Amalia

I want a dramatic love story, an unpredictable, wild ride, sweet, thrilling, and crazy, as long as it involves the perfect guy with a happy ending.

If I ever get a love life…

It seems like I blinked, then opened my eyes to my third summer in New Sable. Well, it’s more like the end of my third summer now. In less than two weeks, I’ll be a freshman in high school and turning fifteen in a month. I’ll leave my closest friend in junior high. I’m not looking forward to becoming one of the newest and youngest high school students or sitting on the bench for slow-pitch softball, provided I even make the team this year.

My carefree childhood days and flat chest are gone, and everything is changing. I sigh. Everything is changing—everything but how I feel about Talan.

I spray on more anti-frizz gel, realizing how each new sunrise has burned a little more since summer began, and I'm becoming more spiritless by the day.

Since the beginning, Talan Swifthawk blinded me, and that's no exaggeration. All the other guys near him are nameless, faceless blurs in my mind. My friend Kinsley doesn't understand it, so she's always trying to convince me to date somebody else. This is because Talan goes out with other girls. She uses that argument on me all the time. I've heard much about the different girls he's interested in or whoever's interested in him. My older brother Jaxon makes sure of that. I'm forever pretending not to care, which isn't always easy. Sometimes, I'm disgusted with Talan, especially when I hear a story about him and someone I know. But his gorgeous smile permeates through me every time he flares it in my direction, so I never stay mad at him for long.

Besides, he has no clue about my feelings for him, so why wouldn't he go out with other girls?

I shake my head at myself, trying to shake him from my mind because I'm not even supposed to like him.

"Amalia, I'm here!" Kinsley's voice echoes from the living room. Even though she's a year younger than me, Kinsley Walker is my best friend. I've known her since before we moved here.

Our dads served in the military and now serve in the Forestry Department together. My dad, Mateo Aguirre, is a Game Warden. Her dad, Chase Walker, works as a dispatcher. Chase suffered a leg injury when they were in Iraq. Their brotherhood brought our family from New Mexico to the small town of New Sable. We enjoy the best of both worlds, surrounded by mountains and only an hour from the coast.

"Be right down!" Abandoning my hair, I clasp my lucky anklet and sulk down the stairs. Kinsley's lounging on the sofa, rummaging through her shoulder bag when I enter the living room. I drop down beside her, cross my legs, and complain. "I hate this awful humidity."

"Same." She lifts her head, waving a hair scrunchy in front of my face before tying her long, silky, straight hair into a ponytail. "It makes the weather feel way too hot." She notices my mood. "What's with the cranky face?"

I flick both hands toward the coffee-colored mane I inherited from my dad's Spanish side of the family, which typically falls into mid-length loose waves.

She rolls her eyes. "You have some ringlets today, so what? It's not the first time. Honestly, Ama, your hair is like that more times than it's not, and I love it."

Everyone calls me Ama for short. It sounds like Emma but has a short A sound at the beginning. My dad doesn't like it because I'm named after my great-grandmother, and he loves her name, but it's a nickname that stuck.

"I'd love it too if I was living twenty-something years ago, in the big hair era of the eighties."

She smiles, returning to rearranging the contents in her bag while I watch her for a moment.

"So ... has Talan been in town?" The question occupied my mind all morning.

Talan is Kinsley's older cousin. He lives in the next town over, on the reservation. He's also my brother Jaxon's best friend. Talan hardly comes over now, a consequence of Jaxon's love life. One day at the pool, Jaxon met a girl named Mara. She's staying with her grandparents for the summer, and he spends all his time with her. She's his first serious girlfriend, and because of this, it's been two weeks since I last saw Talan.

"No. Not lately." She looks up, her expression turning annoyed. "So, that's the real reason you were whining."

I brush off her comment with a wave, resisting the urge to roll my eyes, but it's true. I already feel an ache for him, and he hasn't yet left.

"Are we walking or riding our bikes?" I ask.

"I'd rather walk, so let's go, or we might miss some of it."

"Let me grab a hoodie first, in case the air conditioning in the theater is too cold." I rush up the stairs, and a knock sounds at the door on my way back down.

In a sarcastic tone, Kinsley says, "Way to speak someone into materializing, Ama."

Talan!

Unlike Kinsley, he still waits for someone to answer the door when he comes over, even though he's welcome to knock and enter as the rest of their family does.

My pulse speeds; I pinch my face with my palms for cheek coloring, then pull all my hair together over my shoulder. She's already tugging the door open as I reach the bottom of the stairs, taking a deep breath so I don't give him a too-happy smile. His hair is short again, probably for the new school year. He cuts and regrows it constantly but needs to grow it longer for braids or a ponytail. I once asked him why he didn't let it grow longer. He said it was because he didn't like how it looked or felt under his boxing headgear and that they'd lift the gear from his head after a fight, and his hair would be all over the place. But I'm into it all the ways he wears it.

He looks past her and over at me, smiling at him, but doesn't return a smile. "Where's Jaxon?"

My sudden enthusiasm fades as I reply, "With Mara, as usual."

He grimaces and doesn't hide his sarcasm. "Must be love. We were supposed to go fishing today. Tell him I stopped by again." He's disappointed. I can always sense his anger or sadness because it's a stark change from his usual cheerful demeanor. "How about Kade and Erik? Where are they at?"

Kade is Kinsley's twin brother, but he looks more like Talan, except Kade wears his hair long enough to pull it into a ponytail or tie it up in a ball at the base of his neck. They all have dark chocolate brown hair with sun-made highlights and ebony eyes, but Talan and Kade have golden skin tones, and hers is a shade or two lighter.

Erik is my younger brother, and he and the Walker twins are the same age. I'll never know how my mom, Jasmine, popped out three kids right in a row, still claiming none of us were accidents.

"I think they're at the pool," Kinsley says.

"Maybe I'll swing by there."

I grab Kinsley's shoulder and plead with her when the door closes. "Ask him to come with us."

She squints in aggravation. "No, you do it if you want him to come." She doesn't mind that I like him if I keep her entirely out of it, a principle of hers I don't understand.

"I can't do that." I peep out the window. He's on the way to his car across the street. "Come on, Kinsley. He's leaving next week. I won't see him for four months."

Talan will attend Chimotae Indian School, six hours away, this fall. Chimotae is a boarding school for ninth to twelfth-grade students, composed of Native American kids from all over the country. They live there all year, coming home only on Christmas and summer vacations. After giving the reservation high school a chance last year, he decided it wasn't for him. He chose Chimotae because it's a bigger school, and his parents went there. It's where they met. Talan's favorite and only sport is boxing, and the town has a well-known boxing club. Talan will go anywhere or do anything that can help him achieve his Olympic dream.

Several kids from his reservation attend Chimotae, including Talan's older sister, who's going into her senior year, which I'm sure is another of his deciding factors. So, everyone acts as if going away to school is nothing.

I join my palms together in a prayer position. "I'll owe you one. Hurry before it's too late."

"You're just lucky I'll miss him, too." She groans and runs out the door. As the door is closing, I hear her say, "He's gonna kill me."

Unsure of what she means, I make a mental note to ask her about it later. I give her some time before I follow them outside. The second I step on the porch, my eyes bump into Talan's eyes. I halt the moment my breath stops and my tummy tumbles. I think he's checking me out, and my heart pounds. The peculiar expression he wears quickly envelops me, so I say, "What?"

I throw a questioning glance at Kinsley, hoping she didn't say something she wasn't supposed to say.

"Are you sure you don't know where Jaxon is?" Talan asks me.

"Sorry. No idea."

His face brightens, and his lips curve upwards. "I guess I'm driving then."

Going to the movies together is nothing unusual. Some variation of the six of us always do it. This is something different, though, because I know when Talan's in his head. He keeps glancing at me, saying nothing. So, the quiet yet antsy tension I sense from him during the drive prevents me from talking to him.

Oddly, Kinsley's doing enough talking for both of us. "It's crowded today. Hopefully, they're sold out. I mean, it's not sold out. Is this movie supposed to be any good? We should just do something else. It's hot, and I bet Kade and Erik are having fun. We should go to the pool?"

"I didn't drive over here for nothing, Kinsley." Talan sounds as annoyed as I feel.

"We're already here," I say. "We might as well go inside."

She pretends not to notice my glare.

We buy our tickets and follow Talan into the dimly lit theater. We find seats, and Talan steps aside and guides Kinsley and me before him. I glance up at him, my eyes rounding at how his eyes sweep my face when he smiles at me, his deep gaze igniting an adrenaline rush, quickening my heartbeat and sending shivers down my spine. I sit beside Kinsley, exhilaration bursting as he takes the seat beside me, making it difficult to pay attention to Kinsley's excessive chatter.

Butterflies bloom in my stomach and though I'm filled with excitement, I'm also a little scared. Happily scared.