When You Come Back to Me (Lost Boys 2)

We shared a laugh, and I told her my dream of living here, working at the shop, and starting a family, and how my father would be crushed to know I’d give up football in a heartbeat to have it.

“Please don’t tell anyone,” I said. “I don’t know why I even told you, except that I feel comfortable with you.” I grinned. “Just not when we’re kissing.”

She laughed. “Story of my life.”

We both stared at the ceiling, settling into a deeper friendship that already felt more real than anything I had with my other friends. Like Donte. His insinuations rattled in my head, and Holden felt so far away.

“So Violet.”

“So River.”

“Since we’re both secretly dorks in disguise, how about we go to Prom together?”

A laugh burst out of her. “Oh, sure. Why not?” She glanced at me, and her smile fell. “You’re serious?”

“As the plague. We’d just go as friends.”

“Don’t you have a gaggle of girls waiting for you to ask them out?”

I nearly laughed out loud at how Holden would react to that question.

“Ha, no. Honestly, I don’t even want to go—”

“Way to sell it to me, Whitmore.”

I laughed. “Sorry. I mean. I do want to go, for my parents’ sake. Dad keeps asking which girl I’m bringing…and Mom loves you. We should go. It’s our senior year.”

Violet pretended to think. “I seem to remember a certain other dance that you were supposed to take me to and then didn’t.”

“I know, I’m so sorry. But this is how I make it up to you.”

“I suppose,” she said and was quiet for a moment. “I’ll go to the Prom with you. But only as friends.”

Of course, only as friends. Our awkward tumble in my bed made it painfully clear I had nothing else to give, and I wasn’t about to toy with Violet’s heart. My douchebaggery had its limits.

“Just friends.” I grinned and touched a small cut on my lip. “Safer for me that way.”

Violet rolled her eyes. “I’m never going to live this down, am I?”

I nudged her arm. “It’s already forgotten.”

A short, comfortable silence settled between us, and I felt the integrity and honesty of this girl. Violet was smart. Kind. She wanted to be a doctor. You could tell things to a doctor and they couldn’t repeat them. Like a priest. When I told her my football secret, I felt it in my bones that she’d keep it safe.

If I told her about Holden…

“Violet?”

“Yeah?”

“About Homecoming…”

“What about it?”

The words were there, ready to fall. I sighed them out instead. There was nothing left between Holden and me except the constant ache of missing him. Like a low-grade fever that never went away. He’d kicked me out of his life, and mine was on track with iron rails, no way to change course.

“I’m sorry I ditched you, Violet.”

She frowned. “You’ve already apologized a hundred times.”