Anyone But Nick (Anyone But... #3) - Penelope Bloom Page 0,3
any of the women he was dating. I wasn’t sure if I believed it, but it was confusing to find I wanted to.
Rich was the put-together, mostly normal twin brother of Cade. Like all the King brothers, he was offensively hot. They were like the three brothers of the apocalypse, at least if apocalypses could be caused by raging female hormones. Rich would bring destruction to all the women with traditional taste. He was smart, funny, and kind. He’d charm your mom and dad, be great with the kids, and probably help fix your dad’s 401(k) while he was at it. Cade would charm your mom in particular, piss off your dad, and wind up talking one of the kids into doing something reckless that resulted in broken bones.
The Nick I’d known in high school was harder to figure out. He had seemed nice enough, but there was also a dark cloud around him if you looked closely. You’d never quite known what his goals were, but he was so viciously intelligent that we’d all known he was destined for something incredible.
“Thinking about everything, huh?” He stroked his chin thoughtfully. “People don’t usually think about everything unless it feels like everything is going to shit, I’ve found.”
I laughed softly. “Fair point. And maybe that’s not so far from the truth.”
He raised an eyebrow. I couldn’t blame him for looking surprised. The few sentences I’d muttered to him had probably been the most open I’d ever been with him. I wasn’t even sure why I suddenly wanted to confide in him. Normally, I would’ve at least talked to Kira or Iris about this. For some reason, I felt the floodgates threatening to open for Rich instead. Maybe it was knowing that Cade, of all people, was the only person who really knew what was going on with me. Well, Cade and the traumatized middle school kid.
I sighed. “It’s just that I was kind of used to the idea of having steady boyfriend checked off my list. You know? My whole life has always been about checking off boxes. Get good grades. Get into my first choice for college. Get a degree. Get a job. Get promoted. Work harder until you get promoted again.”
Rich nodded. “At some point, you realize it’s not how many boxes you check, but which ones you check, and how well you check them.”
Now it was my eyebrows that crept up. “Spoken like somebody with experience.”
Rich flashed a smile that didn’t completely make me decide to start liking him, but it came close. “Why do you think I suddenly dropped everything to come to West Valley and win Kira back?” he asked.
“Kira said you never admitted she was the reason you came back. I thought the official story was something about business opportunities on the East Coast.”
Rich looked a little coy. “Maybe letting you in on that little secret will get you to stop glaring at me all the time.”
I bit back a smile. “Maybe. But if you told me what got Nick to agree to come back, I’d consider it a done deal. No more glaring.”
“Nick, huh? As the last surviving member of the Overlook Point Oath Squad, I wouldn’t peg you as the one to be curious about Nick—you know, considering he’s supposed to be the only man in the world you’d never date.”
“Maybe curiosity and a desire to date aren’t necessarily synonymous?”
He held up his palms. “Point taken. But I guess I’ll have to deal with more glares, because Nick’s reasons aren’t mine to share. If you want to know badly enough, maybe you two will have to stop playing chicken and finally talk.”
My water bottle crinkled between my fingers when I thought of Nick. When I really thought about it, Nick made me feel pathetic more than anything else. It had been seven years since I had had a crush on him. Seven years since he had asked Kira out instead of me and made it painfully clear that he wasn’t interested in me that way. It might not have all seemed so humiliating if I hadn’t written him that stupid poem the day before he had asked Kira out. I still cringed when I thought about it. Either way, it wasn’t the sort of thing that should’ve warranted an eternal grudge. And if I was honest with myself, anger wasn’t what kept me from wanting to fix things with him. It was the fear that he’d break my heart again.