Book Read Free

The Fixes

Page 1

by Owen Matthews




  DEDICATION

  For Shan,

  who took me to the wild side

  and brought me back safe

  CONTENTS

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Chapter 64

  Chapter 65

  Chapter 66

  Chapter 67

  Chapter 68

  Chapter 69

  Chapter 70

  Chapter 71

  Chapter 72

  Chapter 73

  Chapter 74

  Chapter 75

  Chapter 76

  Chapter 77

  Chapter 78

  Chapter 79

  Chapter 80

  Chapter 81

  Chapter 82

  Chapter 83

  Chapter 84

  Chapter 85

  Chapter 86

  Chapter 87

  Chapter 88

  Chapter 89

  Chapter 90

  Chapter 91

  Chapter 92

  Chapter 93

  Chapter 94

  Chapter 95

  Chapter 96

  Chapter 97

  Chapter 98

  Chapter 99

  Chapter 100

  Chapter 101

  Chapter 102

  Chapter 103

  Chapter 104

  Chapter 105

  Chapter 106

  Chapter 107

  Chapter 108

  Chapter 109

  Chapter 110

  Chapter 111

  Chapter 112

  Chapter 113

  Chapter 114

  Chapter 115

  Chapter 116

  Chapter 117

  Chapter 118

  Chapter 119

  Chapter 120

  Chapter 121

  Chapter 122

  Chapter 123

  Chapter 124

  Chapter 125

  Chapter 126

  Chapter 127

  Chapter 128

  Chapter 129

  Chapter 130

  Chapter 131

  Chapter 132

  Chapter 133

  Chapter 134

  Chapter 135

  Chapter 136

  Chapter 137

  Chapter 138

  Chapter 139

  Chapter 140

  Chapter 141

  Chapter 142

  Chapter 143

  Chapter 144

  Chapter 145

  Chapter 146

  Chapter 147

  Chapter 148

  Chapter 149

  Chapter 150

  Chapter 151

  Chapter 152

  Chapter 153

  Chapter 154

  Chapter 155

  Chapter 156

  Chapter 157

  Chapter 158

  Chapter 159

  Chapter 160

  Chapter 161

  Chapter 162

  Chapter 163

  Chapter 164

  Chapter 165

  Chapter 166

  Chapter 167

  Chapter 168

  Chapter 169

  Chapter 170

  Chapter 171

  Chapter 172

  Chapter 173

  Chapter 174

  Chapter 175

  Chapter 176

  Chapter 177

  Chapter 178

  Chapter 179

  Chapter 180

  Chapter 181

  Chapter 182

  Chapter 183

  Chapter 184

  Chapter 185

  Chapter 186

  Chapter 187

  Chapter 188

  Chapter 189

  Chapter 190

  Chapter 191

  Chapter 192

  Chapter 193

  Chapter 194

  Chapter 195

  Chapter 196

  Chapter 197

  Chapter 198

  Chapter 199

  Chapter 200

  Chapter 201

  Chapter 202

  Chapter 203

  Chapter 204

  Chapter 205

  Chapter 206

  Chapter 207

  Chapter 208

  Chapter 209

  Chapter 210

  Chapter 211

  Chapter 212

  Chapter 213

  Chapter 214

  Chapter 215

  Chapter 216

  Chapter 217

  Chapter 218

  Chapter 219

  Chapter 220

  Chapter 221

  Chapter 222

  Chapter 223

  Chapter 224

  Chapter 225

  Chapter 226

  Chapter 227

  Chapter 228

  Chapter 229

  Chapter 230

  Chapter 231

  Chapter 232

  Chapter 233

  Chapter 234

  Chapter 235

  Chapter 236

  Chapter 237

  Chapter 238

  Chapter 239

  Chapter 240

  Chapter 241

  Chapter 242

  Chapter 243

  Chapter 244

  Chapter 245

  Chapter 246

  Chapter 247

  Chapter 248

  Chapter 249

  Chapter 250

  Chapter 251

  Chapter 252

  Chapter 253

  Chapter 254

  Chapter 255

  Chapter 256

  Chapter 257

  Chapter 258

  Chapter 259

  Chapter 260

  Chapter 261

  Chapter 262

  Chapter 263

  Chapter 264

  Chapter 265

  Chapter 266

  Chapter 267

  Chapter 268

  Chapter 269

  Chapter 270

  Chapter 271

  Chapter 272

  Chapter 273

  Chapter 274

  Chapter 275

  Chapter 276

  Chapter 277

  Chapter 278

  Chapter 279

/>   Chapter 280

  Chapter 281

  Chapter 282

  Chapter 283

  Chapter 284

  Chapter 285

  Chapter 286

  Chapter 287

  Chapter 288

  Chapter 289

  Chapter 290

  Chapter 291

  Chapter 292

  Chapter 293

  Chapter 294

  Chapter 295

  Chapter 296

  Chapter 297

  Chapter 298

  Chapter 299

  Chapter 300

  Chapter 301

  Chapter 302

  Chapter 303

  Chapter 304

  Chapter 305

  Chapter 306

  Chapter 307

  Chapter 308

  Chapter 309

  Chapter 310

  Chapter 311

  Chapter 312

  Chapter 313

  Chapter 314

  Chapter 315

  Chapter 316

  Chapter 317

  Chapter 318

  Chapter 319

  Chapter 320

  Chapter 321

  Chapter 322

  Chapter 323

  Chapter 324

  Chapter 325

  Chapter 326

  Chapter 327

  Chapter 328

  Chapter 329

  Chapter 330

  Chapter 331

  Chapter 332

  Chapter 333

  Chapter 334

  Chapter 335

  Chapter 336

  Chapter 337

  Chapter 338

  Chapter 339

  Chapter 340

  Chapter 341

  Chapter 342

  Chapter 343

  Chapter 344

  Chapter 345

  Chapter 346

  Chapter 347

  Chapter 348

  Chapter 349

  Chapter 350

  Chapter 351

  Chapter 352

  Chapter 353

  Chapter 354

  Chapter 355

  Chapter 356

  Chapter 357

  Chapter 358

  Chapter 359

  Chapter 360

  Chapter 361

  Chapter 362

  Chapter 363

  Chapter 364

  Chapter 365

  Acknowledgments

  Back Ads

  About the Author

  Books by Owen Matthews

  Credits

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  1.

  This is a story about a boy’s first crush, and how it blew up in his face.

  And all of its explosive consequences.

  (You know what? Forget it.)

  2.

  Let’s start over.

  Let me tell you why E set off that bomb.

  3.

  It’s the first day of summer vacation. School’s out. School’s over. Everyone in Capilano is at the beach, on a boat, or up in the mountains on a lake somewhere. Everyone except Eric Connelly.

  Eric Connelly is in a hurry. Eric doesn’t notice that it’s a beautiful day. Eric sure as hell doesn’t have any plans to go to the beach. Eric is running late.

  (Give him a minute.)

  Eric’s the kid parking his mom’s Mercedes G-Wagen in the near-empty sprawl of the Cap High parking lot. He’s the tall, blandly handsome kid climbing out onto the sun-scorched pavement, checking the time on that fancy Omega diving watch and swearing. Walking—fast—across the lot to the school, wondering how he’s going to make it to his new internship on time.

  Eric’s the hero of this story. And Eric has places to be.

  4.

  On a normal day, Cap High is a microcosm of Capilano itself. The building is beautiful, all steel and glass and reclaimed timber. It looks right at home amid Capilano’s towering mountains and endless beaches. And it’s populated by the best of the best. The elite.

  Film directors’ kids. Hedge fund managers’ offspring. The broods of rock stars, Fortune 500 CEOs, real-estate moguls, athletes, and white-collar criminals. They all call Capilano home.

  On a normal day, you couldn’t throw a stone around here without hitting, like, four or five Birkin bags. The school parking lot practically screams for a valet. The kids at Cap High are glamorous and gorgeous and they DGAF.

  (They’re better than you, and they know it.)

  (And honestly, so do you.)

  Today, though, the halls are empty. It’s only Eric Connelly, hurrying toward the office. And if you’re thinking our hero looks a little out of place amid these glamorous surroundings, you’re not entirely wrong.

  See, Eric never fit in at Cap. Four years in the place and even now, his senior year finished, he still feels like an alien walking these halls. Sure, he has the Mercedes and the flashy Swiss timepiece. He dresses like the crowd, and his parents have money. He’s your typical Cap kid, a poster boy for the school—

  (in fact, he’s Student of the Year)

  —but Eric’s different. If you look close, you can see it. It’s the sweat on his face as he hurries down the hall. It’s the way he keeps checking that Omega. It’s the way he looks worried, like the world doesn’t revolve around him, like he’s actually late and that actually matters.

  People don’t hurry in Capilano. They don’t get worried. They pay people to worry for them, and if they’re late, the world waits. It’s not cool to be stressed, and Eric’s stressed all the time.

  Ergo, he’s not really of Capilano.

  You know?

  FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS (FAQ)

  Q:Why is Eric stressed?

  A:Eric is stressed because he’s late for the VERY PRESTIGIOUS internship he landed at his dad’s old law office. He forgot to put gas in the G-Wagen this morning, and now he has to swing by Cap High to pick up his Student of the Year plaque—

  (they spelled his name wrong the first time)

  —but he got caught in beach traffic getting over here, and he has to be at his internship in, like, fifteen minutes, and it’s all the way on the other side of Capilano.

  Q:Why does a rich kid care about some stupid internship? It’s the first day of summer.

  A:Right. And for normal people, summer means vacation. Parties, beaches, regrettable hookups. Two glorious months of freedom before college starts. For Eric, summer = work. Eric’s headed to law school. Gotta pad those extracurriculars to make sure he gets in.

  Q:This guy sounds like a nerd.

  A:That’s not a question.

  Q:Okay, why are you making me read about some dork who can’t have any fun?

  A:I promise you, Eric’s going to have fun. He just doesn’t know it yet.

  Q:You just said he’s rich. Can’t he buy his way into law school?

  A:Good question. If Eric were anyone else at Cap High, the answer would be yes. But Eric isn’t anyone else. Eric’s a Connelly, and Eric’s dad believes Connelly men work for what they get. He’s riding Eric hard to get into Stanford. Hence the internship. Hence Eric’s nerd-like countenance.

  Q:What happens at the end?

  A:You really want to know? Eric kills the love of his life and goes to jail. His family disowns him. The end.

  Q:Great. And what’s Eric’s hero’s journey?

  A:Uh, what? You’re totally trying to crib for some essay or something, aren’t you? Just read the book, dude. It’s not even that long.

  5.

  Anyway.

  The point is, Eric’s stressed. Partially because he’s late for the VERY PRESTIGIOUS internship, and partially because he’s afraid his dad will find out he was late on his first day, and that would be VERY BAD for everyone.

  But we’re not going to talk about Eric’s dad yet.

  (You’ll hear plenty about him soon enough.)

  This book is fundamentally a love story, and love stories need two things:

  1.A love interest.

  2.A cheesy meet
cute.

  Lucky for us, we’re about to get both.

  6.

  Eric’s footsteps echo down the hall. He passes his old locker, the lunchroom, the computer lab. He makes it to the front of the school, the administration office. There are two people already inside the office when Eric walks in. One is Mrs. Adams, the secretary. The other is Jordan Grant.

  Jordan Grant is Harrison Grant’s only child. And that makes him **IMPORTANT**.

  7.

  Jordan Grant was is a senior at Cap High.

  (We’ll get to that.)

  He’s pretty well Eric’s opposite in every respect. I mean, he looks like an Abercrombie model—tall, built, perpetually tanned—but it’s not like Eric’s ugly. It’s more than that. It’s more the way Jordan carries himself. It’s the way Jordan looks like he’s never had a care in the world.

  Jordan’s dad is Harrison Grant, one of the most IMPORTANT people in Capilano. He used to be a development executive at Lionsgate, but he quit recently to start his own company. He just sold a TV series about baby geniuses, and Cap High rumor is that he walked away from the deal with, like, low eight figures.

  Whatever the truth is, Harrison Grant is obscenely rich. And Jordan Grant is his only kid.

  Something else you should know: This last year was Jordan’s first year in Capilano. He was living in L.A. with his mom before the school year started. He moved up here with his dad. Nobody at Cap High’s really sure what the deal is. Eric heard a rumor Jordan punched out, like, Wiz Khalifa, and that’s why he had to get out of town—but nobody’s been able to corroborate.

  Whatever, though. Jordan’s up here now. And since his dad is rich and powerful and important, and Jordan looks like an Abercrombie model and even pops up now and then on TMZ and Defamer, well, he pretty much became king of the school the moment he walked through the front doors.

  And Jordan lives like a king. His Instagram is like a magazine spread: Jordan on a speedboat with a couple of smoking-hot Cap High girls. Jordan at some movie premiere with Chris Pine. Jordan skydiving. Surfing. Jordan with his shirt off.

  (Jordan has a six-pack, obvi.)

  If Cap High is full of A-listers, Jordan Grant is A-double-plus. He does what he wants, when he wants, with whoever he wants—guy or girl—like he’s some kind of god who doesn’t give a shit about ordinary people’s rules.

  Jordan Grant is the Man.

  (He’s also going to be the Love Interest for the purposes of this narrative.)

  8.

  Does that scare you? The Jordan thing? Did you pick up this book thinking it was going to be all fast cars and hot chicks and explosions?

  I’m sorry.

  If it’s any consolation, the Jordan thing scares Eric, too. Eric’s still not sure he’s entirely on board with this whole “liking boys” situation. It kind of crept up on him. It’s not something he was planning.

  Yeah. It scares Eric . . . a lot.

  9.

  Jordan Grant is sitting on a bench in the secretary’s office while Mrs. Adams talks on the phone.

 

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