Love at First Ride

Prologue

Hollie

Texas

I don’t need to look back to know there’s a popular girl behind me.

‘Out of the way, losers,’ she says, then follows up her words with an impatient click of her tongue.

If this was the school corridor, my friend Marcie and I would move, and pronto.

Tonight, though, is a little different. The sun’s going down on Amber Bradshaw’s sprawling, palatial house in Electric Hills.

Two months ago, Amber was crowned prom queen.

She’s a cheerleader type, with blond curls, a teensy waist and an expensive smile.

When it came to her high school graduation party, she invited our entire senior class.

Marcie and I amble up the front path. We’ve spent a couple of hours getting ready for tonight. Even though high school’s over for good, the moment we hear those words from a few feet behind us, like muscle memory, we still know to peel away from one another in opposite directions.

I turn my head. The popular girl, whose name I’ve already erased from my memory, passes us by, followed by her loyal crew. They’re wearing identikit strapless tank tops, ruffle skirts and navy lace-up Converse, carrying bottles of alcohol, and they walk in robotic formation.

‘Are we actually doing this?’ I ask Marcie when we come back together.

I look up at the front of the house and feel giddy.

I’ve heard there’s a ginormous pool. Where Them Girls At blares over a sound system from inside.

Members of our senior class stand around and drink from plastic cups, wearing barely-there clothing, dancing to the music, all of them in celebratory mood.

‘Hollie! We are doing this!’ Marcie squeals in my face over the noise, offering me a smile through gritted teeth. She’s brimming with excitement, and though I detect a little apprehension in her tone, she’s doing her best to conceal it. ‘It’s graduation! We promised to let loose, right?’

‘Right,’ I repeat, and swallow. ‘Let loose.’

I’m trying to convince myself, but she’s right, it’s my last night in Canyon, so I need to have a little fun.

Tomorrow, I fly back to Europe, spending the summer with my mother and her self-obsessed French lover in their uber-lavish Parisian apartment, experiencing the last dying embers of my parents’ acrimonious custody arrangement before I turn eighteen.

When I step inside the house, my anxiety near consumes me.

This is only the second time I’ve been to an actual high school party since my arrival in Texas.

The rooms are all packed, kids in our class grinding up against one another as they sway to the beat.

People are making out in the corners. I can’t help but stare, because, as someone who’s never been kissed, I want to know what that feels like.

I already feel like it’s never going to happen for me.

None of the people here see me as being like them.

Marcie grabs my hand. ‘Okay, don’t look now, but the Rapture crew are in the kitchen,’ she squeals, close to my ear.

I look, of course. If there’s anyone here to make me nervous, it’s the crew from Rapture, the township situated just outside the city of Canyon’s north-east borders in Haywood County.

AJ Callahan, Chase Brennan, Moses Mariano, Balthazar Reyes, Nicole Escribano, among others.

The rich kids call them roughnecks. When I started high school over here, the moment the Rapture kids heard my distinctly British accent, they singled me out as someone to prank these past two years.

This whole time, I’ve been a lamb to the slaughter.

‘Man, AJ Callahan is so smoking hot,’ Marcie breathes. ‘Can you imagine what it would be like to be the girl who snagged him? I mean, like…’ She finishes with a sigh, as if there aren’t words to sum up that level of fortuitousness.

Every girl in our class has a crush on AJ Callahan – me included – and not just because he wears a leather jacket and rides a motorcycle.

Even the gay guys have crushes, despite having no hope of AJ ever looking their way.

A little like me. Right now, he’s sitting up on the kitchen counter, wearing ripped jeans, a fitted black tee that hugs his biceps and his usual pair of black biker boots.

There’s a red plastic cup in his hands, and he’s laughing and joking around with his Rapture friends.

I need to play it cool. Maybe stop staring so much. Ignore the voices in my head that say, what are you even doing here?

‘Let’s get a drink!’ Marcie shouts in my ear, grabbing my hand and pulling me along toward the kitchen, though my legs turn to dead weights and I freeze.

My only real friend in this place spots my uneasiness.

‘Forget about ’em,’ she reassures me. ‘School’s out, they can’t hurt you now. If you act like you care, they’ll never quit coming after you.’

My eyes dart back to AJ Callahan. With her eyebrows raised, Marcie says, ‘And, girl, you’re gonna have to let that one go. That’s not happening anytime soon. Or, like… ever.’

We get a drink. Nobody pays us any attention.

As the night moves on, the party is packed, yet we don’t leave one another’s sides.

Until, close to midnight, when a boy from our science club asks Marcie to dance, and I’m left alone with nobody to talk to.

I watch them both dancing, then wander for a bit, attempting to make eye contact with someone familiar.

I know a lot of names, yet most of these people have never said more than two words to me since I arrived in Canyon from London two summers ago.

To them, I’m just this weird, nerdy British girl who wears glasses and hangs out in the school library.

I end up walking upstairs in the house, continually running my right hand over my left elbow.

I drift into the master bedroom where our hostess Amber Bradshaw herself is addressing a small crowd.

All of them are lounging around drinking, either on the oversized bed or sitting on the floor.

Amber has a pair of sunglasses perched on top of her head, her bare midriff on show above a snug pair of denim shorts, paired with an olive-green bikini top.

‘It’s called Who Kissed Me?’ she’s announcing drunkenly, as she holds up a blindfold.

She then covers the eyes of Dariel Jacobs, captain of the basketball team, who, standing next to her, is almost a head taller than she is.

‘Cover your eyes… go inside my mom’s closet…

kiss the girl who joins you there, and when you come out, guess the girl!

Drink a shot of tequila for every guess you get wrong! ’

There are whoops and cheers. Dariel grins. I linger near the back of the room in the doorway, watching as Amber leads him through the double doors of the walk-in closet, leaving him there.

‘Hmmm, now, who do I pick?’ she muses as she comes back out.

A couple of eager hands go up, fingers waggling.

Amber presses her forefinger to her chin and surveys the room.

Then she points wordlessly to a dark-haired girl I know to be Melanie Solis, one of the popular girls, also dressed in cut-off denim shorts, a low-cut white tankini, with straightened hair and more makeup than usual.

Melanie gets to her bare feet and enters the closet.

Amber closes the doors behind them and starts a countdown from sixty, which everybody echoes, their voices filling the room.

Just before zero, Amber throws open the doors to the closet. I shift my weight to the other foot, craning my neck as I spy Dariel and Melanie making out, their lips locked together, Dariel still blindfolded. When they break apart, I note the apples of her cheeks are tinged pink.

Gracefully, Mel reclaims her seat. Amber leads Dariel back out and removes the blindfold, placing one hand on her hip. ‘So, D-man. Take your pick. Who’d you think you were smoochin’, sweetheart?’

I can’t help but smile because Dariel looks wildly pleased with himself.

He has a sweet southern accent. ‘Dang it, I can’t get it wrong, because, man, I wanna do that again!’ He punches the air.

There’s laughter. His eyes narrow on the small crowd. I hear whispers, giggling and cajoling.

His lips twist. ‘I’m going with Mel Solis,’ he says hopefully, pointing, and the room erupts. Mel gets to her feet and gives him a hug, the two of them beaming at one another.

When the room quietens, Amber moves on. ‘All right, next victim!’ she announces, her beady gaze back on the crowd. She smooths her hands along the blindfold and her tone shifts. It’s breathy. She cocks her head. ‘AJ, come on. You’re up.’

I hear his voice before I see him, objecting to this stupid high school game. The others shout him down and as he gets to his feet, I find myself shrinking back into the shadows near the doorway.

I watch him. He wipes his hand through his dark hair, then across his back and sides. I’m struck, as ever, by his lowkey casual swagger, his understated confidence. Yet there’s an air of mystery about him. He’s tall, but not like Dariel with towering height. He hands his bottle of beer to somebody.

‘Let’s get this on you,’ Amber says, delighting in blindfolding him.

When she’s done, she turns him, guiding him into the closet, then returns, closing the door behind her. She addresses the group. ‘So, hunnies. Who wants to lock lips with Eastvale High’s hottest stud, inside my mom’s closet?’

I glance around. Every female hand has shot into the air, and a couple of the male ones too.

Just as before, Amber’s gaze journeys the room. She takes her time. Her pointed gel nail circles continuously, until it settles.

On me.

‘You,’ she says, and people turn and look.

I freeze. I didn’t even have my hand up. For a moment, I check behind my left shoulder, in case there’s someone standing behind me, only there isn’t.

Amber dips her chin and curls her finger in my direction, signaling me over.

At first, I can’t move. Then I take one step, then another.