Chaos at Westbrook High (The Kingston Brothers #3)

Chapter 5

Westbrook High is huge.It’s at least three times the size of my old school in Bridgeport. The parking lot is filled with cars and people, most of them standing around and talking with their friends, some headed towards the double doors of the ominous building in front of me.

I need to walk through those doors and make a left—I know because I studied the map in my enrollment packet like my life depended on it—but my feet won’t move for some reason. I’m stuck to the ground in the far corner of the lot, hiding between the trees.

I came here once when my brother was a junior. His dad forgot his birthday, and I knew he was upset about it even though he pretended he wasn’t. Val closed the shop early so she and I could surprise him. We picked him up from school and took him to the carnival a few towns over. He called me lame for coming up with the idea, but I know he secretly loved it.

It’s been forever since I’ve seen him happy like that.

Chewing the inside of my cheek, I hesitate for a few moments while I fiddle with the phone in my hand, debating with myself over what I’m about to do. He’ll think I’m weak, a lost little girl in need of saving, but fuck it, and fuck him. I need my older brother.

Decision made, I call his number and press the phone to my ear.

“What is it?” he asks as soon as he answers, still pissed at me by the sound of it.

“What do I do?”

“Keep your mouth shut,” he says simply. “Don’t be too nice, but don’t be a bitch either. Keep your head down—metaphorically, not literally. Don’t look at the floor. Be confident, not cocky. And whatever you do, do not let them back you into a corner.”

I take a deep breath and nod even though he can’t see me. “Okay.”

“And Hailey?”

“Yeah?”

“Stay the fuck away from Kai.”

He hangs up before I can respond to that. I shove the phone into my back pocket.

Just as I start walking, the crowd in the parking lot splits in half, and I look over at the iron gates I walked through not long ago, watching from a distance as the Kingston brothers drive in and pull up into the three empty spaces at the front of the lot. Of course they have their own designated parking spots.

By the time they’ve all climbed out of their cars, a decent sized group of people has them surrounded on all sides, excited over their return as if they’ve been gone for years, not days. This must be their first day back since the wedding.

Damon’s the first to get bored of the attention, leaning back against his black Lamborghini with Callie between his legs, his hands in the back pockets of her jeans while he makes out with her neck. He’s the biggest and tallest out of all of them. The protector, from what I’ve heard. He’s the one who’ll put you in the hospital if you touch what’s his—literally, the psycho—and his wife is no better. Callie’s a crazy bitch with a temper that rivals his, and I’m pretty sure she gets off on making him lose his shit. Like it’s a fucking game to her.

Wren’s the one with the orange Lamborghini. He’s the quiet brother. The broken bad boy who likes weed and other bad boys, it seems. Almost everyone is staring at him and Levi right now, probably because they came out as a couple in front of the entire school and eloped to Vegas within the space of two weeks. I wasn’t here then, obviously, but I heard all about it. Word travels fast in this town, especially when it comes to the Kingstons. I don’t know much about Levi, just that he’s another trust fund baby who worships the ground Wren walks on.

And then there’s Kai. He’s the one with the bright yellow Lamborghini and a rare frown on his face, a body covered in tattoos, his hands in his pockets as he leans back between the two happy couples on either side of him. He’s the player of the group. He fucks anything that walks on two legs and talks about sex every time his mouth is open. He treats girls like toys and they still kneel at his feet, and honestly, it’s not hard to figure out why. I’m not blind. He’s nice to look at, but that’s pretty much all that’s nice about him. He’s vile on the inside, wrapped up in a pretty package with a grin that screams, I’ll ruin you and you’ll like it.

There’s no grin on his face right now though. He’s in a mood, his messy dark hair falling over his baby blue eyes, his gaze cast downward. I’m not sure why I care. Or why I’m still staring at him.

I look away and pull my hat down a little further. I take the long way around the parking lot and slip in through the double doors behind them. Once I’m safely inside, walking down the hall with my head up, I begin to relax a little when no one looks at me, tries to talk to me, or makes fun of me because I’m new. Maybe this won’t be as bad as I thought.

It’s worsethan I thought.

After I collected my schedule from the principal’s office, I made my way to the senior hallway in search of my locker. They’re numbered, but I’m five foot nothing, and I can’t see the numbers with all these bodies in the way. There are so many people here. I’ve been bumped into more times than I can count, heard the words Bridgeport trash at least once, and I’m pretty sure everyone’s laughing at me. I’m not worried that they might know who I am. They’re probably just guessing that I’m a transfer from Bridgeport, but still. I hate it here.

When I pass the girls’ bathroom on my left, I catch eyes with a blonde girl standing a few feet away from me. She’s laughing with another girl while she sips on a smoothie, but she keeps her eyes on me. I’m just about to cave and ask her to point me in the right direction, but when she notes my intention to come near her, she sneers and faces me fully. “What the fuck are you looking at?” she snaps, trying to bump my shoulder as she passes me. I pull out of the way just in time, and she stumbles forward, catching herself before she falls. When she turns around, her face is red, her teeth are bared, and I’m just about ready to get my ass kicked by an angry cheerleader.

Her eyes snap to something behind me just as some guy says, “Rach, don’t?—”

“Hey, coffee girl,” someone else calls, and I look over my shoulder, my hackles rising at the nickname Kai gave me the first time he saw me.

The girl grins when she looks at my face. She’s got long, dark red hair curled into tight ringlets, her lips painted a deep red to match, wearing all black and six-inch heels I’d break my neck in. She’s stunning. I’ve seen her before, not just at the coffee shop, but at parties too. Rachel Rossi, Callie’s best friend and Ryan Crawford’s girlfriend. He’s standing behind her, his eyes flicking up to mine as he pulls his phone out of his pocket.

When I start to walk away from them, Rachel grabs my wrist, looking amused as she tugs me in closer. “What’s the number?”

I frown. She waits. I hesitate because she’s one of them and I don’t trust her, but then I swallow my pride and mutter, “Four eighty-one.”

She hides a smile for some reason. Pulling me through the crowd, she boldly waves people out of the way and finds my locker for me. “There.” She taps the door.

“Thank you,” I say gratefully.

She winks at me, moving to leave before turning on her heel and coming back again. “By the way, the cheerleader who tried to bump you just now? That’s Madison. She’s all bark and no bite, so don’t be afraid to call her out on her shit, okay? She won’t hurt you.”

“You sure about that?”

“I’m sure,” she tells me, smirking as she looks at something at the end of the hall. “No one’s gonna fuck with you once they find out who you are.”

I frown again, my heart tripping. “And who might that be?”

“Rachel,” Ryan grits out.

“All right, I’m coming.” She chuckles as she goes back to her boyfriend.

I scan the growing crowd beside me, confused when I realize they’re all drifting to the sides. I watch them curiously while I open my locker with the combination. And then I see him, walking this way with his eyes on his phone, seemingly unaware of the fact that these people just cleared a path for him to walk through. Or maybe he’s just used to it.

It looks like he’s coming right for me, and I start to panic, unsure whether I should hide my face in my locker or just run away altogether. But he’s not paying attention, and I’m staring at him again, and it’s only when he walks right into me that I finally snap myself out of it.

Shit. I should’ve run.

With his feet just an inch from mine, he glares and lifts his head from his phone, looking like he’s about to bite mine right off. But when he looks at me, his eyes flash with something that looks an awful lot like shock, his lips parted. I expect him to do or say something, but he surprises me by doing the opposite. He does nothing. He just stares at the middle of my face. He stares for so long that I start to get really, really uncomfortable. I slowly look around, finding most of the students staring at me as well. It’s as if they’re waiting for something bad to happen.

What? Am I supposed to move for him?

Feeling a strange compulsion to obey, I side-step out of his way like everyone else did before, but in that same second, he turns his whole body and moves with me, crowding my space until my shoulders hit the open locker behind me.

Whatever you do, do not let them back you into a corner.

I try to move, but he moves with me again, preventing me from taking a single step.

“Kai,” I breathe out, immediately kicking myself for saying his name like that. I didn’t mean to. It just slipped off my tongue, and—Jesus, has he always been this tall? When he’s this close, I have to crane my neck to look at him, swallowing when I see the hunger in his light blue eyes. His mouth stretches into a grin, and he moves even closer, flattening his palms on the metal on either side of me, caging me in.

“You’re here.”

I don’t know what to say, so I keep my mouth shut, jumping when the shrill sound of the first bell hits my ears. He lowers his head, bringing his eyes down so he can meet mine beneath my ball cap.

“Baby, relax. You’re shaking.”

Again, I have no idea what to say.

“I thought you were in college,” he murmurs, moving one of his hands to play with a loose strand of my hair. “What are you doing here?”

I consider ignoring him like I always do, but I figure the best way to get him out of my face is to move this along quickly. “I’m a senior. In high school,” I clarify.

“Did you just transfer here?”

“Yes.”

“Which school did you go to before?”

“Bridgeport.”

He cocks his head at that. “But you live here…” he trails off, raising a brow when he realizes how tense my shoulders are, my hands twitching with the urge to smack his fingers away from my head. “Don’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Are you afraid of me?”

“No.”

But even as I say it, it feels like a lie. It’s one thing having to deal with him every day at work, on my territory, but being here with him at this big ass school where he’s considered a king, where he can do whatever he wants and nothing and no one will stop him…

NowI’m afraid of him.

He continues to crowd me, and I look away, narrowing my eyes when I catch the look of disgust on that cheerleader’s face. Madison, as Rachel told me. The pretty blonde girl standing on the sidelines with her pretty friends, their judgy little eyes picking me apart from the top of my cap to the bottoms of my sneakers. I shouldn’t care what they think, and I don’t, but damn it, I don’t fit in here and they all know it.

Now more than ever, I wish I could go back two months, back to when Valerie was alive and our lives weren’t falling apart at the seams. I wish I could stop her from crossing that street and prevent everything that happened afterward. I wish I could wake up from this nightmare I’m trapped in.

“What’s wrong?” Kai asks, pulling me from my thoughts.

“Nothing.” I dip around him in an attempt to escape, but he easily snatches my waist and puts me right back where I was.

My back hits the locker again, our defiant gazes crashing together, his forearms caging me in on either side of my head. I glare up at him, my eyes burning with anger at the fucking nerve on this handsy asshole.

“Why are you so upset?”

“I’m not upset, I’m?—”

“Yes, you are,” he cuts in, gently cupping my jaw with his fingers as he lowers his voice, ensuring only I can hear him. “You’ve always been pissed when I’m around, but you were never this sad before. Something happened right around the time I left for Cancun, didn’t it? When Damon and Callie got married. You disappeared for a few days, and then you came back and…” he trails off, his forehead creasing as he bounces his eyes between mine. “Baby, what happened?”

“Why do you keep calling me that?”

His expression softens, and he grins again, tilting his head to touch my nose with his. “I don’t know your name,” he whispers. “Tell me what it is and maybe I’ll use it.”

I inhale a breath and let it out slowly, inwardly warring with myself over what to do next. I don’t want to give it to him, but he’s going to find out soon enough anyway.

“Hailey,” I finally tell him. “My name is Hailey.”

“Hailey,” he echoes. “I like that.”

“Oh, good. I was worried you’d hate it,” I say dryly.

He laughs lightly as his hand falls away from my face. Reaching into his pocket, he pulls out the daisy he would have given me at the coffee shop this morning. My eyes close briefly.

Every goddamn day.

“Don’t do this,” I whisper. “Not here.”

He doesn’t put it away.

My nostrils flare as I snatch it from him, successfully slipping out from his makeshift trap just as the second bell rings. I knock my locker shut and manage to walk away unscathed, not missing the way Ryan and Rachel are watching while pretending to mind their own business.

“Hey, Hailey,” Kai calls out, and I stupidly look back, finding all five of Elijah Kingston’s children staring back at me, Kai in the middle with that stupid grin plastered to his face.

“What?”

“You’re pretty when you’re angry.”

He says it loud enough for everyone to hear, and now I’m pissed and mortified, instinctively keeping my head down as I walk through the crowd that jumps out of the way for me.