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Xander
I watchedPeyton hurry away from me, cussing under my breath when she finally disappeared out of view.
Fuck.
I hadn’t planned to hurt her like that, not again. But I’d seen the way her eyes lit up when she turned and saw me standing there. The flicker of hope pass over her face. I’d seen the extra layer of makeup and formfitting outfit underneath her coat, and I couldn’t let her run with it. I couldn’t let her think that yesterday was anything more than me offering her a small act of comfort.
Even if my eyes had lingered on her curves for a second longer than they should have.
I hadn’t meant to reach for her yesterday, to pull her into my arms and try to absorb her pain as my own. I hadn’t meant to brush over the kiss like it wasn’t important. Like she hadn’t crossed a huge fucking line. But she drew me in. I was man enough to admit that. Peyton intrigued me, and not only because she was beautiful and wiser than her years. It was the shadows in her eyes, the darkness she tried so hard to bury.
The truth was her fucking soul called to me. And yesterday, I’d slipped. I’d allowed myself to get close. But it was wrong on so many levels. I hadn’t been there, down by the lake, comforting her the way Jase or Cam or even Asher might. As an adult, as a father figure. I’d been comforting her as a friend… something more than a friend. Someone I felt drawn to. And when she’d pulled away from me and looked up at me with tears in her eyes, something inside me had cracked wide open.
She disarmed me. Because she made me care.
A seventeen-year-old girl did what no other woman ever had.
It was fucked up. That the first person I truly felt anything for—was completely and utterly forbidden.
“Whoa, what happened to you?” Jase asked me the second I reached the locker room.
“Car trouble.” It wasn’t a complete lie, “sorry.”
“Anything I can help with?”
“Nah, I can handle a flat tire.” I threw him a smirk and he rolled his eyes.
“I’ll see you out on the field.”
With a stiff nod, I moved past him and headed for the assistant coaches’ office, dumping my bag. Thankfully, Coach Huckley was nowhere to be seen. I wasn’t in the mood to deal with his passive aggressive bullshit after the hour I’d just had trying to bring my piece of shit truck back to life.
I hung my jacket on the rack and ran a hand down my face. I needed to get it together. It was better that Peyton hated me than believed there could ever be anything between us.
When I headed out, a few stragglers were still in the locker room. “Coach expects you on the field pronto,” I grumbled, pausing when I heard Peyton’s name.
“Come on, Hughes, spill the beans. You and Peyton… what’s going on there?”
Bryan chuckled. “Already told you, man, I don’t kiss and tell.”
“We all know you ran to her rescue when Farrow cornered her at the game. You’re her hero.” The guy—a kid named Sam—chuckled. “The question is though, did she get on her knees and thank you?”
My spine stiffened, but I wasn’t sure if it was the way Sam was talking about her or if it was the idea of her with Bryan… or both.
Backing up a couple of steps, I poked my head around the locker cages and said, “Field, now.”
“Shit, sorry, Coach.”
I stormed away but not before I heard Bryan say, “Don’t fucking talk about her like that, okay?”
I didn’t stick around to hear the rest. Bryan was protective of her, and part of me was relieved she had someone in her corner. But it didn’t stop the acidic taste of jealousy on my tongue.
The second I burst through the doors and into the cold air, I inhaled a deep breath trying to erase the image of her from my mind. But my eyes immediately went to the bleachers.
And even though I knew I wouldn’t find her there, I still looked for her.
* * *
Peyton didn’t seekme out again. She didn’t come with Lily to watch the team practice, and on the odd occasion I actually ventured into the school cafeteria to grab some lunch, I never saw her.
