The Forever Girl (Wildstone, #6)(23)

Walker nodded. Caitlin had been furious with Maze.

He hadn’t been, because unlike Caitlin, who’d looked at this from the other side, he understood how Maze had felt, though as usual, she’d let her emotions get the best of her. Back then, she hadn’t yet learned how to temper herself. But at some point, she’d clearly figured that out. She could now hide herself in plain sight.

“A few years ago, I realized only I held the power to make myself miserable about the past,” she said, “but I also had the power to stop making myself miserable. So I reached out. They responded right away, and I tried to apologize but they wouldn’t let me. They were super kind and happy to hear from me, and I was my usual weird and awkward.”

“Those are two of my favorite things about you.”

She snorted and he smiled.

“What did they say?”

“They wanted to meet.”

“And?”

She closed her eyes. “And . . . I didn’t show.”

“Why?”

“Because I was overwhelmed, afraid, nervous . . . hell, I don’t know, pick one.”

“What were you nervous about?”

She shrugged, but he knew. She’d been nervous that she’d be rejected. She hadn’t been able to trust them when they’d said it was all fine because it hadn’t been fine the last time they’d said that, when they’d had to move into the hotel without the fosters. They’d promised to come back for her, for all three of them, but that hadn’t happened. “I get it, Maze.”

She opened her eyes and looked at him. “You do?”

“Yeah. I do. And I wish you’d stop beating yourself up for things that weren’t just on you.”

She took that in for a beat. “I guess I’ll be seeing them at some point this week,” she said uneasily.

He looked into her eyes, saw the fear. The shame. “But this time you won’t be alone.”

Their gazes held and he did his best to send encouraging vibes, but it wasn’t his strong suit.

“I should’ve found a way to see them before now so it wouldn’t be so uncomfortable. I blame Past Maze. Past Maze is the worst.”

“No, she isn’t, and neither is Present Maze.”

She slid him a look. “Would you still say that if you knew that Present Maze’s plan is to avoid them until the last possible moment, adding stress and anxiety to every day that goes by? I mean, it is how I operate best.”

“Maze. It really will be okay.”

“Easy for you to say. You don’t have to face your past.”

Ha. Little did she know.

Caitlin called them over and tried to get everyone involved in some games. First up was Ultimate Frisbee. She put Maze, Heather, and Walker on one team, and Dillon, herself, and Jace on the other. Then she smiled at Sammie. “Would you like to be on my team?”

Sammie shook her head.

“You know,” Cat said, “one of these days I’m going to win you over. You don’t know this, but when I first met Maze, she tried to resist me too.”

Maze smiled. “True story.”

Walker smiled too. When he’d come into the house all those years ago, Maze had been doing her damnedest to ignore Caitlin. A few weeks later, Caitlin came home from dance camp with a black eye. She’d gotten into a fight with a boy who’d been picking on some girl, and after that Maze decided Caitlin was her person for life.

“I won her over,” Caitlin said to Sammie, skipping the part where she’d had to club some boy in the face to do it. “Just like I’m going to do with you.”

Sammie ran back to Heather.

Caitlin sighed.

The teams went off to separate sides of the beach to strategize, and Heather eyed Maze. “We’re going to play nice.”

Maze studied her fingernails.

“Maze,” Heather said.

“I’m always nice. I’m a peach!”

Walker laughed. Maze was super competitive, always had to win at any cost, and never played nice.

Maze pointed at him to shut it.

Heather looked at Walker. “She’s not going to play nice.”

Walker shook his head. “Nope.”

Maze threw up her hands. “The point of a game is to win. What does that have to do with being nice?”

Heather shook her head. “We should let Caitlin win. She’s so stressed.”

“Letting her win isn’t going to help,” Maze said.

“Then what will?”

Maze scrunched her lips together like she was trying to bite back an answer not suitable for public consumption.

Again, Heather looked at Walker. “I’m counting on you to play fair because I’ve never known you to not be fair.”

Maze rolled her eyes. “Don’t let that pretty face fool you, he’s no Boy Scout.”

This was true. He was no Boy Scout.

Caitlin blew her whistle—yes, she’d brought a whistle—and the game started. Maze sent the Frisbee flying in a beautiful, perfect arc . . . and beaned Dillon right in the face. As far as throws went, it was pretty impressive. So was the blood spurt that came from Dillon’s nose. But the most impressive thing of all was the sheer high pitch of the guy’s scream.

When everyone stood still in shock, Walker jogged over to take a look. “Probably not broken,” he said, and while Caitlin doctored Dillon up from her first-aid kit, everyone else moved back to the food, looking for dessert.