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PROLOGUE
Alley
Someone getme out of this place.
Knowing my plea would fall on deaf ears, my gut screamed that I had to do it myself as I usually did, unless my big brother was around.
Braxton always had my back, and if he was home, he would gladly help, but he had football practice and would be heading off to work after that. I couldn’t handle sitting here in this filthy, noisy house another second while my parents partied, fought, and wasted what little money they had on their choice of party favors.
There was always a buffet of drugs and alcohol at the Hart household, and the revolving door we seemed to have, brought some extremely terrifying people into our home.
Only it never really felt like my home. The run-down place was just a roof over my head until the day came that I could finally get the heck out and far away from them.
Wanting to see my best friend Summer, I climbed out of my window into the dark, cool night, and took off.
Not that my parents would notice that I was gone. I could have probably walked right out the front door and they would have remained oblivious.
But if there was ever a chance they focused on me for a second, I didn’t want it to be tonight when I was desperate to escape. When they did turn their attention to me, it was not usually a good thing. And if my big brother wasn’t around to stop it, sometimes I didn’t fare so well. That night I just removed myself from the situation altogether.
I didn’t live close to Summer, but I would find a way to get there. Shadows and creepy sounds had me on full alert as I moved as fast as I could out of the not-so-great neighborhood I lived in, one that always felt as though there was danger lurking around every corner. My house was on the wrong side of the tracks and hers was in the ritzy part of town. I had never been inside, but I had been outside once when curiosity had me itching to see how the other half lived, and it was gorgeous.
Since making friends with Summer recently at school, we had been stuck together like glue there, but our worlds had never collided outside of those walls.
That was about to change.
After a bus trip and a bit of a hike, I reached my destination. As I stared up at the big sprawling, pristine, white home, I wondered if I even had the nerve to knock on the massive front door.
From rags to riches, that’s my house compared to this one.
In the end, the need to be around Summer outweighed the fear of what her family would think of me, but I didn’t want them to turn me away when I needed my only friend. I usually didn’t care. Okay, that was a lie. I cared a lot, but what good would it do to show that and let people see how bad it hurt to feel like you were so much less than everyone else?
Looking down at my appearance, I shook my head because there wasn’t much I could do. I did the best with what I had and picked up other clothes when my brother Braxton gave me money after he got paid from his job at the country club's pro shop. It wasn’t a lot because of football and other sports, so he couldn’t work too many hours. But at least our parents didn’t know anything about it so they couldn’t try taking a cent from him.
It was him and I against the world for so long, but now I had someone else too.
On shaky legs, I walked up the sidewalk, past the beautiful, professionally landscaped yard, up the stairs that felt like they were taking me to the unknown, and to a door that seemed fit for a castle. My hesitant hand reached up and rapped three times simultaneously. As I waited for someone to answer, it was a struggle not to duck and run. It had been even harder when nobody answered to get my finger to push the doorbell and keep my feet planted.
But I didn’t want to be alone.
The chime of the doorbell rang loud and clear, then I heard static just before a voice came over a speaker to my left that I hadn’t even noticed. A male voice, smooth as butter, spoke and my almost-teenage heart raced, my body going on full alert. Never in my twelve years had the sound of someone evoked such a reaction. He simply asked who was there, and I couldn’t spit out words to save my life.
Which is basically what I felt like I’d been searching for when I came.
Someone to save my life.
I may not have been in physical danger tonight, although with the seedy people that came to the house it was a definite possibility sometimes. Emotionally, though, it was a whole different story, and I needed saving for sure. Even if I acted as if everything was just peachy most of the time.
Brushing things off or sweeping them under the rug was a specialty of mine.
Before the man could walk away from the inside speaker, I mumbled that I was Alley, and was there to see Summer. And with that, locks disengaged, and a door opened to a guy who looked nothing like the ones at my school or even my brother for that matter. His smile, his clothes, his perfect blonde hair, screamed, ‘I’m rich’, but the softness in his eyes said he was as nice as his sister.
I knew right away that I was looking at the famous brother, Landon, that Summer spoke so highly of. And when I looked at him again, I also saw something else. Just a regular guy, one that looked tired and stressed well beyond his years. I knew that he was the same age as my brother but seemed so much older. I may have been young, but thanks to my crappy childhood, I’d grown up fast and hard, and I sensed he had too.
Just in a different way.
And everything about him called out to me, but I couldn’t explain why, or even what to do with those feelings that were tumbling through me.
He reached out his hand to introduce himself, putting his soft palm against my smaller, rough one. It was another indication of just how opposite we were. But with that touch, I felt as if my world tilted all wonky, and suddenly, I had a purpose where he was concerned. I may have not known what it was or what this encounter would bring, but it was going to be life-changing—that much I was sure of.
