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Fox Wilder’s eyes don’t leave me for a second as he leans against his motorcycle with his arms crossed. Whenever his attention is on me, I know something horrible is coming. I can’t decide if it was better to be ignored by my oldest friend, or to be his plaything with a target on my back.
Once he got it through my head last year that he despises me for some reason, he mostly left me alone. But that’s over now. Almost every day for the last two weeks he has some new twisted way to fuck with my head.
This time I don’t have my older brother or my friends to watch out for me, so I’m on my own to stand up to his bullying crap.
The leather jac
ket he wears stretches tight over the muscled arms I know hide beneath. He shifts his rigid posture, poised on his hunt for my pain and humiliation. Despite the warm spring weather, he’s in all black from his jacket to his jeans to his boots.
Everyone else abides the preppy SLHS uniform—black blazers embroidered with the school’s gold crest, slacks for the guys, and evergreen plaid skirts for the girls. There are some who bend the rules for a shorter hem, a loose tie, or more fashionable shoes, and then there’s Fox, who never pays attention to the dress code, always the outlaw king of his own world.
No one can tell him what to do, not even the school faculty. They’re as afraid of him as everyone else in town.
His stormy dark blue gaze is hard and angry as usual, thick brows set in a permanent scowl. It’s the only way I’ve known my old friend since he returned to Ridgeview last year like a ghost coming back to haunt me with the heartache I’ve carried since he left Colorado.
At first it killed me to be reunited only to feel the impenetrable wall Fox kept around him, allowing only a select few in. Holden was one of them. But not me.
I don’t know why, but it’s clear he can’t stand me now. I know I’m not as impulsive thanks to Mom’s obsession with public image, but I’m not so different from the girl he used to know.
I brush my fingers over the bracelet I’ve worn forever, the braided leather soft from age. It has three stones Fox found for me on a beach in California the year before our lives changed.
Fox was my friend, too.
The bitterness that rises in the back of my throat tastes awful and I roll my stiff shoulders. Looks like I’m in for another extended yoga routine tonight to ease the ache in my body from being wound so tightly. My heart hasn’t gotten the memo, giving a hopeful flutter every time Fox is around. As if he’ll suddenly get over whatever reason he’s holding a grudge against me.
Lost cause, girl. Let that energy go because it ain’t manifesting no matter how hard we will it.
The truth stings, but I’ve learned to survive with this knife hanging over my head.
Fox was ripped from my life for ten years, then blew back into this town like a violent storm, fast and without warning. I’ve been holding my breath for over a year waiting for the damaging force to strike once he turned those scornful eyes on me. I used to know everything he wasn’t saying behind them, when he was my closest friend. But now? I don’t remember what I did to make him hate me so much and he won’t give me the chance to fix it.
“Are you okay?” Sam asks with a sweet, curious look, startling me out of my thoughts. He brushes his thumb over my knuckles, all shy and polite. The corner of his mouth hooks into a boyish smile that should make my heart pound, but I’ve got nothing. “You went all quiet on me, beautiful. Tell me more about the sights you want to see on your road trip after graduation.”
This thing with Sam Blake is…new. Really new. I don’t know if I’m ready to call him my official boyfriend yet, but he’s been asking me to hang out since the year started and I needed a distraction from the heavy weight of Fox’s stare constantly following me everywhere at school.
Rumors about me have spread like wildfire through this drama-thirsty school. Attaching myself to Sam quelled them. For now, at least.
We weren’t together when Fox and I—no. Nope. Not thinking about that.
Sam took me out to see a movie last weekend and did the whole pick me up at my house and shake Dad’s hand thing, like I’m some maiden in waiting. He’s been driving me to and from school and whenever he sees me in the hall he takes my hand and carries my books without asking. Sam is…nice. The kind of guy my parents love because he’s perfect on paper in every way. Good grades, good manners, good family.
I think I’m panic-dating him. Fox catches my eye again as we reach the parking lot and my body goes hot and cold all over at memories I need to forget. I really needed that distraction.
“Um, yeah, I’m great,” I spit out, turning a bubbly smile on Sam.
He returns it with a wider one, the corners of his brown eyes crinkling. The color isn’t as intense as Fox’s dark blue gaze, which is fathomless enough to drown in when his focus is locked on me.
Crap, what did he ask? Don’t read the freak out in my eyes.
“Zion,” I blurt once the question registers. “Sunrise yoga in every national park I can hit.”
There’s more to the cross-country road trip I’ve been dreaming of for years, but each time I talk about it in detail Sam’s eyes glaze over. My best friend Thea is the only person who cares as much as I do about my goal, and knows why I want to take the solo trip to spread my wings before I’m forced into a college my parents chose, just another part of the full life story they laid out for me as soon as I was born. The older I get, the more they try to control what I do with their expectations.
I wish I could close my eyes and go back to when I was a wild little girl who could climb trees and run free.
“Cool.” Sam pulls his key fob from his pocket and unlocks the souped up blue BMW X5 parked near where Fox is watching our approach. Sam glances at me and pushes his fingers through his sandy blond hair. “Are you sure you want to take the trip by yourself? It doesn’t sound safe. Maybe I can come with you. We can make it like an adventure. Just the two of us.”
We’re close enough now that Fox can hear our conversation. His vicious snort makes my stomach churn and my shoulders rigid.
