Page 185 of Under the Waves
Kai rolled his eyes. “I hate you.”
“You love me really!” Lachlan hollered back.
“You two make me sick,” Xander added to the conversation.
“How come you never call melove, Cap?” Jakson pouted, throwing his sweat-covered towel at my face. “Don’t you love me?”
“Course I love you, you big idiot,” I grumbled, throwing the towel back at him. “Now get back to work before coach comes back and kicks all our asses.”
That was a lie. I’d make sure coach would give me the brunt of it.
“AW,” Jakson placed his hand over his heart dramatically. “You do love me!”
“See, why can’t you be like that, Lachy? You used to write me love songs all the time.”
“For the last time,Mali, they weren’t for you! I was just experimenting with some lyrics—”
Lachlan was so wound up defending himself that he couldn’teven hear the laughter trickling from Kai’s lips. Or the pinch of an amused smile tugging at Xander’s.
“Get back to cleaning before I bench all of your asses,” I groaned, shaking my head.Children. The lot of them. “Kidd, with me.”
Walking a few feet away from everyone else, I turned to Lachlan, my arms crossed against my chest. “How’s Hanna?”
Lachlan froze. “What?”
I’d been meaning to catch up with him about what happened at Jakson’s party. About how he’d cradled Hanna against his chest and how she’d relaxed into his touch. I didn’t know what their relationship was but I knew itcouldn’tbe anymore than friends. Hanna had been involved with Nate’s best friend, Damien, since we were in middle school. I wasn’t sure if they were dating per se, but I knew that he thought of her as his.
I just…I didn’t want to see Lachlan get his heart broken.
“After the party, I mean. She seemed…”
“I know,” Lachlan sighed. “She’s doing better. What Miya said…what shedid…I know you can’t hit girls and all, Cap, but she’sjustso—” His fists clenched as he took a breath. “I just want to protect Hanna from all that. Fromher. Miya…she’s like an intoxicating virus and my Han, she’s infected by her. You know, everyone thinks of her as just some emo, dark haired minion who follows Miya around doing her every bidding, but Cap…she’s so muchmorethan that. I can see it as clear as day. I’ve seen it since day one, for Christ sake. Why can’t everyone else?”
“You love her,” I stated. He’d deny it. I knew him well enough. But there was no mistaking the way he held her when she crumbled in his arms. No mistaking the look in his eyes as he cradled her almost limp body. I didn’t know their story, though. Only that she was swept up in something dark and dangerous and he was trying everything he could to pull her out of it.
But in the end, she wasn’t his to love.
She was a wildfire and he was going to get burned.
“I—” Lachlan shook his head. “It’s not that. She just gets me, you know? In a way that no one ever has before and it’s terrifying.”
“I know, Kidd.” And I did.
Poppy was my someone.
My heart was young and naive but it beat for her.
It hadchosenher.
Since that very first competition, it had known.
All along. There was never going to be anyone else.
“Yeah?” There was a hopeful tone to his voice.
“Yeah.” I patted him on the shoulder. “You’re a good kid, Lachlan. She’s lucky to have someone like you to look out for her.”
He sighed as he shrugged. “Someone has to keep her heart beating, Cap.”