2. Stone
STONE
Lunch hour at West Ridge High is always chaos. The administrators try to control it, as if they have any idea what control looks like. There’s a buzz that accompanies the cafeteria that is almost soothing. The chatter of hundreds, if not thousands of students crammed into the huge space.
We’re at the center of it. Me, Evan, and the rest of the upperclassmen on the hockey team. We reign supreme in this school, and everyone knows it. The other students watch us like we’re royalty—all because we’re good at hockey.
Evan and I met when we were thrown on the same hockey team as kids. My dad didn’t know what else to do with me, and he was desperate to distract me from the rest of our lives. Luckily for my father, Evan and I traded insults and clicked immediately.
I smirk at that thought. Not that he notices.
Evan started as a teammate and quickly became something akin to a brother. I swear, nowadays I spend more time at his house than my own.
I eye my best friend. He shifts in his seat, his gaze bouncing from the door to his food. There and back, like a fucking yo-yo. He’s ignoring the conversation of the guys around us, his brows slightly furrowed. Fidgeting.
Worried about his sister .
He got attached to Wren when she first arrived at his house as a malnourished kid, her dark hair greasy, her wide hazel eyes staring unblinkingly up at us.
Us , because I was there, always hiding out at his house to escape my own—until she arrived, anyway.
The weeks or months that she was there, I retreated.
It wasn’t like I wasn’t welcome. I still saw Evan all the time, hung out with him during the day, stayed over for dinner. But there was a definitive limit to how long his parents could handle three pre-teens, and I was usually the one to make things more chaotic.
Evan is worrying for nothing.
If that girl has to choose between sleep and food, nine times out of ten she picks the former.
It’s as if she doesn’t sleep when she’s at her dad’s place, for reasons I can only imagine.
She’s skinnier lately too. But the system has checks and balances for these kinds of things.
If something is happening… I mean, she could be on one of those diets, trying to emulate the popular girls.
She has a social worker to check in on her.
If something is really wrong— again —they would take her out of there.
I snap my fingers in his face. “Cut it out, dude. She’s fine.”
He runs his hand down his face, and his attention drops to his tray. “Yeah.”
I give him a look that says I don’t buy his bullshit, and he grimaces.
Evan’s parents are softies. Like, some of the best people I’ve ever met. Wren wasn’t their first foster kid, but she was the first one who seemed to fit into their family as easily as breathing. Something just clicked with them.
And I hated it. Hated that my best friend suddenly had a distraction, someone who pulled his focus away from playing with us. Someone who tagged along with him when we met at the basketball courts or teetered around on figure skates while we practiced our slap shots at the local rink.
The more I got to know her, though, and the longer she stayed with Evan’s family…
well, I guess I just had to work a little harder at my hate.
It helped that I was able to turn my attention to hockey.
That I had some distraction, an outlet for my anger.
But she throws these freaking barbs at me all the time, and I push her buttons.
Sometimes it’s fun.
The buzz in the cafeteria rises. It’s like a tide coming at our table, a rush of sound that has the hair on the back of my neck standing up.
“Shit,” Evan mutters. He scans a text, then shoves out of his chair. “They did a drug search—and found something, judging from the sound of it.”
“Sit down,” I order. “We’re fine.”
He drops back down and frowns. Evan wouldn’t dream of touching the stuff, and neither would I. My coach would skin the whole team alive if he caught any of us doing drugs. Even something as innocuous as weed.
It’s not worth the public humiliation that Coach would inflict on us.
As a result, I’ve been on the straight and narrow since I joined the team my freshman year.
Once I realized I had a coach who could elevate my skill, I put everything I had into hockey.
I saw it as a ticket out of the funnel my father was going to shove me into.
The forced path into the corporate world.
I have more riding on the line than most of my teammates, though. I’ve got real interest from the NHL. Scouts keep coming to games. There have been whispers of drafting me in June. Signing on with a professional team will set me up for life.
It’s all I need.
It’s all I care about.
Everything else—my home life, family relationships, a “real job” in the words of my father—all gets pushed to the background. Nothing else matters when I’m on the ice.
Doing something to jeopardize that would be laughable.
“They’re coming this way,” Evan says under his breath. “I don’t like the look of this, man. What if—”
“Stone Foster.”
The room goes silent, minus the approaching footsteps.
Ice sweeps down my spine.
I pivot in my seat and eye the two officers who stride toward us, led by the rather skittish principal.
“Come with me, Stone,” the principal says. “Now, please.”
I narrow my eyes at her, but I rise anyway. I’m not in the habit of disobeying orders, especially with the whole school watching.
As soon as I stand, one of the officers is on me. He grabs my upper arm, squeezing my biceps like I’m going to bolt, and practically drags me with him out of the cafeteria. Like I’m no better than a scum-of-the-earth drug dealer? A miscreant?
They couldn’t have found anything. Not in my truck, not my locker.
“Officer…” Principal Howie hesitates. “We need to call his father.”
Funny, because I was about to use him as my only defense. The words, ‘Don’t you know who my father is?’ almost passed my lips. I lift my chin, although my skin is getting hotter by the second. There are a million fucking people in the hallways, all gaping at me.
At the scene the officers are creating.
But worse than this is any idea of my father finding out.
They move me into the principal’s office and force me into a chair.
I let out a huff, trying to suppress my irritation—and quell the sudden worry.
Because this seems serious. The principal gives them an admonishing look.
It’s nothing compared to the one my father will shoot in my direction before he unleashes decades of legal crap at them.
Being a defense lawyer has its perks, I guess.
The secretary pokes her head in. “He’s on his way.”
I stare at the principal once the door has closed again, leaving just the four of us in her office. While I usually feel comfortable here—having never been in any amount of serious trouble—now, a bead of sweat rolls down my back.
“So, what’s this about?” I glance at the two officers framing me in.
The principal sits and folds her hands in front of her on the desk. “We performed a drug search of the property, and we found an illegal substance on your car.”
On , not in.
I press my lips together. Now is not the time to talk and get myself in even more trouble. I want to ask what they found and where. I want to ask who the fuck would think to plant drugs on my car.
But I don’t because, if anything, my father trained me well.
To sit down, shut up, and wait for him.
I just never thought I’d need to take his advice.
Fifteen agonizing minutes later, the door opens, and my father storms through. He was clearly at work. His gray suit is perfectly in place, his tie knotted expertly. We used to share the same light-brown hair, although he started dying his a little darker to hide the gray at his temples.
His sharp gaze takes me in, then the rest of the room. “Principal Howie. Your secretary was not very forthcoming over the phone.”
“We found methamphetamines on your son’s truck,” one of the officers says. “Enough to be considered a felony.”
My father faces him. “Excuse me?”
The principal clears her throat. “Um, officers, have you met Daniel Foster?”
One of the officers pales, and it would be fucking amusing if my heart hadn’t stopped at the mention of meth.
That’s serious.
“I’m sorry, sir, but we have to take your son down to the station.”
Fuck.
Dad’s jaw tics. But it seems like he can’t stop them—or maybe he won’t—because he steps back and allows them to haul me up.
I shake my head at him, trying to convey that it’s not mine.
That he’s got to figure out a way to get me out .
I mean, he’s defended worse criminals than me—and more famous ones, to be sure.
They emerged with their reputations intact.
No one speaks to me. One of the officers tries in the cruiser, but the other stops him.
Meth. On my truck, not in it.
The truck my stepmother bought me with my father’s money as some sort of bribe, or penance—I never figured out which. I just started driving it.
Who the fuck would plant drugs on my truck?
It doesn’t click until my father escorts me out of the police station six hours later. My body aches from sitting on a metal chair, and my throat is dry. Who would’ve known they were doing a search? Who would’ve left school just before lunchtime?
Only one person comes to mind.
One person who has connections to that world of drug dealers—who has been living with one.
Wren Davis .
“Reckless.”
My spine snaps straight.
Dad sneers. “You’re reckless . And stupid. Dealing drugs on school grounds? Do you want to flush your life down the toilet?”
“No, sir.”
“They wanted to file felony charges. The only thing protecting you is our last name. My last name. And the leniency of the prosecutor who happened to owe me a favor.” His voice is glacial.
He glances at me, then back to the road.
“This is going to reflect poorly on both of us, no matter what you do.”
I exhale. “I know.”
“This goes beyond, Stone. If you needed money, you could’ve come to me—”
I grit my teeth. “I don’t.”
“And if this is some sick sort of rebellion against your stepmother…” He grimaces. “You need to accept her.”
I shake my head and glance out the window.
He thinks I’m guilty. He got me out of it by the skin of my teeth, but he still thinks I did it.
Maybe because he’s used to defending guilty people, and his conscience just doesn’t give a shit anymore.
Or it’s eroded any possibility of people being innocent.
He turns into the school parking lot. It’s dark, and there are only a handful of cars left. The night janitors’, probably, and my truck. It sits alone.
I grab my backpack and climb out of Dad’s car.
“Come straight home.”
I grunt my acknowledgement and slam the door. Once I’m safely in my car, I dial Wren’s number.
She answers on the second ring. “Stone? I heard what happened—”
“Cut the shit, Sticks,” I growl. I’m holding my phone tight, my other hand gripping the steering wheel like it might save me from driving to her dad’s place and throttling her. “I know what you did.”
Her breathing hitches. All the confirmation I need, really.
“You’re dead to me,” I declare. “If you see me coming in the hallway, you better go the other fucking direction. If I so much as hear your voice or catch you looking in my direction, I’m going to tell my father that the drugs were yours. And then we’ll see who comes out of this unscathed.”
“Stone…”
“Do me a favor, Sticks, and fuck off.” I hit the end button and toss my phone into the passenger seat.
Only a few months until graduation. I just have to pray that the NHL doesn’t catch wind of this or else my whole future will be derailed. And if it is, I’ll have no one to blame but Wren Davis.