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A damn jock. Only thing missing was a letterman jacket. His buddies lurked in the background, shoving one another around.
“No problem,” I muttered and started walking away. I had—I checked my watch—seven minutes to get to class.
I had four years of this. Unless I could find a way to graduate early, but that was gonna be tough. I guessed it depended on how Dad recovered from this round of chemo. The doctors were hopeful, so… But I had to be prepared for the risk of the cancer coming back yet again, and it was possible I would have to get a job in a year or two.
Eventually, I’d bring it up with him. He’d probably deny it, saying we were doing fine—and I kinda believed him, all while… I mean, money ran out fast when you couldn’t work full time and you had a son who was suddenly in private school. Yeah, Grandma had helped with tuition, and I was sure Dad had saved up plenty before he got sick. After all, he didn’t want us to move to a cheaper area, and our living habits hadn’t changed. Still…with medical bills piling up, how long could this last?
“Hey, wait up!”
I threw a glance over my shoulder. What now? It was the jock again.
He ran over to me, having lost the football somewhere. “Didn’t I see you at orientation yesterday?”
How was I supposed to know?
I shrugged and hiked my backpack higher up on my shoulder. “Maybe…?”
“I think we have chemistry together first quarter,” he said. “What’s your name?”
“Lucian,” I replied. “Do you happen to know where the classroom is?” Because we had chemistry right now.
He pointed up the hallway we were already walking, and I glanced around me, then checked the map again. Okay, yes, that had to be it.
“It’s just around the next corner,” he said. “There’s plenty of time.”
Plenty of time? Ah, no. We had five minutes, and we were surrounded by students slamming their lockers. Anything could happen. Had I not just taken a football to the head?
“Do people call you Luke? Loosh?”
I gave him an incredulous look. What the fucking hell?
Loosh?
“My name is Lucian. It isn’t difficult to say,” I stated. “Nicknames are for children. I thought this was high school.”
He just grinned. Crooked-like and carefree, messy hair so dark it was almost black, and eyes annoyingly blue. “Touchy.” He kept walking alongside me, and he brought out a rolled-up plastic folder from the back pocket of his pants.
Shit. Right there on the semi-transparent front of the folder, it read “KC Hayles.”
Well, whatever. Nicknames were childish.
“I’m KC, by the way,” he said flippantly.
I pointed to myself. “Not Loosh.”
He laughed. “Has anyone ever told you you’re strung a little tight?”
Piss off, KC.
PROLOGUE 3
Present day
Noa Hayles
“That’s not what I feckin’ said, lad!” T laughed and grabbed his water bottle from the nearest amp.
I grinned, completely out of breath, and lifted my tee to wipe sweat off my face. “Sure sounded like it!” Fuck, I was spent. We had two more songs to rehearse, and I could only hope I didn’t go through the last of my drumsticks. I’d stupidly brought the wrong bag, where I had a bunch of thin 5A sticks that I never used—for a damn reason.
