” Sydney shouted.

He laughed, swiping his hand across the top of the water to make a wave. Like it could possibly fly all the way up to splash her.

Ollie chuckled under his breath. Sydney was right. Rex was an asshole. Constantly throwing jabs and gibes, Kale and Ollie throwing them right back.

Didn’t mean Ollie liked him any less.

They’d just gotten back from football camp. Third year they’d gone. All of them would be starters on the varsity team this year. It’d been . . . exhilarating. Pushing himself, testing his limits.

But fuck.

He’d missed home.

He’d missed this.

He glanced to the girl, to her trembling hand wound in his.

He’d missed her.

Nikki Walters.

The girl who was supposed to be his best friend.

His second sister.

In that second, it slammed him.

The admission no longer something he could deny.

He’d missed her.

More than that, he wanted her.

Wanted her in a way he wasn’t supposed to, but with the way he’d been feeling at night in the dark—hell . . . with the way he’d been feeling in the light of day—it was getting harder and harder to ignore.

She’d had a boyfriend all last year, even though he’d told her he didn’t like it.

Not liking it was a damned disrespect to the way he actually felt.

He hated it. Abhorred it. It made his insides feel like they were shriveling up and disintegrating.

Not that he could say a whole lot since he’d gone through at least ten different girls in that time. But not one of them made him feel like Nikki.

Sweet, timid Nikki who was shaking in her floral bikini that showed off her rail-thin body, the girl nothing but skin and bone.

Didn’t matter. His body reacted no matter how fucking bad he begged it not to. There was just . . . something about her that twisted him all up inside.

“Come on,” Sydney urged, angling her head. “You can do it.”

He could feel his sister squeezing Nikki’s opposite hand.

There they were. Teenagers. Close to grown. Three of them holding hands the same way as they’d done since they were little kids.

Best friends never leaving the others’ sides.

Call it lame.

Hell, Rex constantly razzed him about it, giving him shit that he liked the girls better than him.

He did.

His crew was cool. His friends the type of guys he could count on for anything. Guys who would always have his back and he’d have theirs. No matter the circumstances.

But not like this. He didn’t care that the rest of them didn’t understand. Ollie’s entire world was watching over these two. Protecting them.

Problem was, that protectiveness for Nikki had grown into something new.

Nikki nervously peeked over the edge. She sucked in a staggered breath and started backing away, shaking her head as she tugged her hands from theirs. “You guys go ahead. I’ll take the trail back down.”

Sydney turned to face her, wearing her own bikini. That made him angry, too.

He’d kill whoever looked at her the wrong way.

The last year, he’d gotten into trouble twice for fighting some dipshit who thought he could mess with his sister.

One he’d overheard talking about her in the locker room, saying how easily he could get in her pants. The other had the audacity to think Ollie would actually turn a blind eye when he’d found them making out in the back of the senior’s car at a party.

Fuck no.

“No way, Nik Nik,” Sydney said. “We aren’t going without you.”

“Really. It’s fine.”

Sydney perched a hand on her hip. “No, it’s not fine. It’s fun. I promise. You don’t want to miss this.”

Nikki shook her head, timid the way she’d always been. “I’ve never done it before.”

A giggle lifted from Sydney, and she bounced forward, taking Nikki by the hand. “That’s the whole point. It’s the experience. About living. You know this. Every day counts, every moment matters. Don’t ever forget it.”

Ollie reached out and gathered back up Nikki’s hand. “Yeah.”

Every moment mattered.

“Come on, you can do it,” Sydney reassured again. “You don’t have anything to be scared of. Ollie and I are right here. We’ll be with you the whole time.”