by Nicole Fox
Penny is talking absolute nonsense. At first, I was momentarily grateful for the distraction.
Now, I’m just bored.
“Maybe it would help if we just cleared the air,” I say. “Why don’t you tell me all of the things you hate about me, and I’ll do the same for you? That way, we don’t have to play this little game every day. I’ll go first.”
She opens her mouth to argue, but I start talking before she can say anything.
“First, and most importantly, you hate me for no other reason than that my family hasn’t always been rich. It’s very shallow and stereotypical of you. I’m disappointed in your lack of original thought.” I hold up a second finger. “Second, you pit women against one another. You don’t know me, but you hate me because of the aforementioned reason and because I am friends with the Golden Boys, who you have some mysterious sexual past with. You assume men and women can’t be friends without something sexual going on between them, and that kind of thinking is barbaric and outdated.” I take a quick breath and hold up a third finger. “Lastly, your voice. You speak in a fake, nasally kind of way and it send shivers down my spine.”
Penny’s cheeks are red, her lips pursed in silent outrage.
I fold my hands on the table in front of me and smile up at her. “There. Now, it’s your turn. Get it all out.”
The two girls behind her are bland. No wonder she chose them as friends.
Penny absolutely seems like the kind of girl who likes to be the most vibrant, the most beautiful in the room. The kind of person who, if her friends were beauties, she’d hate them for it.
She likes these girls because they look to her with fearful eyes, like prairie dogs poking their heads out of the burrow, checking to see if it is safe for them to come out.
They rely on her.
And Penny likes being relied upon.
In so many ways, she reminds me of John. She belittles other people to raise herself up.
Little does she know, I am sick of being someone else’s stepping stool towards self-worth.
“That’s hilarious,” Penny finally says, forcing a smile on her face. “If you’re ‘friends’ with the Golden Boys, then I guess half the girls in this school are, too. You aren’t special, new girl. Just because they want to fuck you, it doesn’t make you suddenly worthy of our time.”
I frown. “You are confused. I’m not fucking anyone.”
Penny tips her head to the side and gives me a patronizing smile, her brows pulled together in mock concern. “Even though you said some not very nice things, I guess I’ll have to be the bigger person and teach you a lesson about how things work around here.” She leans towards me, palms flat on the table, her voice lowered in a shouted whisper. “The Golden Boys kiss and tell. We all know your dirty little secret.”
I know what Penny’s saying is completely false, but my heart speeds up anyway. “I don’t have a secret. Nothing is going on.”
She rolls her eyes and stands up, crossing her arms over her chest. “Enough with the holier-than-thou bullshit. Everyone already knows you’re Caleb’s whore, so it’s better to just embrace it at this point. He’s telling everyone.”
My stomach twists. “Caleb?”
Penny’s eyes go wide with intrigue. “Have you already slept with more of them? Oh, my God. This is too good.”
“No. I haven’t. I’m not.”
I reach for my lunch tray but fumble the edge and drop it back to the table. My milk tips sideways, spilling across the table.
Penny and her friends jump back with a yelp, trying to protect their shoes from the encroaching puddle.
I use the opportunity to dart away.
As I walk across the cafeteria, I feel even more eyes than normal on me. It might just be paranoia, but my skin crawls with the judgments I imagine are being hurled at me.
I need to find Caleb now.
I need to sort this out.
I dump my half-eaten lunch in the trash can and prepare to march straight to the front office and demand to know which class Caleb is in right now.
I’ll pull him into the hallway and figure everything out once and for all.
Except, when I turn around, I realize I don’t have to.
Caleb is sitting in the middle of the cafeteria, surrounded by members of the football team. He is in a pair of dark-wash jeans with a short-sleeved gray button-down, but most of the guys around him are in athletic shorts and Ravenlake Prep T-shirts.
I’m standing just outside the circle of jocks before I realize what I’m doing.
It takes a few seconds for them to notice me, but once they do, they go quiet, watching and waiting to see what is going to happen. It apparently isn’t every day that a nobody like me approaches a cluster of the most popular people in the school.
It’s only been a few seconds, but I’m tired of their staring eyes already, so I clear my throat.
“Caleb?”
He is still smiling when he turns towards me, laughing at something one of the other guys in the circle must have said.
But the second his brown eyes land on mine, they go hard. His entire demeanor shifts from easygoing, all-American guy to ruthless predator. His eyes bounce from me to the people around us and then back.
Always assessing. Always preparing.
Right now, Caleb looks very much like he does in the ring. He is cold and focused.
It makes the hairs on the back of my neck go up. I know before I’ve even begun that I’m outmatched.
I feel like the boy in the ring the night Caleb saved me from Levi: in for a very bad time.
But it’s too late to turn back now. All eyes are on me. Waiting. Watching.
“Can we talk?”
A few guys let out a low teasing whoops, bumping shoulders and laying their hands over their mouths, smiles wide.
Caleb doesn’t think it’s funny, though.
“I’d rather not.”
Outwardly, he looks bored. His head is tipped back, his body leaned precariously against the edge of a table. He looks cool and collected.
But I can see past the façade.
I cross my arms. “It’s important.”
“I doubt that.”
“I need. To talk. To you,” I say through clenched teeth.
Finally, Caleb’s calm façade cracks. “No, you need to go back where you came from and leave me the fuck alone.”
“Oh, you want me to leave you alone?” I ask, false innocence ringing in my voice. “Last I heard, you and I were fuck buddies.”
The guys erupt in cheers and laughter and shouts. A few of them clap Caleb on the shoulders in what I can only assume is congratulations.
Unfortunately, the females at Ravenlake Prep aren’t going to extend the same celebration to me.
I’ll be reviled while Caleb is revered.
“Have things changed?” I ask over the sudden noise. “Do you want to talk over the details of our arrangement here or—?”
Caleb may be a lot of things, but he isn’t an idiot. He sees my question for what it is: a threat.
Before I can even finish the sentence, he hops up from the table, seizes hold of my arm, and starts pulling me from the lunchroom.
We pass a teacher I don’t recognize. She doesn’t even look in our direction. It’s unclear whether she is too old to care about the antics of teenagers, or she is too afraid to stand up to Caleb.
Either way, I get it.
“I’m the one who wanted to talk to you,” I argue, trying to pull my arm free as Caleb marches me through a sea of our classmates. “You don’t have to hold me hostage.”
He doesn’t respond, but his grip tightens around my arm.
As soon as we are through the glass double doors at the other end of the cafeteria and alone in a hallway, Caleb spins me around and pushes me up against the brick wall.
“What the fuck did I say to you?” he spits, his palms flat on the wall on either side of my head. He is a living, breathing cage around me, and I have no h
opes of breaking free. “I told you to stay out of my way. I told you I was setting the rules here. I told you—”
“I didn’t know you planned to tell everyone I was your whore!”
He arches a brow. “You dated a Hell Prince. Please don’t try to convince me you suddenly care about what people think.”
I swing to hit his chest, but he catches my hand in midair before I can. He squeezes my fingers tightly, grinding my knuckles together until a whimper forces itself between my lips.
“Please stop,” I whimper.
Only then does he let go.
I gasp and cradle my hand in my lap. It hurts to move my fingers. “Everyone cares what people think,” I whisper, not looking up at him. “You should know that better than anyone.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
I bark out a laugh, though nothing about this situation feels funny. “It means we made this arrangement in the first place because you don’t want people to know what you do on the weekends. Clearly, you care what people think.”
“I don’t give a fuck what they think. What anyone thinks.”
He takes a step back and runs a hand through his hair. The silky strands catch the light, revealing streaks of gold and auburn. He really is absurdly beautiful for a boy.
“Sure you don’t.”
Apparently, he doesn’t like my attitude, because he steps towards me again with that perma-scowl on his face he seems to reserve exclusively for me. His smell invades my nostrils. It makes me feel a little dizzy.
“There’s a big difference between keeping things private and giving a shit what the idiots in this town think. That doesn’t mean I give a rat’s ass about your opinion, or anyone else’s. Just means that some things aren’t meant to be shared.”
“Your sex life is not one of those things, apparently.”
At that, Caleb’s mouth tips into a smirk. “It would be pretty hard to keep that part of my life private.”
For the first time, I catch a glimpse of why so many girls find Caleb charming. When he wants to be, he is warm and seductive.
He just doesn’t want to be that way with me.
I try to keep the flush in my cheeks from getting too obvious. “Exactly, and I don’t want to be one of the masses. You’ve lumped me in with half the school and it’s embarrassing. You have to tell the truth.”
“I don’t have to do anything. Especially not for you, Cochran.”
“Why can’t you just tell people I’m paying you to train me? Tell them I wanted a one-on-one trainer. It’s partially true, and people will know you are only doing it because you’re being paid.”
“I don’t need the money.”
I sigh. “No one is accusing you of being poor, rich boy. But people know you like to fight, and it will make sense if you decided to get some extra money by training—”
“I don’t need extra money,” he repeats through gritted teeth. “It’s a stupid excuse.”
Caleb Wilson is the most stubborn man I’ve ever met. I want to pull my hair and scream.
“It’s not. Everyone knows the best lies include a kernel of the truth. Just tell your friends that—”
Before I can even finish the sentence, Caleb is on me again. For the third time in four days, he has me pinned against a wall. It’s happening so often that I’m growing used to the sensation.
What I’m not growing used to, however, is the nearness of him.
His body is strong and hard. He is solid in a way most teenage boys aren’t. More man than boy.
I just barely resist the urge to reach out and massage his pec.
“I will tell my friends exactly what I want to tell them,” he spits, looming over me, blocking out the sun. “We aren’t friends or partners or coconspirators. You asked for this arrangement, but I’m going to control the terms.”
I swallow the lump lodged in my throat. “I thought you said my blackmail wouldn’t work. You said you could destroy my life with just a few phone calls.”
“Then you should also remember I told you I was only going to play along so long as this scheme was less trouble than ruining you.” Caleb leans in, his tone and posture threatening. He smells heavenly. Sharp and warm and rich. “Right now, you’re making me second guess that choice.”
John wasn’t a big man, but he scared me with his violence and his unpredictability. I never knew when some small thing would set him off.
When he would become annoyed with the tapping of my thumbs on my phone’s keyboard and throw the device across the room.
When I’d fail to laugh hard enough at one of his jokes and earn myself a cracking backhand across the face.
Caleb is different.
He has the strength and built to tear me limb from limb, way more so than John.
But when he gets close to me like this, fear isn’t the first thought into my mind.
Instead, I’m terrified because … I don’t hate it.
I don’t hate the way his body feels against mine or the way he smells. I don’t hate that his cold eyes always slip past my eyes to my chest—just for a quick peek—before drilling into mine again.
Caleb terrifies me because, even though he has made it clear that he hates me, I can’t quite force myself to hate him.
I can’t bring myself to believe that he is as terrible as he says he is.
Despite it all, I can’t help but think I could change Caleb if given the chance. And as women everywhere know, that is the scariest thought of all.
“Meet me at Finn’s tonight. At seven.” He pulls away suddenly, shoves his hands in his pockets, and walks towards the glass doors into the cafeteria.
But just before he walks through them, he calls back over his shoulder. “Until then, stay away and keep your mouth shut.”
16
Haley
“You are not leaving this house until you finish all of your homework.”
I’m hanging halfway out the front door, one foot on the porch, the other in the entryway when my mom stops me.
“What?”
Mom moves into the entryway, one hand on her hip. “You heard me.”
“It’s only the second day of school. There is no homework.”
Even as I say that, I can’t believe how little time has actually passed since my life turned completely upside down. It seems crazy that so much could have happened in two days.
I’ve already made enemies at Ravenlake Prep, Penny and Caleb being the most notable.
I have to deal with the sudden reappearance of my abusive ex-boyfriend who has been a ghost for the last three months.
And the only friend I have in the entire world might not be my friend anymore.
Despite sending her a flurry of three more texts filled with nothing but sad-face emojis, Estefania still hasn’t texted me back.
My mom frowns. “This is a private school. They haven’t assigned you anything to read yet?”
I shake my head, and her frown deepens. “What are we even paying them for?”
“I don’t know, but can I go?”
“Go where?” She throws a dish towel over her shoulder and crosses her arms.
I hold my arms out and gesture to my outfit. I’m wearing a pair of running shorts, a sports bra, and a paint-splattered T-shirt with the sleeves cut off. The holes are huge, showing off most of my sides, but it’s still more coverage than I usually wear on a run.
Typically, I only wear my sports bra, but after the way Caleb looked at me the other day, I don’t think that’s a good idea.
“Fine. Do you have your pepper spray?”
I twist my hips to show her the holster on my side.
“And your whistle?”
I grab the chain around my neck and pull the slender silver whistle from where it rests just beneath my collarbone.
My dad gave it to me when I first started running. Our old neighborhood wasn’t the safest place for a teenage girl to go running alone.
I highly doubt I’ll need it now that we are li
ving in the Beverly Hills of Texas, but there’s no harm in being prepared.
“Okay, go.” She waves me away, but just as I’m about to pull the door shut, she grabs it and pulls it open again. “Oh, and Haley? Please keep away from the boys next door.”
I’ve managed to stay cool about all of the drama at school and with John when talking with my mom. If she knew what was going on, she’d be scared for me, but even worse, she’d be disappointed.
My parents know my academic performance wasn’t great at Public, but they don’t understand exactly what I was mixed up in. If I tell them the truth, it will crush whatever small amount of faith they have left in me.
As soon as my mom mentions Caleb, however—even if not directly by name—I can’t seem to control my body.
I cross my arms and shift nervously from one foot to the other, as though I’m jogging lightly in place.
As soon as I stop doing that, my arms uncross, and I begin fiddling with the rape whistle.
“Why?” I ask, before realizing that might be the wrong thing to say if I want to keep her from being suspicious. “I mean, I don’t even know them. Do you know them?”
She shakes her head. “I don’t know them, but you remember all of that stuff that happened over there last year.”
“Mr. Foster died,” I say. “And I heard at school that his son is living in New York.”
“I’ve seen his friends over there, though,” Mom says, leaning out of the door to look towards the house, though we thankfully don’t have a view of the front of the house from ours. We can only see the back corner and patio. “I just think it would be best if you stayed away from all of them. This is a new start for you, and I don’t want anything to distract you.”
Distract me from what, she doesn’t say, but I promise with a quick kiss on her cheek.
Then, I take off at a slow jog down the driveway and down the block.
I pass by Finn’s house initially in case my mom followed me out to the road to watch. Then, when I’m a few houses down, I check to make sure no one is watching before I double back and sprint up the driveway.
Caleb answers the door on the third ring. I’m so convinced my mom is seconds away from finding me out that the second the door opens, I fling myself through it and slam it shut, pressing my back against the solid wood.
