A talented fighter with Olympic goals, Talan Swifthawk only has two loves, boxing and Amalia. Forced into decisions to reach his Olympic dream, his passions collide in the most destructive ways, and it may end up costing him everything. Amalia Aguirre has known her type ever since her first book crush in the sixth grade. Confident, talented, tough, and determined to succeed, Talan Swifthawk is just that. But like a cruel twist of fate, those very qualities stand in her way.

Disclaimer:

While the story may mention the names of real-life historical people and locations, the main characters are fictional, so any resemblance to actual persons or events is purely coincidental.

This book is complete, but I’ll update weekly, so you can keep up easily. Please, heart, comment, or review, so I know you are reading this.

You'll grow up with the young characters, chapter by chapter.

Amalia

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, when school resumes, I'll be a freshman in high school and turning fifteen the same month. I'll leave my closest friend in junior high, and to be honest, I'm not looking forward to becoming one of the newest and youngest students in the school or sitting on the bench for slow-pitch softball if, and that's a big if, I even make the team this year.

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

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

From the start, Talan Swifthawk blinded me, and that's no exaggeration. All the other guys near him are nameless, faceless blurs in my mind. Kinsley doesn't understand it, so she's constantly trying to convince me to go out with somebody else. This is because Talan goes out with other girls. She uses that argument on me all the time. I've heard a lot about different girls he becomes 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 about a story I hear, especially when it involves someone I know. But his gorgeous smile permeates through me every time he flares it in my direction, so I can't 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. He 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 and waves 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."

They call 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 her name is beautiful, 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 around town?" The question occupied my mind all morning. 

Talan's her 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. You can say she's his first "serious" girlfriend. Because of this, it's been two weeks since I last saw Talan.

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

I brush off her comment with a wave and resist the urge to roll my eyes, but it's true. I already feel an ache for him, and he hasn't left yet. "Are we walking or riding bikes?" I ask. 

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

"Let me grab a hoodie first, in case it's cold in the theater." 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 up; I pinch my face with my palms for cheek coloring, then pull all my hair together over a shoulder. She's already tugging the door open as I enter the room, 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, and 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 even 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 go look for them."

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 Chemawa Indian School in Salem, Oregon, this fall. Chemawa 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 and chose Chemawa because it's a bigger school, and both of his parents went there. It's where they met. Everyone acts as if it's nothing. Several kids from his reservation attend Chemawa, including Talan's older sister, who is going into her senior year, which I'm sure is another of his deciding factors.

I join my palms together in a prayer position. "I'll do anything for you. 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 when 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. So, the quiet yet antsy tension I sense from him during the drive keeps 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 do something else. It's hot, and I bet Kade and Erik are having fun. Let's go find them?"

"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 the glare I'm giving her.

We get our tickets and follow Talan into the dim-lit theater. We find seats, and Talan steps aside and guides Kinsley to go before him. Glancing up at him, my eyes round at how he looks at me and smiles. His deep gaze ignites a rush of possibility, quickening my heartbeat and sending shivers down my spine. I sit beside Kinsley, exhilaration bursting through my seams as he takes the seat beside me, making it difficult to pay attention to Kinsley's excessive chatter.

Butterflies bloom in the center of my stomach. Oh no! Am I prepared for this? I'm absolutely ready for it!

NOTE:

The events in this story take place in a fictional town bordering a fictional unnamed Native American reservation.

Here's why:

Native American reservations exist all over the USA and Canada, and they all have surrounding towns. This story is based on mine, but I'm not willing to put my tribe on blast or take liberties with any other tribe and reservation or their customs for this telling.

I reserve all rights to my characters and my storyline.