AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Hey, little star,” he says, voice low and gravelly, bringing a million memories I buried deep back to the surface.
My hand pauses in the scruff at Gracie’s neck before her nose pushes into my cheek impatiently until I start back up, scratching behind her ear.
“Riggins. What are you doing here?” I ask, staring at the man I haven’t seen in nearly five years outside of magazines and television.
“Coming to see my wife,” he says, and my world shifts on its axis.
2 HOMESICK
THEN
STELLA
There’s a tiny clink on my window, and with it, I hop out of bed and slip on my shoes before opening it. It’s dark, the moon nearly full, and its glow is lighting up Riggs’ face more than normal. His hand moves in the dim light, a come-on gesture I’ve seen a million times by now. Nodding, I grab the messenger bag I keep on the cushioned bench of what my mother calls a reading nook (it has instead become my writing nook, much to her dismay) before pushing the window open further and swinging my legs out.
With well-practiced moves, the toes of my battered white Converse touch the tree's rough bark next to my window before I step onto it. Then, I proceed to carefully climb down until my feet hit the ground.
We walk quickly in silence until we’re two blocks down the road, where he parked his truck. Despite the late August weather, I’m shivering in the night air as we hop in. Before I even say a word, he leans in the back, grabbing an old sweatshirt and tossing it at me.
Smiling, I tug it over my head, trying to be discreet as I sniff the collar that smells like Riggs.
“I wasn’t sure if you’d be up,” he says as he starts the truck and puts it into drive. “You didn’t text me back.”
“Mom took my phone again,” I say with a sigh. He looks over at me as he drives, his smile wide, and his dimple comes out. My heart pulses hard, looking at my best friend, the most handsome boy I’ve ever seen.
Riggins Greene was my neighbor for the first fourteen years of my life until my mother decided she didn’t like my spending so much time with him and forced us to move to the other side of town. She would have moved out of Ashford altogether to punish me more, but that would also mean punishing my twin, Everest. Considering Evie is the perfect daughter, she’d do anything to keep her happy.
So now I live eight traffic lights away, a full three miles from him. Thankfully, there was only a year between my moving and Riggs getting his license, so there was only a year of riding bikes a mile and a half to meet each other halfway. Now, when we want to write songs, he picks me up, and we drive to our spot.
“What’d you do this time?”
I shrug but smile all the same.“I told her I don’t want to do cheer this year. Sign-up forms came home.”
“Oh, how dare you.”
“I’m ruining my future career opportunities, you know,” I tell him, quoting my mother. “Not having four years of cheer on my college applications is the end of the world.”
He scoffs out a laugh, then reaches over and scrubs his hand over my hair, mussing it.
“As if you’re smart enough to go to college,” he says with a smile.
I slap my hand on his chest. “Hey, I’m plenty smart. That’s why you had to have me, a sophomore, help you with your junior-year math homework last year.”
“I know, little star. You’re plenty smart.”
I roll my eyes, but now that we’re on the topic….
“What are you doing next year?” I ask, suddenly interested in my nails as he drives over familiar dirt roads.
“What?”
“Are you going to, uh, apply to colleges and whatnot this fall?”
He scoffs out a laugh.
“Hell no. We’re taking the band on the road as soon as I finish school. Gonna try and get a label to sign us.”
I know this, of course. It’s what he’s always talked about. But now that the future is looking much less distant, Riggins leaving Ashford with his band seems less like a daydream and more like a clear road he’ll travel soon.
