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of
her house to drop her off. I couldn’t find it in myself to
acknowledge her. I just continued to pretend I was asleep, to
pretend as if this night had never happened.
    For a few moments, the cab was silent and still when
Blake and Grace exited the truck, the only sound my labored breaths
filling the space. I tried to control them when the door cranked
open and the cab rocked a bit as Blake plopped down onto his seat.
The movement felt heavy with strain.
    Blake emitted a loud sigh and shifted the truck into
gear. I felt his hesitation, could almost see him opening and
closing his mouth, before he finally spoke.
    “I’m gonna ask her to marry me.” His words trumpeted
with awe and a flood of devotion, peppered with a hint of
apprehension and fear.
    I cracked an eye open, unable to ignore my brother
any longer. “Yeah?” My voice sounded rough, and I cleared my
throat. “That’s…really good. I’m happy for you. Grace is a great
girl.”
    Blake smiled a bit and rubbed a hand over his face.
“Listen…I’m sorry about earlier.” He ran his tongue across his
bottom lip, shook his head before he cut his eye in my direction.
It was dim in the cab, but I saw the sadness there. “Just don’t go
getting yourself mixed up in that situation.”
    I frowned, focused ahead on the headlights splaying
light across the black pavement. “That wasn’t right, Blake, and you
know it.”
    “Hell no, it wasn’t right.”
    I jerked to face him. “Then why did you stop
me?”
    Blake scoffed. “Because I didn’t want to stand there
and watch my little brother get his ass torn to shreds…that or get
into an all-out brawl with Troy and Kurt. Is that what you wanted?”
He palmed and squeezed the steering wheel, his tone softening. “And
because it won’t change anything, Will. That girl…she’s every kind
of messed up. She doesn’t need you making things any worse for
her.”
    The constriction Blake’s assertion caused in my
chest told me I was already in too deep.
    “Who is she? She looked…familiar.” I tried to play
it casual, tried to hide the desperation in my voice, to pretend as
if she were any other girl who I would have stuck up for.
    “Maggie Krieger.” Blake raised a brow as he
delivered the blow.
    Of course.
    I dropped my face into my hands. I should have
known. But really, she’d just been a little girl the last time I’d
seen her, maybe ten years old at the most. She was young enough
that through school we hadn’t run in the same circles, but that
didn’t mean I was too old not to have heard the gossip that was
prevalent in this town.
    Blake pressed on, shrugged, though it didn’t seem in
indifference. “Troy probably treats her ten times better than her
daddy ever did. I’d bet good money she’ll get herself knocked up by
the end of summer just to get out of that house.”
    Blake parked in the drive, and I stumbled out and
trudged inside and upstairs, muttering a halfhearted goodnight to
Blake before I fell into bed. Curling around my pillow, I focused
on ridding my mind of whatever insane, convoluted feelings I must
have conjured up about her. I told myself again and again that I’d
never even spoken with her, that I didn’t know her, and that I
definitely didn’t want her.
    Yet every time I closed my eyes, all I saw was that
shy smile mixed with the intense fire that had roared in the depths
of her eyes, and I knew beyond anything else, Maggie wanted
more.
     
    William ~ Present Day
    I stared up at the ceiling from my childhood bed,
watched the shadows from the tree outside my window spread out
across it, my throat tight with the memories. Somehow Blake and I
had both known we were at a crossroads that night, and life
decisions were about to be made. Blake had been wise and loved a
girl who’d loved him back. I lay thinking now how I should have
just looked away like everyone else had done that night. I should
have turned my cheek and my heart away from the hook I’d allowed
her to sink