Chapter 1
CHAPTER ONE
RILEY
"This is Brittany Aspen coming to you live, fifty miles off the Monterey coast, where last night an oil well explosion shook the biggest oil platform in the world.
At this hour, we are being told that the explosion cracked the sea floor and engineers are concerned other wells may soon follow.
It's unclear at this hour if oil has spilled into the Pacific.
We will keep you updated as this story unfolds. "
Silent observers.
We were the ones that sat back, soaked in the information, and stayed out of trouble and drama.
I'd always been an observer in school and in life. Quietly doing my job of being an honor student and staying out of the way of those that make school hell. It was enough of a task to keep up with the ins and outs of social hierarchy, without being stuck in the middle of juicy gossip.
It wasn't worth the time and effort to stay on a gilded pedestal when high school was such a short blip in the grand scheme of things. Four years came and four years went. If I lived to be one-hundred, it was merely four percent of my time on Earth.
Yet somehow, a simple book documenting the high school experience had almost a hundred-percent buy rate and took permanent residence on shelves. There was something powerful about producing a yearbook that would be looked at for decades.
"What are you looking at?" I was snapped out of my thoughts by a voice dripping in honey. There was a flutter in my stomach and my neck heated.
I knew exactly who it was without even looking up. But I wanted to look up because Jax West was the most attractive man at Salinity Cove High School. He was definitely a man and not a boy.
My eyes traveled up his long, muscular legs to his narrow waist and broad shoulders. I squinted and shielded my eyes to get a better view of his face.
I was all too familiar with Jax, but so was every other girl at school. Most of us drooled over him at a distance. He was one of the elite swimmers at school and was the captain of the swim team. With that came a chip on his shoulder that translated into broken hearts and midnight tears.
I had to admit, his asshole tendencies were muted by the angle of his jaw and hypnotic aqua eyes. He was hot, and he was talking to me for the first time. Now I understood how so many fell under his spell.
"Excuse me?" I fumbled with the brochures in my lap and squinted at him again. I was nothing if not smooth while talking to guys.
He sat down next to me, a smile playing on his lips. I opened my mouth to ask him why he was here in the first place, but closed it.
Don't make a fool of yourself, Riley.
He grabbed the top booklet. "Stanford?"
His proximity got the best of me, despite my best efforts. "What are you even doing here?" I snatched it back from him and he frowned, causing my stomach to twist. "Is there a swim camp going on?"
"I needed another elective, and last night, Mr. Garcia emailed me and invited me to this little planning sesh you had going."
Jax was going to be on the yearbook staff? He had to be kidding. I doubted he had the time to dedicate to creating a book people would look back on in twenty years and show their kids.
"You? On yearbook?" I was setting a really good first impression. "It takes a lot of time and commitment to publish. Usually only spring sport athletes can handle the time commitment."
"I need the elective. Mr. Garcia thinks it will be good to have an athlete of my caliber lend their expertise to the sports section." He took the rest of my college brochures and flipped through them. "Aren't you going to your father's alma mater?"
I had been worried all summer about my classmates knowing Robert Kline was my father. My fears had just been confirmed.
I looked across the quad and frowned. I should have been enjoying myself on the beautiful Santa Cruz campus, but instead, my mind kept wandering to the headlines over the past several weeks.
250 million gallons of oil spill into the Pacific.
Marine life at risk.
Robert Kline in hiding.
My father was a sore subject that I didn't want to talk about. I didn't even know the man, but the thought of being related to him made me want to vomit. He was a coward and a criminal who ran instead of dealing with the aftermath of what was being called the greatest oil disaster ever.
"I want to keep my options open." Our fingers touched as he held out the brochures. My fingers tingled, and he propped his leg up, draping an arm over it and staring at me.
I shifted on the grass and shoved the college brochures into my messenger bag. I'd gathered them at the beginning of summer when my best friends and I went on a road trip to visit campuses.
"Your skin reminds me of the sands of Waimanalo Bay." It was an odd thing for him to compare my skin to, but maybe this was why he had girls hanging all over him.
"Is that supposed to be a compliment?" I put the strap of my bag over my head and shoulders.
He laughed. "It's a compliment. Have you been? It's in Hawaii." He reached out and grabbed a lock of my wavy brown hair that was tied up in a ponytail, rubbing it between his fingers as I shook my head. "Let's hang out."
My eyes widened and my heart nearly beat out of my chest. "What? Hang out?"
I wanted to run away and hide my face somewhere. This entire interaction with him was messing with my head. Heat spread across my neck and up to my cheeks.
Was he really asking me out on a date? The Jax West, king of the school, was asking me, Riley Kline, to go out with him?
I was nothing compared to the girls who hung off him on a daily basis.
He went through them like a baby goes through diapers.
They were the girls who spent two hours in the morning doing their hair and make-up.
I was the girl that didn't even spend a quarter of that on special occasions, much less for going to school.
He looked at his phone. "Yeah, it’ll be fun. What else do you have to do?"
"Why?" I was so confused because the Tritons, as they liked to call themselves, didn't hang out with the lower echelon of the high school hierarchy.
He threw his head back and laughed, giving me a great view of his Adam's apple and his smile. "Can't a guy just want to hang out?" His aqua eyes darkened as they met mine and my heart skipped a beat.
He stood and held out his hand. I looked up at him and hesitated. Guys like Jax didn't give me the time of day. I was considered a bookworm, and our crowds rarely crossed paths.
I took his hand, and he pulled me to my feet before he reached out and grabbed the strap of my bag that had slipped down my arm. His knuckles brushed across my bare skin and my nipples tingled in response.
My traitorous body needed to chill out. I didn't have time to let my hormones run amuck when college applications were right around the corner. All it took was one bad choice to have everything I had worked for come crumbling down.
I needed to text Ivy immediately to get her take on this whole situation. Sure, I had crushes, but I had never hung out with a guy alone before. It wasn't for a lack of them trying. I just had no interest.
I should make more of an effort for senior year. I wanted to have all the typical high school experiences; homecoming, prom, senior activities. Most of my important classes for college were complete, but could I afford the distractions a boyfriend or dating brought?
And did I want to draw the attention of the likes of Jax West?
He walked next to me toward the building where the yearbook planning sessions were taking place. Every year, yearbook staffs were invited to a summer weekend of workshops and planning. It was a great way to get a head start on the book.
"I was thinking we could order a pizza and watch a movie." Jax put his arm around my shoulder and I stiffened. "Relax, it's just an arm."
Just an arm.
Something told me it wasn't just an arm, but maybe hanging out with Jax would be a good thing to help me come out of my shell. My mom might even get off my back about being more social outside of my tight-knit group of friends.
After convincing Jax that it would be better to eat pizza with the rest of the yearbook staff who had attended, he took my hand and we walked down the path toward the dorms. The sun was setting, and I felt out of place walking hand-in-hand with him.
I didn't understand what he saw in me. There was a cheerleading camp going on too; he could have easily had any of those girls.
He stopped at a fountain and sat down, pulling me down next to him. "Am I making you uncomfortable?" He squeezed my hand and looked at me with his hypnotizing eyes.
"You aren't making me uncomfortable. I'm confused though." I crossed my leg and then uncrossed it.
"Confused?" He scooted closer so that the sides of our thighs touched. The fabric of his board shorts slid across the bare skin of my leg. "What is there to be confused about?"
I held up our clasped hands and then let go, bringing my hands together in my lap. "There are thousands of girls on this campus right now, and probably a frat party or two you could get in to."
He leaned forward with his forearms on his knees and looked over at me.
"Why is it hard to believe I'd find you attractive?
There might be a thousand girls within swiping distance, but that doesn't mean that's what I'm in the mood for.
" I scrunched my nose, and he flinched before laughing and standing. "That came out wrong."
"I'm not interested in being someone's mood for the evening." I stood and started to walk away.
He jogged to catch up and blocked my path. "Just come watch a movie with me. What else are you going to do?"
"Read." After I binge watched the most recent season of Riverdale with a bottle of Sprite and a shareable-size bag of Skittles.
"Come on, you can't be serious. One movie and then you'll still have time to read before bed." He smiled and shoved his hands in his pockets. "I promise, no funny business."