The Tenth Girl

by Aarons, Carrie

And me … I needed my “get out” money. I’d been saving slowly but surely since sophomore year, and I had two thousand dollars put aside for my next chapter. It didn’t sound like much, but it was enough for a plane ticket, and hopefully I could self-publish my book by the end of this school year and begin making royalties off of that. All I had to do was have enough after that for a cheap place wherever I decided to go.

  Italy.

  London.

  Bali.

  Hawaii.

  I’d debated all of these places, or other quiet corners of the world where it would be just me and my computer, me and my words. I’d lived with next to nothing for my entire life, so the nomad lifestyle wouldn’t bother me one bit. I loved my mom, but I’d always felt like I belonged somewhere else. Like there was this entire world out there and I’d never seen any of it. Even at my young age of seventeen, I felt the tug to go elsewhere.

  So when Grandma had surprisingly come to me in the living room two days ago, saying she had a job lined up for me, I’d jumped at the chance.

  “I’m told that you worked at a fishing supply shop in Florida.” Her curt tone was no-nonsense, all the time.

  I’d been writing, and I looked up from the keyboard. “I did, yeah.”

  “I’ve gotten you a job at the local bait, tackle and hunting shop. You have an interview on Thursday after school, although it’s a formality.”

  I was surprised, but happy to have a job without having to really work for it. “Thanks, Grandma.”

  She nodded, and I swear she smiled. “Everyone works when they live under this roof, minors included. You’ll also be expected to do some minimal farm work for the time your mother decides to set her bags in Haven.”

  Her voice is bitter, and I know that she thinks my mother is frivolous and spontaneous. And she is, but it’s what makes me love her.

  “She means well. She’s been a good parent.” I sound like the mother in our duo.

  “And the fact that you have the awareness to understand that is sad. You’re just a girl.” My grandma frowns. “But, you seem like a hard worker, and I appreciate that.”

  That was basically her telling me she loved me, in her own weird way.

  The exchange had been strange, and sad. Did she regret not accepting my mother for what she was? She was almost certainly disappointed in her, but I could also tell with each new conversation we had, that she regretted losing so much time with the only family she had left.

  I walk out of the tackle shop carrying a polo shirt with the Hook & Hunt logo on it, and a printed weekly schedule of my hours. My new boss, Bob Custer, is a nice, if not gruff, man who seems like he’ll be fine to work with if I just do my job.

  The store is located on Haven’s Main Street, which is home to the typical Main Street kind of stores. A butcher, a post office, library, coffee shop, dry cleaners, and a diner. No name brands, and there was a bookstore that I definitely needed to check out. The sign in the window said they had used copies, and I bet there were some gems among those stacks.

  We’d been here almost a week, and I would be lying if I said Texas wasn’t growing on me. It had a charm about it. I loved that when I walked past the bar on Main Street, Dolly Parton’s voice drifted out onto the sidewalk from the speakers inside. I loved sitting out in the fields at my grandma’s house, as was my nightly routine now. I’d find different pastures, and the other night I’d even spied a few of the horses that had wandered to the back part of her property. School was still a tornado of trendy clothing and the popular crowd, but my classes were good and the teachers here actually cared whether their students graduated.

  “Hey, Peep, wait up.”

  I hear the voice from behind me, and although I’ve only heard it a few times now, I know who is going to be advancing on me.

  My heart rate spikes, but I keep walking, my flip-flops slapping the pavement.

  “Now that’s rude, ignoring a friend’s request.” Cain Kent runs around the side of me, and cuts my movement off as his body stands in front of mine like a road block.

  “We’re not friends.” I look up at him, his height reaching about a foot above my own, and scowl.

  It’s difficult not to stare at a boy like Cain. His looks are like a storm cloud, dark and harsh, captivating, but beautiful in their doom.

  We must look like complete opposites standing here, on this stretch of sidewalk. Him, dark and foreboding, and me, light and naïve like a doe.

  “We could be. I can be real friendly, Harper Posy.” His mouth tips up, and I see the small silver scar on his chin stretch, marking the olive tone of his skin. “Yeah, I can find out any answer to any question I have about you without going to the source. Remember that.”

  “Oh, I think we both know how friendly you can be.” I raise an eyebrow, trying to hide my own shock that those words just came out of my mouth.

  In the week we’ve been in English together, I haven’t said any more to him. And he hasn’t acknowledged my presence. At first, it felt like he was purposely ignoring me, and that annoyed me. But then I thought, why should I care?

  And now here he is, trying to get in my pants in front of the dry cleaners.

  Cain’s clover-colored eyes twinkle. “Mm, so you like what you saw.”

  “No, but you should probably tell your girlfriend that another girl was … pleasuring you just hours before she accosted me.”

  His beautiful face screws up. “My girlfriend?”

  I scuff my sneaker into the sidewalk. I don’t know the politics around here, can’t navigate them. It’s like I left Florida and stepped into a world that spoke a completely different language. People say Florida is its own country, but Texas is a whole other beast unto itself.

  “Annabelle Mills … she told me to stay away from you. Maybe you should let her know that I’m not the one she has to worry about. Or do you treat all of them like your girlfriend?” I sneer, disgusted with him.

  Not only was he dirty, sneaking into school to get a blow job, he was a cheater on top of it.

  Cain laughs, the sound like melted butter on my skin. “Annabelle is not my girlfriend. I don’t do girlfriends. And even if I did, Annabelle would definitely not be one of them.”

  Now I feel like an idiot, because the mean girl tricked me into being intimidated. Or even caring that she was someone to Cain.

  His attractiveness threw me off, made me weak and dumb. I had never felt this way before, and it made me feel even dumber. I was actually mad at myself that I couldn’t fully focus in his presence.

  “But you know, you seem like a boyfriend type of girl. Let me show you how fun having no strings attached can be.” He moves closer, and I can smell the dirt and grass on the Haven Football T-shirt he’s wearing.

  I step back, pissed that he knows he’s getting under my skin. “Listen, buddy. I’m not any type of girl that you’ve ever encountered. I don’t want a boyfriend, and I also don’t want to ride the town jock. Leave me alone.”

  Flames, green and angry, ignite in his pupils. But he chuckles, disguising it. “Oh, new girl … you actually think I want to fuck you? You? Don’t make me laugh.”

  He calls me by the name as an insult, like he won’t call me my real name because it’s too polite.

  Cain is just inches away from me now, his head tilted down so that our lips are lined up. The electricity between us is palpable, and it’s traitorous for my heart to be doing what it’s doing. And at the same time, my cheeks burn with shame. With embarrassment that he just knocked me down ten pegs.

  His big body is too close, and he walks me backward into the brick exterior of the building. “You’re a toy, a play thing. Something to taunt, not stick my cock in. Believe me, I have girls at that school lining up for that. I can leave you alone, but I know that after you’ve had me this close, you won’t be able to sleep without thinking of what’s underneath these clothes.”

  Cain Kent points to himself, and I hate that my breath is coming out in puffs.

  Just a
s abruptly as he stopped me, he turns on his heel and leaves. No backward glances.

  Chapter Eight

  Cain

  “Hey, old man.” I hold my phone up, making sure my face comes into view.

  “Who you calling ‘old man’? I’ll have you know that I just re-programed a computer in under an hour as one of my training tasks for this mission.”

  I smile, because really, my dad is the farthest thing from old. As a general in the army, he’s one the smartest, bravest guys I know. And luckily for me, he’s also a good father, even though his job and his broken heart keep him halfway across the world most days. But, he’s always been supportive, and isn’t one of those prick fathers who teaches with his hands or thinks that because he’s in the military, it’s okay to be cold and punishing.

  Nah, my dad is pretty cool. He just … wasn’t around much. We talked a lot on FaceTime, sent emails, and he watched my games via the Internet.

  “How’s it looking for the game tonight?” Dad is in a white tee and the wall behind him looks to be made of straight drywall.

  He’s somewhere in Korea, although he can’t specifically tell me where.

  “Marshall High doesn’t have a chance, we’re going to smoke them. We’ve been running some new pass plays with a slant route, and they’ve been going really well in practice.”

  Dad nods as another soldier walks behind him with a gun strapped to his back. “Awesome, you looked great last week. Just keep those feet steady, no going twinkle toes.”

  We both laugh at the inside joke. When I was a kid, and my family was still intact and neither of my parents had run from the other, Dad was all about helping me excel at football. Not in a pressuring way, but because he knew I loved it.

  My dad and my grandfather are the only people in my life who I allow myself to be vulnerable with. They know the real me, the guy underneath the cocky prick façade or behind the quarterback arm that people tended to see before the person.

  “How is it over there?” I was always cautious to ask.

  It wasn’t like he was going to give me the real answer anyway. “It’s okay, missions are going as planned. Only eight more months, bud, I’ll be home right in time for graduation.”

  I nod, a bitter taste filling my mouth. It wasn’t like he had to go, he had enough years and missions to retire with a nice fat pension and the ability to get some teaching or training job at the local military base. But we both knew he would never stop. He couldn’t stand to be in Haven. We stayed because the football team was so great, and from the time I was little, we both knew that I was going to try to get to the national league. Going to Haven High School gave me a better chance to score a scholarship at a top college, and from there drawing interest from big time scouts to get drafted.

  Dad sacrificed for me, because he’d rather be in hell on hearth than in Haven. It was where he and my mom had fallen in love, where they’d had me, and eventually, where she’d left him. I don’t know the full details, to his credit he never tried to poison me against her. But I knew that being here, in our house and in town, was painful for him.

  So he kept taking tours, even if it meant he couldn’t be here for me.

  “Can’t wait, we can go see Brett Eldridge, too. He’s going to play a concert at that outdoor stadium like, two weeks after graduation.” I’d already been eyeing tickets. “Maybe we can take Gramps.”

  Dad nods, but I can see it in his eyes. Most likely, we were never taking Gramps out of the nursing home for a concert. Church on Sunday was the only trip he could muster the energy for.

  “All right, son, I have to go. Tell your grandpa I say hi when you see him on Monday. Talk soon, love you, kid.”

  “Love you, Dad.”

  And then the phone went dark with the ending of the call. I always told him I loved him. Unlike most kids I knew, I never took my parent for granted. Hell, one had already up and left.

  The house was too quiet now, and it was often that I was reminded that I was alone. Since I’d turned eighteen, I was legally allowed to live on my own. A lot of my friends would take having an empty house like it was the perfect opportunity to have nightly ragers. I like to party, but I don’t want kids trashing my house. I also don’t like the idea of people fucking on my couches or throwing up in bathrooms that I would then have to clean. So, I rarely had people here.

  I set my phone down on the bed and sit up, looking at the wall lined with trophies and the jerseys hung above my bed. Each one I’ve worn since the flag football days. The entire room is covered in sports memorabilia, except for the two large bookcases against the wall opposite my bed.

  When I’d seen Harper Posy outside the hunting store with a shirt and some papers, she’d also been holding a copy of David Copperfield. Ever since, I’d been thinking about that damn book in her hand.

  Was she at home reading it, in her bed? What was she wearing? Did she like to turn out the lights and use a flashlight, or did she stay up late, the lamp light causing stars to explode in the corners of her eyes.

  Walking to my bookcase, I pull out a worn copy of the same book, and flop on my bed. I open it, knowing what the first sentence of the first page will say.

  Just like no one sees the real me, no one but my dad and grandpa know that I enjoy reading. When Harper had yelled at me in honors English on Monday, she hadn’t realized that I actually did care about the books we were going to read.

  What no one knows is that while I am home alone in this house, without parties or girls or even friends, I often read. Dickens, Huxley, Stephen King, J.K. Rowling. I liked it all. I’d even read Fifty Shades of Grey. Of course, I had to stop like every other chapter to jack off … damn, that book was kinky.

  Harper pops into my head, and so does the idea of tying her up, Christian Grey style. Shit, now I’m hard. The new girl is an even more innocent virgin than the one in the book.

  It would be easy to go to tomorrow’s bonfire, the same one the students of Haven throw every Saturday night, and stick my dick in any willing pussy. Get to ten, win bragging rights.

  But something about that girl intrigues me. Not in a I want to hold her hand and confess feelings way, but I guess I’d just never seen a hot girl actually care about school. At Haven, there are cheerleaders and everyone else. Guess which sect I’d fucked?

  And yeah, she was hot. Really hot. When I told her that she had gall to think I’d want to fuck her, I’d just been playing head games with her.

  That’s how I’d get her. Break down her confidence, call her by the wrong name or some shit. Make her believe she never had a chance with me, and then wham. Come on to her so hard that she won’t know what hit her. She’d have to sleep with me to prove to herself that a guy like me would want her.

  When all along, my scheme will have gone perfectly according to plan.

  Chapter Nine

  Harper

  A lot of people think boys in high school are sex crazy, riddled with hormones and rabid like horny dogs.

  And, they are probably right.

  But what they forget is that most girls in high school are obsessed with one thing and one thing only.

  Their virginity.

  When will they lose it? Who will they give it to? Will it hurt? Has so-and-so already lost it? What will my peers think of me if I give it up too early, or too late?

  So many questions, not enough information or maturity to really understand what they’re doing. Too many emotions and hormones, driving girls to make stupid decisions.

  In Florida, almost every girl I overheard talking about it, who’d decided to give it up, had regretted it. She’d either picked the wrong guy, or hadn’t felt the mythical thing you’re supposed to feel.

  And so I’d decided, freshman year of high school while everyone had been running around, trying as fast as they could to take their clothes off, that I was going to wait. Yes, wait.

  I’d never detailed the rules of this waiting, if it was for marriage or just for a period of time until I thoug
ht I was mature enough. But I had made that promise to myself, and I’d kept it. I want my first time to be special, as stupid as that sounds. I want it to mean something, to be with someone I love, to be pleasurable and slow and in control but also out of my head all at the same time.

  I mean, I’d never been in the situation to even come close, but it was also because I had never put myself in that position.

  Well, I should also add that no boy has ever made me feel the need to get naked, or even close to it. No boy has made my heart thump, or my palms sweat, or my knees shake.

  Until Cain Kent.

  That boy is like venom to my veins, paralyzing and scorching all at the same time. I lock up around him, my throat constricts and the apex of my thighs becomes slick and uncomfortable. Like I need to rub it desperately. Which is something I’ve never been curious about, not even a solo exploration.

  He’s dangerous to my promise. But I know myself, and when it comes down to it, he’s the exact opposite of the person I’d break my waiting streak for. So I won’t do it.

  I’d had my first shift at Hook & Hunt this morning, and all I’d heard over the radio in the shop was how amazing Cain Kent had played in the game the night previous. I wanted to claw my eardrums out, and I’d rolled my eyes too many times to count.

  And now I’m sitting in the empty field a few hundred yards from our shabby little ranch house, lying on my back looking at the stars. Saturday nights meant nothing to me, and they really never had. In Florida, the party scene was too riddled with burnouts and reckless sex. It wasn’t my thing. I usually spent my weekends working, or at a remote beach writing or plotting in my notebook.

  I love my grandmother’s property for the fact that it’s quiet and secluded.

  Except for the last five minutes, I’ve been hearing random bouts of laughter and the beat of a song floating through the air.

  “What the heck is that?” I ask no one in particular.