Total pages in book: 197
Estimated words: 199143 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 996(@200wpm)___ 797(@250wpm)___ 664(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 199143 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 996(@200wpm)___ 797(@250wpm)___ 664(@300wpm)
“He’s practicing, that’s all.”
Miguel smiled. “Not sure why ... he doesn’t really need to. He’s going to make the team when school starts back up, and he knows it.”
“Doesn’t mean he can’t be the best player, though.”
“You sound like him.”
Cece only shrugged in response to that. What else could she say? She tended to listen to Juan when he talked—they were best friends. That’s what friends were supposed to do for one another. Even when she wasn’t spending time in Cali, the two of them still talked about literally everything. On FaceTime, Skype, texts, or whatever else. They were always in contact. It wasn’t like she cared about or liked soccer in the same way Juan did, but it mattered to him.
So, it mattered to her.
Simple.
“Well, whatever,” Miguel said, “go tell him what I said, yeah?”
“Okay.”
She pushed off the stool at the kitchen island, still reading her book all the while. In fact, she kept reading all the way to the back of the house, even when she pushed the rear patio doors open and stepped out onto the porch. She only looked away from the words on the page at the sound of a rhythmic smack smack smacking.
Cece didn’t even see Juan at first, she already had her mouth opened to shout for him to take a break and get a drink. But then her eyes fell on him at the far end of the back lawn where he moved from foot to foot, back and forth, chest bare and glinting with perspiration that dotted his brown skin while he kept a soccer ball up in the air. First bouncing it off his knee, then the top of his right foot, then the left, before it came down to roll off his chest, and then he kicked it high again. Concentration hardened his features, making all those strong lines on his face all the more severe.
So handsome.
Never once did the ball hit the ground.
He moved like water after it.
It wasn’t the first time Cece saw him practice. It sure as hell wasn’t even the tenth time, she saw him without a shirt on. She was also well aware that Juan was a handsome boy. He certainly had more than enough girls who seemed to watch him wherever he went. Even his father teased him on and off, calling him pretty boy just because he could. Before that moment, though, Cece had never really thought about it.
Not like she was right then.
She’d never noticed that his chest had become more defined.
Or that his brown skin had a golden sheen.
How his hips narrowed down from a strong back.
Or the way his eyes seemed all the more intense with a few strands of damp hair hanging down over his brown gaze.
No, she’d never noticed any of those things before.
But goddamn ...
She noticed now.
“Hey.”
Cece dragged in a quick breath, pulling her book against her chest as the soccer ball flew high before dropping down into Juan’s waiting hands. He had already turned toward her, flashing his white teeth in a wide grin.
And just like that ...
Butterflies beat in her stomach.
She didn’t have anything to say.
Couldn’t.
And her heart raced.
A crush started in that moment.
Nothing was ever going to be the same.
“Hey,” she replied softly.
Chapter 6 - Changes
Juan POV
14 years old ...
“How? How, Miguel?”
Juan shook his head at the table, his younger sisters too busy with the tablet they were currently sharing to watch their favorite YouTubers more important than their mother’s fake breakdown. Then again, maybe that was why they didn’t care—because they knew it was just their ma acting her usual way again.
“Steph—”
“How do I have a fourteen-year-old, Miguel? He was just five!”
His mother had been doing this and going on since he first woke up that morning. Since his birthday fell right in the middle of the week this year, he hadn’t cared too much about the actual day he turned fourteen. He was more excited for the coming weekend when his parents planned a birthday party he hadn’t asked for but would still be fun.
Plus, Cece was flying in with her ma.
He hadn’t seen her in three months.
Too long.
He missed his best friend.
“Shit, okay, we’re gonna be late,” Juan’s father said, coming around the kitchen island after dropping a kiss to his wife’s forehead. To his mother’s benefit, she had finally stopped whining about the fact Juan was no longer a baby, but now she was looking at him like she was about to burst into tears.
That?
That was worse.
And Juan wouldn’t do that.
He didn’t mind indulging his mother’s nonsense most of the time. As his father liked to say, it was Stephanie’s right as his mother. She brought him into the world, after all, and the least he can do to repay her for that—next to giving her love—was to let her fawn over him in whatever way that pleased her.