Chapter 2 Monroe
MONROE
THE PAST
Ardnoch Academy catered to not only Ardnoch but the surrounding villages.
It was still tiny compared to most high schools.
As an academy, along with normal classes, you could learn subjects for specific jobs, such as construction, early education and childcare, and rural skills.
I didn’t mind its smallness—I quite liked it.
In fact, unlike Brodan and Arran, I enjoyed high school.
I got to focus on classes that would take me into teaching.
However, I didn’t only like the learning part.
I liked the being anywhere but at home part.
At the academy, I was safe.
Last month on the third of January, Brodan turned fourteen, and I was just about to.
After the summer, we’d be fourth years. The thought made me feel good.
I hated being considered among the babies of the school.
At my height, a lot of adults still treated me like a kid.
I’d stopped being a kid a long time ago.
I most definitely didn’t want Brodan to see me as a kid, especially as there were only six weeks between us.
Pondering whether I might ever get up the courage to tell my best friend I had a massive crush on him, I was in a daydream as I wandered the hall toward one of the exits. Last bell had rung, and most pupils were rushing toward the doors as if escaping hell.
“S’cuse you.” Harry Grant threw his weight against my side, and my books and papers tumbled everywhere. My upper arm ached where I’d taken the brunt of his shove, and I glowered up at him as I lowered to my haunches to collect my things.
Harry gave me an evil smirk and turned away. Something made him stiffen, and then he dove out of the side entrance in a blur of movement.
Straight ahead stood Brodan, glowering after him.
Then my best friend was suddenly on his knees before me, helping me pick up my stuff.
“Thanks,” I muttered, taking them from him.
“Are you all right?” Brodan asked as he took hold of my elbow and helped me up.
I glanced down at his hand on me and tried not to flush like an idiot. It was Brodan. We’d been best friends since we were five. Just because I’d started getting butterflies in my stomach when he smiled at me didn’t mean I needed to act like a blushing moron around him. “I’m fine.”
When people described someone’s eyes as piercing, they were talking about Brodan. His were pale-blue and he could look right into you with them. His wee sister Arro had the same color eyes, and yet they didn’t seem to search a person’s soul like Brodan’s did. Mind you, she was only ten.
Brodan was fourteen and already six feet tall. People, even teachers, mistook him for being older all the time.
Thankfully, I’d grown used to that piercing look over the years. Kind of. “I’m fine,” I insisted.
My friend looked over his shoulder to where Harry had disappeared.
Then he took my backpack from me, even though he had his own to carry.
I tried to take it back the first time he’d carried it for me, but Brodan ignored me.
To be fair, there were so many books in that backpack, my friend carrying it was a relief.
We were quiet as we walked outside, but then Brodan said with a gruff annoyance, “You know Harry fancies the pants off you. That’s why he’s a dick to you.”
This time, I couldn’t help the blush that stained my cheeks red.
Brodan’s eyes narrowed on my face. “But you already knew that.”
That was the problem with being friends with someone as long as I’d been friends with Brodan. We could read each other like a book. Trying to be casual about it, I shrugged. “He asked me out at the start of the year.” And had been a little shit ever since I turned him down.
“Why didn’t you say anything?” He scowled. “How come no one told me?”
Probably because they knew you’d act like an overprotective big brother. Ugh. I shrugged again. “Because I don’t fancy him, and it didn’t matter.”
The frown between Brodan’s brows didn’t ease as we walked toward the school gate where Arran waited by the bike rack.
A devil nudged at me, and I blurted out with a breeziness that belied my jealousy, “Anyway, I thought you’d be off snogging Michelle Kingsley right about now.
” Brodan had been sneaking away whenever he could to get off with Michelle these past few weeks.
Michelle was in the year above us, and there were rumors she was letting Brodan do way more than just snog her.
The thought made me sick.
Brodan nudged me gently. “When have I ever not walked you home?”
Never. He always walked me home. Only times he didn’t were on the rare occasions he was at home, unwell.
Arran came into view, standing with some mates at the bike rack.
He was in second year and was hitting a growth spurt.
He was a cutie. All the Adairs were unfairly blessed with good looks, but cursed with heartache and a crumbling old castle that might one day sink them into poverty.
Not that I’d ever let anything happen to Brodan and his family if it was in my power to help.
“I’m glad you said no to Harry,” Brodan suddenly confessed.
I swear my heart somersaulted in my chest. “Why?”
“Because he’s a wee dick. You’re too good for him.” He looked down at me, his expression fierce. “You’re too good for anybody here.”
Pulse racing, I could only gape at him, wondering if he counted himself among anybody.
“Bro! Roe!”
It broke our intense eye contact as Brodan turned toward the call.
Fergus, Brodan’s friend who was in our year but looked like a first year, ran toward us, his massive backpack bouncing almost comically.
Poor Fergus got terribly bullied because his family didn’t have a lot of money and also because of how small he was.
The Adairs might not have money, but no one dared mess with them, mostly because the three eldest, Lachlan, Thane, and Brodan, were built like they had Viking blood.
Also, their family had standing in Sutherland as landed gentry.
They lived in a bloody castle on one of the biggest estates in the country.
No one cared if they were technically low on funds.
Fergus was not so lucky, but Brodan tried to protect him as best he could. That was who Brodan was and probably one of the many reasons I’d started to have feelings for my best friend.
Sometimes I wished we could just be kids again.
Life was way less complicated then.
So were feelings.
“Don’t let Arran hear you calling us that,” Brodan grumbled good-naturedly as Fergus caught up to us.
Fergus grinned at me, and I smiled. I didn’t mind the Roe and Bro nicknames Arran had given us. It made me feel like our connection was so strong, everyone else could see it too.
Arran peeled himself away from his friends, and he and Brodan unlocked their bikes from the rack.
Ardnoch Estate was a good ten-, fifteen-minute drive from the village, so the boys had to bike it most of the time.
There was snow on the ground last month, though, so their dad, Stuart, drove all the Adairs to school.
Come November, Lachlan would turn seventeen, and he’d be old enough to drive them.
When he graduated, that duty would fall to Thane.
The boys chattered about some football game they were arranging for the weekend, and I walked quietly at Brodan’s side. He always slowed his long stride so I could keep up.
We said goodbye to Fergus first, and then Arran got on his bike and rode slowly ahead of us. He looked back over his shoulder at his brother. “I’ll get you on the road.”
Brodan frowned. “Don’t go too far ahead.”
“Just go with him,” I said.
He shook his head, and I rolled my eyes, even though I loved it that he wanted to walk me to my house.
“How are things?” Brodan asked as we approached my narrow street of row cottages.
I tried not to tense at the question. With my dad gone, things were somehow just as awful. Mum didn’t raise her hands to me, but her cruel words hit with enough force to leave a mark. But I didn’t want my friend worrying about me. “They’re fine.”
He didn’t look convinced. “Sunset.”
“It is what it is.” I smiled brightly up at him. He’d given me the nickname Sunset when we were twelve, and when I asked him about it, he just grinned that boyish grin as he replied, “I think of your hair every time I see the sunset.” I didn’t think he realized how romantic that sounded to me now.
At my smile, Brodan’s gaze dipped to my mouth, and his frown deepened.
Sensing he wanted to push the subject, I changed it.
“I was thinking we could jump on a bus and go to Inverness this Saturday. I phoned Ness Island Vinyl, and they have the US import in for The White Stripes album.” We couldn’t get the album any bloody where because it hadn’t been released in the UK yet.
“They said they’d put it aside for me, if I can guarantee coming in for it this Saturday.
I’ve been saving up.” My paternal grandmother sent me Christmas and birthday money every year, and I’d saved almost every penny.
Now that Dad was gone, we were even more strapped for cash than before.
Mum was a nurse at the hospital in Golspie, about twenty-five minutes north of here.
Let’s just say she saved all of her bedside manner for her patients.
At Brodan’s silence, I looked up at him. He seemed preoccupied.
“Or not.” I shrugged, like it didn’t bother me if he didn’t want to spend Saturday with me. Of course, it bothered the heck out of me.
He glanced down. “No, aye, sure. Saturday.”
“We can go another time if you’re busy.”
He shook his head. “I can cancel the other thing.”
Jealousy scored through me as we came to a stop at my front door. I turned to my friend, forcing myself to meet his gaze as I smirked through the pain. “If you have plans with Michelle, we can go another time.”
Brodan searched my face for a few seconds and then the corner of his mouth tilted up as he bent his head toward me so our noses were too close for my comfort.
“Roe, she’s not my girlfriend. I can cancel.
” He straightened but tugged on a strand of hair that had fallen out of my ponytail.
“I’d rather go to Inverness with you. I’d always rather spend time with you. ”
He rubbed my hair between his fingers before he released it and settled his hand on the other handle of his bike, his smile boyish. “Inverness, Saturday?”
I nodded, my heart thumping so hard, I was sure the pulse in my neck must be visible. “Saturday.”
He handed me my backpack and I almost dropped it, it was that heavy.
Brodan chuckled under his breath and then abruptly muttered, “Oh, aye, before I forget.” He slid his backpack off and unzipped it. Rummaging through the books, he pulled out a small black brick.
My mistake.
A mobile phone.
“What’s that?”
“Dad’s got a contact at Nokia.” He shoved the phone toward me. “I asked him to get you one. We’re paying for the minutes and texts, so you don’t need to worry about that.”
Most everyone at school had turned up with a phone first term last year. There was no way I could ask my mum for one, so I’d felt like the odd man out. During break, everyone was always texting one another, even though they were right bloody next to each other.
“I can’t take that.” I pushed his hand away.
Brodan frowned. “Take it for me. I got it so that if you …” His gaze moved to my front door. “If you ever need me, you can just call and I’ll come get you.”
“Brodan, I’m fine.”
His expression darkened, his eyes flashing with something a bit like panic. “For me, Roe. Take it for me so I can feel okay. I can’t … I never want to go through what we went through in first year.”
As difficult as it had been for me to endure the beating my dad had rained down on me in first year, a beating that changed our lives, I knew by how watchful and even more protective Brodan had grown that finding me like that had traumatized him.
He was my ultimate protector during the gossip in the following weeks.
He fought people who made snide comments and tried to hide me from pitying looks.
Because he cared about me.
I’d always loved Brodan. Since we were kids.
But at that moment, as he held out the phone to me, I fell in love with him.
And as I took the phone that he wanted me to have for his peace of mind, I wished we could be kids again. Because I was pretty sure if Brodan was falling in love with me back, he wouldn’t be snogging Michelle Kingsley behind the school every day.