One week later
Stacey pulled up in her car just as I closed the front door behind me. She honked the horn and screamed, throwing her hands in the air out the window.
“Get in, hoe. Quickly.”
“Okay, okay.” I jogged toward the beat-up old station wagon, a hand me down from her parents, and got in the passenger seat. “What’s the hurry?”
“No hurry. I just wanna get the best parking spot.”
I rolled my eyes and smiled as she pulled away from the curb.
As we took the coastal road, Stacey reached over and spun the volume knob on her radio, turning up the current song playing. She sang along with the lyrics.
“Is this Taylor Swift’s new one?”
“Yep. I love it. Don’t you?” When I didn’t answer her, she turned and glared at me with her mouth agape. “Darcie, tell me you’ve listened to it!”
I still didn’t answer. The truth was I hadn’t. Since my mom’s death, I hadn’t been able to listen to a lot of my old favorites. And Taylor Swift was one of them. My mom had taken me to her first concert in New York City. The memories were still raw.
It was then she realized why. “Shit, sorry, Darcie. I forgot. I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay. My shrink said time would heal, and I should continue doing the things that make me happy. But I have to take it one day at a time.”
She nodded and switched the CD over. Ariana Grande’s voice now filled the speakers.
“You don’t have to change the song because of me, Stace.”
“It’s fine.”
We rode the rest of the way to school in silence.
When we pulled into the spacious parking lot at our new school, Summervale High, we noticed most of the other town’s kids had had the same idea as us.
And I soon discovered why everyone rushed to be one of the first in the school parking lot.
All the kids congregated in their little groups of friends, their cliques. I knew the bad thing about being the new kid at school was that most of the friendship groups were already established, and you stood out like a sore thumb.
At least I had Stacey.
But as we made our way across the lot, another familiar face, a gorgeous face, turned and smiled in my direction.
My stomach flipped as our eyes met.
“Come on, Darce.” Before I realized what was going on, we were heading toward one of the groups. The one that included him.
Dane O’Connell.
He turned and acknowledged me now, but that night, one week ago, after we kissed on the beach when the body was discovered, he had seemingly forgotten all about me. He didn’t even bother to ask if I needed a lift home. I tried to push off the slight jealously I had over that blonde girl throwing her arms around him and crying into his shirt. I wasn’t jealous.
No. Not at all.
We had just kissed. That’s all. He wasn’t mine.
“Hey, guys!” Stacey exclaimed, throwing her arms around one of the guys standing near Dane.
“Hey, Stacey’s here. How are you, babe?” asked Dylan, the guy who was smoking a bong at the Circle. He didn’t have a bong now, but he was smoking. And he passed the joint over to Stacey. She took it gladly and inhaled happily. The smell was unmistakable.
I didn’t know Stacey smoked.
But there were a lot of things I didn’t know about the girl I used to know.
Eight years was a long time.
I sort of lingered on the outskirts of the group. I wasn’t one to initiate conversations. I was the quiet girl. The introvert. The bookworm. I was also called the loner and the weirdo. So I waited for someone to acknowledge my existence, and someone did.
Dane moved closer, moving away from the acrid smoke from the marijuana joints passed around the group.
“Hey,” he said in a low husky voice. My tummy dipped.
God, he was beautiful this morning.
I hadn’t been able to get him out of my head since the night on the beach.
“Hey,” I replied, looking straight ahead. I stole a peek at him. I didn’t want to smile at him or keep his gaze for too long because, well, he wasn’t mine.
“So, um…” He shifted his weight and toed the loose gravel with his sneaker. “How are you after… you know…”
“The party? The dead body? Fine. I’m no stranger to dead bodies.” I shrugged.
He nodded. “I meant the fact that I accidentally knocked you out, the head injury, but that too.”
“Oh, that. I’m fine. No thanks to you.” I smiled at him then.
And my heart fluttered as she smiled back.
“That’s good to know. so… do you know what classes you have yet?”
“Not yet. I have to go pick up my class schedule.”
He nodded. “Cool. Well, I hope we’re in at least one class together.”
I smiled. “Yeah.”
The bell rang then before we could continue our awkward conversation.
Thank God.
Saved by the bell.
I picked up my class schedule before getting my locker combination. Thankfully, Stacey had been sure to get me a locker near hers. God love her.
But it was an old locker and an even older school, so it was rusty and stuck. I tried a few times to spin the dial on the lock after entering my combination, but there was no luck.
“You have to earn its trust,” said a familiar male voice. I turned and found Dane standing so close to me that his lips were about three inches from mine. He was taller than me, so as he leaned down, he covered me in his shadow. I stopped breathing and leaned against the lockers.
“What… um… do you mean?” I asked as I quickly turning around so he couldn’t see the way he affected me. Why was he torturing me?
He wasn’t mine to be tortured by.
And that’s what made it all the more torturous.
The fact that we had kissed on the sand by the light of the bonfire, and then he was in the arms of another girl after he had kissed me…
And now he was acting like that hadn’t even happened.
Was I overthinking this? Probably.
And then, as if he couldn’t possibly torture me anymore, he stood so close his hips grazed my backside as he reached around me and leaned a hand against my locker door. His mouth was so close to my neck that I could smell him.
He smelled the same as he did a week ago on the beach, minus the cheap beer.
It was the smell of freshly washed clothes and expensive cologne.
I wish he wouldn’t stand so close, but at the same time, I wished he would stand closer.
He then gave my locker door a quick shove with his large masculine hand, and it popped open.
I missed it because I was so focused on him and his proximity to me that the metal door hit me in the forehead.
Dane laughed. “Oh, man. Sorry. God, you’re in the wars, aren’t you? It’s like you’re an accident waiting to happen.”
I rubbed my head and looked up at him, cheeks red.
“Um, yeah. That’s me. I’m notoriously clumsy. But thank you for, you know, getting it open.”
“You’re welcome, Darcie.” His voice was low and sultry again, and he gave me one of those famous Dane O’Connell dimpled smiles—the one that all girls probably swooned over.
And now I was one of those girls, even though I didn’t want to be.
If he kept coming around and standing so close to me, it was inevitable.
“So… do you have your schedule yet?” he asked.
“Yeah, I do.”
I turned around and busied myself with filling my locker with my books. I took the books I needed out for the first few lessons and slipped the schedule inside my notebook.
Dane saw it and reached for it, pulling it free.
Oh God, what was he doing to me? I watched his eyes scan the words on the page.
“Oh, yay, you have English second period with me. Good. I’ll see you there.”
He folded my schedule and carefully slipped it back in my book before winking and walking off.
I had to physically clamp my jaw together to stop my mouth from falling to the floor.
What was he up to?