I nodded slowly, absentmindedly, and cradled her face in my hands. “One day,” I promised, “and I’ll be waiting every day until then.” I gently pressed my mouth to the tip of her nose, then her forehead. “We need to get out of this bedroom.”

A soft giggle bubbled up from her chest, and she reluctantly pulled away from me. After clearing her throat she looked around her room, then to the door. “Um, right. Movie downstairs?”

“Movie,” I agreed.

“YOU HAVE GOT to be shitting me,” Graham said as soon as I was back in my room at the frat house late that night. “You know what, no, I’m gonna give you a chance to give me a different story.”

I eyed Graham and Deacon sitting in the room I shared with Deacon, and closed the door behind me to try to contain whatever was about to happen. Tension continued to fill the room as they glared at me, but I refused to say anything.

“Fine,” Deacon said. “Do you want to know who showed up here tonight to see if you were going to take her out for Valentine’s Day? Who was it, Graham?”

“Madison.”

“Oh that’s right!” Deacon said loudly. “Madison. Your girlfriend. Well, I’m just going to assume it’s ex now. Anyway, she had a lot to say. A lot of interesting things to say. Like how you’re waiting for someone else, so you don’t want anything serious with anyone. Things that she thought were bullshit, still might, and things she doesn’t have all the facts about, thank God.”

“Are you gonna say anything?” Graham asked, but I just shrugged. There wasn’t much to say. “Where were you tonight?”

“You know where I was.”

“She’s fucking fifteen, Knox!”

I ground my teeth and turned to look at the door, not that I could have seen if anyone was listening anyway. When I turned back around, I was glaring at Graham. “Sixteen,” I corrected.

“Like that makes it better?” they yelled at the same time.

“And I didn’t touch her. You know I won’t touch her,” I continued. “I just had to see her.”

Both of them sat there staring at me like they didn’t know what to do with me anymore. “Why?” Graham finally asked. “Why, Knox? This can only go bad for you. You have to be able to see that; you’re not blind, man.”

“I love—”

“Don’t!” He cut me off. “Just stop. The way you talk to her, how often you talk to her, the fact that you went to see her tonight . . . all of those things are marks against you. Knox, you can go to jail. We can’t let you do that over some girl.”

Deacon didn’t add anything, but he was nodding.

“Dude,” Graham went on, “you need to stop talking to her, and you need to move on to someone who is at least eighteen.”

I huffed. “To who? Someone like Madison? Someone I can’t stand to be around, but informed me we were dating because she thinks we’re perfect together? I only let it go on because it shut you two up about Harlow!” I ran my hands over my face and groaned. “Look, I know you two hate the thought of Harlow, but I love her. That’s it; I love her.”

“But you can’t,” Deacon reminded me.

I kept talking like he hadn’t. “Throughout everything since middle school we have all been there for each other, and it is such bullshit that my best friends have turned on me now. Okay, yeah, I thought we were going to come to Seattle and party all the time and hook up with as many girls as possible. I know that was the plan. I know the plan wasn’t to get serious until after college, but screw the fucking plans! I met Harlow and I knew immediately that she was it. It wasn’t that I just wanted her; I needed her. I get that it isn’t the best situation—trust me, no one gets that more than I do. But I don’t need both of you making this that much harder for us! Harlow knows you both hate her. How do you think that makes her feel? How do you think that makes me feel? What would it be like for you, Graham, if Deacon and I hated the girl you were in love with?”

Graham looked like he was about to yell, but took a calming breath and said, “You aren’t understanding that you can’t be in love with her. Jesus Christ, Knox, Harlow is a child!”

My eyes narrowed. “That’s disgusting, don’t do that.”

“She is! You think of Grey as a little kid, and they’re the same age.”

“Grey isn’t as mature as Harlow. Harlow has spent her entire life with people our age; she doesn’t fit in with people her age. She doesn’t think or act like a sixteen-year-old. And no one has thought of Grey as a little kid since she got tits when she was twelve, Graham; get over it.”

“That’s true,” Deacon murmured.

Graham’s face pinched in disgust. “Okay, we’re not talking about my sister’s chest! Knox. You have to realize that this is probably just a game to Harlow. She likes that an older guy is interested in her, and she’s going along with it. But she’s not old enough to know what love is—shit, we’re not even old enough to really know what love is—and by the time she’s eighteen, she’s not going to care that you wasted all this time waiting for her. And that’s if she doesn’t get you thrown in jail before that.”

“Ditto,” Deacon said. “We love you, man. Like you said, we’ve been there together through everything. And even though you think we’ve turned on you now, we’re trying to protect you. We don’t hate her, we hate that she has blinded you to all that can, and is going to, happen to you because of her.”

I shook my head absentmindedly for a few seconds. “It’s not going to change anything. I’m still going to wait for her.”

Present Day—Thatch

“KNOX, WAIT!” GREY called out from behind me.

I turned around and tried to seem unaffected from the short conversation in the kitchen as she stepped up to me. “Grey, you need to be on the couch resting or something.”

“I’m not that pregnant.” She waved off the suggestion. “Look, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to make you feel pathetic.”

“You didn’t,” I said automatically, and turned back toward my truck.

“Why are you leaving?”

I knew I couldn’t use the work excuse like I had with the nameless girl from earlier, and there weren’t many places I could use as an excuse in Thatch. “I just need to go.”