Betting on You

Bonus

hey all!

only the epilogue is left of this story, and I'm sad to let it go but since a new year is arriving, it feels right to wrap this story up—despite how much I've enjoyed it!

as a little gift, i thought it'd be fun to give a little bonus chapter since a few of you have pm'd me a while back asking for it!

as an added bonus, here is the end-of-summer party! the party that altered Luke and Maddy's friendship, that caused their falling out before they started high school, and all the Harmony drama in-between.

i hope you enjoy!

did i also mention it's in luke's pov? i just wanted to up the drama...

b o n u s
~ luke's pov ~
4 years prior to the events in this story

"I think we should go."

I took my lip ring between my teeth, contemplating. "Are you sure?"

Maddy, who clearly already had her mind made up, was already plugging in her hair curl stick thingy in her attached bathroom, gathering an orange spray bottle and her brush. "I mean, Harmony's leaving town tomorrow, right?" she glanced at me, shrugging her shoulders. "One last hurrah before she goes, and before we're officially high schoolers, could be fun. Especially since it just feels... I don't know. I just think this could be fun."

She turned towards her mirror as I leaned against the doorframe, watching her. She wasn't completely oblivious, that much was certain. Things had been tense between her, Harmony and I for the past month, and Maddy was still blanketed from the reasoning. She didn't know what secret I was hiding from her.

I still couldn't believe it myself. Harmony likes me. Likes me in a way I don't like her, and had even gone as far as kissing me a few weeks ago when Maddy hadn't been around. My second kiss. Not only had she been my first kiss at the party at the beginning of summer, during that stupid spin the bottle game, but then she went and stole my second kiss from me! When both those kisses had been meant for Maddy!

But that wasn't all that had happened at that stupid, mistake of a party. No, Maddy had ended up kissing someone too. Jeremy, or Jared, or whatever the f*ck. As far as I knew, that had been Maddy's first kiss, too. A first kiss that I had been hoping I'd get to take—if she let me.

It enraged me overwhelmingly, more than I could control, every time I thought about it. His lips pressed to hers. Not to mine. It sent pure, white-hot rage flaring through me, and it seemed too big for me to temper.

That was when we had our fight; Our first fight ever in all the years we'd been friends. She had kissed that guy, and I couldn't stand to watch so I pulled her away from him, and then away from the game. I hadn't had a destination in mind, or even an explanation to give her about why I was dragging her off, yet the next thing I knew, we were arguing. I had told her she shouldn't have done it, which wasn't fair of me because it was a game, and even I had participated. She had gotten angry about that, claiming it was a simple kiss. And part of me knew that it really was just a simple, insignificant kiss.

But it was her first kiss. And since I hadn't been able to give her mine, I wanted her to give me hers.

I needed to face facts. Maddy didn't love me the way I was in love with her, right? She wouldn't care about who I kissed, and I shouldn't care about who she kissed either but... but I just couldn't tell her about the second kiss. I couldn't stomach the thought. It was going to change everything between us, even ruin any sort of chance I may have with her.