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She let out a sigh of relief. “I guess we should go. Our hour is up.”
“You don’t mind?”
She shook her head and grinned, linking her arm through mine.
I’d never been so grateful to leave a place in my life. Now, if only I didn’t have to see Cayden West at school on Monday, everything would be great.
Cayden
Hade Harbor was a fucking joke.With its shiny new school building, idyllic setting, and kids with cars that cost more than my foster father’s entire trailer, it felt like a dream. Did people really live like this?
On Monday, I joined the rush heading into the school. Even the air smelled expensive. Wholesome, privileged students wandered around, eyeing me curiously. I wasn’t a guy who melted into the background well. I stuck the hell out, and there was nothing I could do about it. I’d stopped trying. In my life up until now, I’d learned well that some people had no choice but to be seen and talked about. At least in Hade Harbor, I was being talked about for hockey and nothing else. Not like back home. There was nothing like back home.
I shoved away the black hole that threatened to swallow me at the thought of home, and a flash of rose gold caught my eye by the entrance.
Her.
Lily.Bug.
She walked with her head down, holding an open textbook. She literally had her nose in a book. She was just as much of a fever dream as the rest of this picture-perfect place. Was there really anyone so angelic-looking? It seemed impossible.
The sun fell over her bowed head, lighting her hair from a muted strawberry blonde to a blaze of red gold. Friday night, and the feeling of her slender wrist in my hand returned to me full force. She had green eyes, lush as the pines that crowded the back of the school. I’d been close enough on Friday to see that they were streaked with gold. She was tall for a girl but small to me; regardless, her pale skin was a map of fawn-colored freckles. Her exposed skin in the black dress had revealed a constellation across her collarbones.
The thought that she was freckled under her clothes had made me hard.
A new kink unlocked?
Maybe, or perhaps it had been the way she’d gone toe to toe with me, despite being scared. The girl with the racing pulse and the fiery gaze. Her mouth was distractingly full, her lips naturally pouty. An effect that countless girls tried to achieve and failed. I could tell that this girl,Lily,was all real, though. She was studious and serious, annoying as fuck and feisty. Her jeans clung to her long legs and a huge sweater kept slipping off her shoulder, revealing a thin strap. I followed behind her, growing closer. She climbed the stairs slowly, her eyes never leaving her book.
I had nothing to say to her; I’d said it all on Friday. She should stay out of my way. It might have sounded harsh, but it was good advice. I was here for one reason, and it was too important to be distracted from. Besides, good little girls like Lillian could destroy a guy like me. I knew my level, and Lillian Williams was far above it.
“Cayden! You made it okay on the bus over here? I would have picked you up.” Coach Williams waited for me inside the entrance hall.
Lily stopped, twisting around to find me just behind her. She jerked back and dropped her book, her green-eyed gaze fastening on me with surprise, and maybe a little accusation, like she suspected I’d been about to trip her or something equally childish. Lily had no idea that if I decided to take her down, there’d be nothing childish about what I’d do to her.
“Lily, have you met Cayden?” Coach Williams asked, approaching us both.
I crouched to swipe her dropped book from the floor. Lily mirrored my movement and cracked her chin off my jaw. She fell back, sitting on the floor and holding her head.
“Lil, you’ve got to pay attention to things around you,” Coach Williams said, a note of exasperation in his tone.
Lil?
“I was. I didn’t expect him to try to take my book.”
Lily cast me a narrow look that nearly tugged a laugh from me. She thought I’d steal her book? She thought I was interested in those kinds of petty games? Little Lily was in for a surprise if she did, in fact, bring my attention down on her by being fucking annoying.
“Here.” I grabbed the book and handed it to her.
She took it like it was a snake that might bite her before standing.
“Manners, Lillian,” Coach reminded her.
What the fuck was their relationship?
She flushed, a pretty petal pink that I’d bet she hated. Folding her arms over her chest and making that damn sweater shoulder slip down her creamy arm, she spoke through gritted teeth.
“Thank you.”
