Chapter 4
FOUR
CALEB
Well, except maybe for me.
But unlike Derek, winning to me isn’t just about my ego.
It’s about leadership and bringing people together to create a strong team.
Like with debate. I’m a peacekeeper between robust personalities and good at encouraging different talents forward in balance so the team as a whole is stronger than its parts.
At least that’s what I wrote in my college essay.
Derek wouldn’t stop pestering all of us about who had already put their early admission applications in for Harvard. His family is Princeton legacy, so naturally, he’ll only feel validated if he gets into Harvard instead. Hard eye roll.
I’ve wanted Harvard ever since Mom talked about walking on the campus one time when she was a kid. She always dreamed about going there, but of course, never got to. She was smart enough, but she met my asshole dad instead.
I’ve got a real shot, though. And I’m determined to give that woman everything she ever dreamed of, even if it’s just vicariously through me.
Or is that just another lie I’m telling myself? The same way that I call being a peacekeeper just the coward’s way of not taking a side?
I frown to myself. That new girl’s words have been stuck in my craw ever since fourth period.
Coward. The word loops in my head, and I keep replaying the exact curl of her lip when she said it.
It didn’t help that the most pointed critique of my character in years came out of the lips of the most beautiful girl I’ve ever met in real life.
After enough years, life at Westfield Prep has started to feel… monotonous. Don’t get me wrong. That’s how I like it.
I hate change.
I’m one of the few students who likes the fact that we all wear uniforms. I get to wear the same thing every day and wake up at the same time—6:44 a.m., exactly—and eat the same four-egg omelet and hang out with mostly the same kids I’ve known since second grade, year after year.
Then, suddenly, it was like a supermodel walked out of the pages of a magazine and perched herself lazily at the back of my high school classroom. And she sparkled in such vivid, shocking color.
There I was, just minding my own business and trying to avoid McKenzie’s touchy advances.
Dear God, I’m afraid she’s finally set her sights on me for the part of boyfriend-for-the-year in the play always on stage in her head, a fate I’ve avoided thus far by deliberately friend-zoning myself every fall and wearing non-designer shoes.
And also not driving my own car yet. I’m still waiting on a part to come in for the Mustang.
But as soon as McKenzie started sparing with the new girl, who I couldn’t see yet, I went into peacekeeper mode like I always do. Conflict is nails on the chalkboard to me. And knowing how vicious McKenzie can be when anybody scores any points against her—
But then the gorgeous new girl proved she can more than stand up for herself. To McKenzie… and to me.
Coward.
I wince again as I push through the outer doors, aiming for the benches to wait for my ride when—
Speak of the devil.
New Girl is out there in the parking lot, perched incongruously on the hood of a Honda Civic, and I squint. Is she playing with a cat? It’s fifteen minutes past the last bell. Did she have car trouble or something?
And where the hell did the cat come from?
Before I realize what I’m doing, my feet carry me in her direction.
“Stalking me, Boy Scout?” she asks with a small smile when I get close, never looking up from the cat in her lap.
Boy Scout?
“What? No, I—” I swallow and stand up straighter. How does this girl keep knocking me off-balance? “Did you have car trouble? I could take a look under the hood.”
She laughs, and it’s a deep, raspy sound as she finally looks up at me, hand over her eyes against the bright sunshine, kitten held against her shoulder with her other hand. “This isn’t my car.”
“What? Oh.” I blink, taken aback. Then why are you sitting on it?
It’s rare that anyone catches me flat-footed.
I usually pride myself on being level-headed in every situation.
Kevin jokingly calls me MacGyver. Give me a length of duct tape and a protractor, and I can fix a surprising number of practical problems. I like to be useful.
She puts the meowing kitten in her backpack and pulls out a notepad, where she starts scratching away with a ballpoint pen.
The sun’s directly behind her, turning her into this backlit silhouette with a halo of gold.
She leans back on the hood of the car, all loose-limbed confidence, swinging one booted foot in a lazy pendulum.
Her combat boots are scuffed and well broken in.
But then, this girl is all chaos and raw edges, when everyone else around me is so… perfectly manicured and contained.
“Hot day, huh? What are you drawing?” I ask, nodding at the notebook.
I’m babbling now, and I never babble. I’m usually the coolest one in every conversation.
Aloof even. It’s one of the reasons I’ve enjoyed a steady popularity all through high school.
I mostly keep my mouth shut, my head down, and I’m everyone’s friend.
I should walk away, but words just keep leaping out of my mouth. “Can I see?”
“No.”
The flat refusal startles a laugh out of me. “Just... no? That’s it?”
She tilts her head, studying me with those sharp green eyes. “Aw, do people not tell you no very often?”
“It’s not that, I just—”
“They don’t, do they?” She’s grinning now, like she’s discovered something delightful. God, she’s even more beautiful when she smiles.
My mouth opens. Closes. Because… I guess she’s right.
People generally don’t tell me no. Teachers approve my proposals.
Student council votes go my way. So do recruitment letters.
Even Mom, who’d do anything for me, tends to just smile and say, Whatever you think is best, sweetheart.
No matter whether I deserve things or not.
But I’m not about to admit that to this girl who’s looking at me like I’m a puzzle she’s halfway to solving.
I mean, I can be enigmatic.
“What’s your name?” I ask instead, deflecting.
She arches one perfect eyebrow. “What if I don’t tell you that, either?”
“Why not?”
She reaches into her pocket and produces a Tootsie Pop—grape, from the purple wrapper. She unwraps it with deliberate slowness, never breaking eye contact, then pops it in her mouth. The wrapper gets tucked back in her pocket instead of tossed on the ground. Interesting.
“’Cause you’re kinda cute when you get that frustrated look on your face,” she says around the candy, rolling it to one side of her mouth. “And that’s fun for me.”
Kinda cute.
She just called me cute.
My brain short-circuits for a solid three seconds. Does she mean puppy-dog cute or handsome cute? There’s a significant difference.
Why are girls so impossibly complicated? And why is my heart suddenly trying to jackhammer its way out of my chest? Can eighteen-year-olds have heart attacks?
“Fun, huh?” I manage, and I sound almost normal. I think I sound normal. Jesus fuck, do I sound normal?
She grins wider, the Tootsie Pop stick poking out the side of her mouth making her look impish. Mischievous. Like she’s got secrets she’ll never tell and wouldn’t share them even if you begged.
It only makes her more beautiful.
My chest does this weird clench-quiver thing that radiates down to my stomach, and I have to drop my eyes before I get caught staring at her lips. Again. What the hell am I doing, chatting up this beautiful girl in an empty parking lot?
Coward.
There’s a reason I don’t waste time flirting with girls. I can’t afford distractions. Not this year. Not with Harvard applications due in soon and Mom’s latest scan results coming back next week and Silas’s new stepdaughter at the house to make a good impression with at dinner tonight—
“What’s with the cat?” The words tumble out of my mouth, desperate for something normal to focus on. Like words. I can make normal human words.
Her laugh bubbles up, bright and unexpected. The sound makes my insides churn in all new terrifying ways.
“She’s new. I just adopted her, I think.” She frowns over at the backpack. Then her eyes snap back to me. “Hey, you’re rich, right?”
“Um. I—” The question catches me completely off guard. Everything out of her mouth is just one surprise after another. “I dunno. I guess. I mean—”
She hops down from the hood of the car, saving me from my own stammering.
And suddenly she’s right there, tugging the Tootsie Pop out of her mouth.
Standing right in front of me.
Close enough that I can see the individual flecks of gold in her green eyes. Close enough that I catch her scent—something floral and sweet, like honeysuckle on a summer night, mixed with something earthier. Weed, maybe, and underneath that, just... her.
Her expression has shifted. The sarcastic smirk is gone, replaced by something raw and honest that hits me square in the chest. She’s looking at me like she’s about to tell me something important, maybe one of those secrets, and the weight of it makes my breath catch.
“The only real family I got is back in East Texas.” Her voice has gone soft, stripped of all the playful mockery. “In a little shit-stain of a town called Selbyville that’s downwind of a chicken factory. And I’d do anything to get back there.”
The last part comes out barely above a whisper. Not a statement—almost like a prayer. Or a confession.
And then she’s lifting her arms, wrapping them around my neck.
I freeze.
My brain’s firing on all cylinders, trying to process what’s happening.
New Girl—this beautiful, sharp-tongued, impossible girl—has her arms around me.
I can feel the warmth of her skin where her wrists rest against the back of my neck.
I can smell her shampoo, something citrus and clean that cuts through the sweetness.
She leans in.
My eyes fall closed on instinct.