She didn’t need to beg. For better or worse, I was motherwhipped. I hated people who took their parents for granted. My thirteen-year-old brother, Lev, and I didn’t have that luxury. Lev was Mom and Dad’s biological child. I wasn’t. I’d be lying if I said it didn’t sting, that I didn’t wonder if they loved him just a little more. That I’d become a quarterback for All Saints High just because I wanted to, and not because I’d wanted to continue my father’s legacy. That the clothes, rowdy reputation, and destructive smile weren’t calculated moves to look and feel like Dad.

That was the real kicker, by the way.

Fate had a twisted sense of humor, because I even looked like my adopted parents. I had the same green eyes as Dean Cole, the same shade of light, copper brown hair as Rosie LeBlanc-Cole. The loss of a parent was a concept I was familiar with, seeing as my birth mother had given up on me. So the idea of losing Mom was…yeah. Not a place I could ever let my mind go.

“What about Poppy?” Mom arched an eyebrow.

Man, Mom was on top of her shit.

“What about her?”

My parents showed up at all of my games. So did Lev, although he sat with Jaime and Melody Followhill because he had the hots for Bailey, their daughter. I didn’t have the heart to tell my little bro that falling in love with your best friend is trash. Akin to sentencing yourself to life in prison. I’d be better off never knowing Luna Rexroth existed.

“That kiss seemed real,” Mom pointed out.

I dropped the hose and headed toward her, to the door. “Hate to piss on your parade, but it wasn’t. I barely know Poppy, and sure, it’d be nice to catch up with Luna, but I’m not waiting for her ass to make a royal entrance.”

I tramped back into the house, peeling my clothes off on my way upstairs and throwing them on the floor. I didn’t want to admit how weak I was for Luna. It was pathetic. And unstoppable. I’d tried getting over her plenty of times, especially the last few months. I wasn’t such a saint that I’d enjoyed twiddling my thumbs and waiting for her to realize we were the real deal.

After taking a shower, I plopped on my bed and tried to ignore the fact that the light in her window was turned on. Instead of peeking into it (bad form), I checked the emails on my phone. There were a bunch from a few colleges I was considering—all close by. Being near Mom was imperative. That meant waving goodbye to college football, but that was a small price to pay. I was good at football—great, even—but my parents were more than capable of paying my way through higher education, and I didn’t want to take the space of someone who needed that opportunity. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to play ball. I did. I just didn’t want it enough to rob someone else of a chance to get out of their shitty ’hood.

I knew a thing or two about getting breaks when you needed them, as an adopted kid who’d hit the parents jackpot. Karma had a sick sense of humor.

“Hey, I know your birth mom sucks ass, but here’s an amazing, one-in-a-lifetime mother. But here’s the real kicker, boy—she’s a temporary mom. She’ll die in a bit. That’ll show you to appreciate people!”

Yeah, screw you, Karma.

In the ass. Sans lube. Sans spit. Sans everything.

I swiped my screen and three text messages popped up, one after the other.

Poppy Astalis: So, this is quite weird and oh so embarrassing, but…I’ve got a voucher for an ice cream place. Not that you need a voucher to afford ice cream. I don’t even know if you bloody eat sugar, being into sports and everything. But I don’t want it to go to waste, and Lenny is busy, and Papa is…well, you know, Papa. So I was thinking maybe…Oh, wow. I should NOT be sending you this message. LOL. Quite clear on that. This is silly. Sorry. But since you’re not going to read it…well, I quite like you. And I quite enjoyed Friday. More than I should have, actually. Okay. Bye.

Poppy Astalis: OH MY GOD. PLEASE IGNORE. MY SISTER SENT IT BECAUSE SHE SAID I NEEDED TO GROW SOME BALLS. PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE IGNORE.

I snorted. I made a mental note to let Poppy down as nicely as possible. She wasn’t made of the same material as Arabella. She wasn’t into dating me for the social status or sordid story. Whatever the fuck Poppy saw in me, she genuinely liked it. That made her endearing, even if I thought she was high on the insanity spectrum (and maybe high in general) for seeing me as anything other than a manipulative douche with a hara-kiri streak.