Rogue: A Paradise Shores Novel

by Hayle, Olivia

  Lily told me most things. I was fairly certain she’d never lied to me in in her life. But she hadn’t shared this… which meant something.

  Parker snorts. “Bateman? I think just sending a look in his direction would make him bolt.”

  I can’t for the life of me remember what Adam Bateman looks like. He’s probably a normal, unassuming kid. Someone with a trust fund and well-known parents.

  Turner shakes his head. “You’re too protective, my friends. The girl’s gotta live her life on her own terms sometime.”

  “Yeah, but not with the likes of you.”

  “What, so I’m good enough to be your friend but not your sister’s date?” He clutches a hand to his heart, a hurt expression on his face. “You wound me.”

  I force my clenched teeth to relax. It’s a joke to him, perhaps, but what he described was my reality. “Madison would go with you.”

  “I know she would. Guess I’ll have to revisit that.” He throws me a grin. “Aren’t you going to ask someone?”

  “To homecoming? No.”

  Parker aims a kick at Turner’s shin, which he neatly evades. “Hayden’s too cool for school events.”

  I nod. “It’s a reputation thing.”

  It’s not.

  I don’t fit in and have no desire to spend another night with the shiny Paradise Shore kids. They never let me forget that I wasn’t one of them—that my mother didn’t drink tea with theirs at the country club, that I didn’t return from winter break with a tan from a trip to the Bahamas—so I made it obvious I wasn’t trying to fit in.

  If they wouldn’t let me win their game, I made damn sure they knew I wasn’t playing at all.

  Seeing the hard expression on my face, Turner backtracks. “It’s kinda lame, in a way. I get you.”

  “Yeah.”

  Parker jerks beside me. “Shit.”

  “What?”

  He grabs his backpack and hurriedly snubs out his cigarette. “Shit. I forgot. I have an emergency swim session that started… five minutes ago. I was supposed to drive Lily home today after she was done here, but then Coach texted me… I was going to let Mom know.” He shoots me a look I recognize well. “Hayden?”

  “I’ll drive her home.”

  “You’re a lifesaver, man. I owe you.” He bumps my knuckles before heading off down the bleachers. Turner and I watch him go in silence. Parker’s just as blond as he always was, but he’s cut like a swimmer now. He doesn’t owe me a damn thing.

  If anything, I’m the one in his debt. Every moment I spent alone with Lily Marchand is sorted and filed into my own mental archives, treasured and valued. My memories with her were some of the best of my life.

  Once practice is over, I park right by the entrance to the girl’s locker rooms and lean against the car. I fiddle with the packet of smokes in my pocket, but I know better than to pull one out. Lily has never seen me smoke.

  My body hums with the familiar mixture of energy and excitement that she produces. Time alone with just her, no brothers or family in sight, isn’t always easy to come by.

  The girls start to file out. A few shoot me speculating looks, but it brushes off me like smoke on water. The whole school knows I’m with the Marchands. I’ve heard the descriptions—a cuckoo in the nest, their charity case—whispered behind my back. The thing is, rumors don’t sting when they’re true.

  Lily’s hair is a mess when she emerges, a sweaty gym bag in her hand. A soft calm overwhelms me at the sight of her. I would never need another cigarette in my life if she was by my side daily.

  Her green eyes glitter with a smile. “What’s this?”

  “I volunteered for chauffeur duty.”

  “You mean Parker forgot?”

  I shrug. “His loss.”

  “My win.”

  “That’s not a phrase.”

  She throws her bag into the trunk and skips over to the passenger seat. “Yes, it is. I just invented it.”

  I put the car in drive and pull out of the parking lot. It’s not the first time I’ve driven one of the Marchand cars. The engine purrs smoothly under my hands.

  “Nicely played today, by the way. I saw your game.”

  “Hayden!”

  “It wasn’t intentional.”

  “Sure it wasn’t.”

  I keep the smile off my face. “You got some good passes in today.”

  “No, I didn’t. Don’t lie to make me feel better.”

  “Well, I’m not about to lie to make you feel worse.”

  I can’t see her, but I know she’s rolling her eyes. “Don’t lie at all, silly.”

  “Ohhh.”

  “Yes, ohhh. What were you doing on the bleachers anyway?”

  “Hanging out.”

  “Right.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “With a certain blonde, perhaps?”

  I have to focus on the road to hide my surprise. There’s a rumor about me and Belinda Richards, yes. But it’s nearly entirely false. I didn’t think it had reached any of the other classes, and certainly not Lily. I’m not into blondes.

  “No.”

  “Mhm.”

  She shifts, and her skirt rides up a bit, showing smooth, tanned skin. I grip the steering wheel tighter. No, blondes hold absolutely no appeal for me.

  Not when the girl next to me owns my heart and my soul.

  I turn the tables on her.

  “Adam Bateman, huh?”

  Lily groans. “How did you find out?”

  “Turner.”

  “Of course. He can’t keep a secret to save his life.”

  “So Adam is a secret?” I try to keep the edge out of my voice. I would have probably fooled anyone else.

  “No,” she says softly. “But I didn’t want Parker to find out.”

  “The brother blockade.”

  “Exactly.”

  If she’s trying to avoid her brothers’ interference, she probably wants to go out with him. Hell, it probably means she’d said yes when he asked. My hands grip the wheel tighter still.

  “When are you going out with him?”

  “I’m not,” she says. “I said no.”

  “What?”

  “What do you mean, what? Do you think I should have accepted him?”

  “No.”

  “Then why the what?”

  “Why would you be worried about your brothers finding out?”

  Lily sighs like I’m being slow, and twists in her seat. “Their reaction will scare others away.”

  “Which others?” I haven’t heard of any lately, but if there was someone I’d missed…

  Her voice is tight when she answers me. “I don’t know. I’m not exactly swimming in offers, Hayden. But, you know… if someone were to ask me, I’d want to be able to say yes.”

  If she only knew how many of the good-for-nothing boys have the hots for beautiful, sweet, fierce Lily Marchand. I would know. I’m the president of that particular fan club.

  “I see. Clever.”

  She leans back against the seat and begins to unbraid her hair. I can see it from my peripheral view, thick and heavy around her shoulders. That fucking hair. It will haunt me, through this life and the next.

  She sighs. “You were my first kiss, you know?”

  My heart stops for what feels like an eternity. She has never brought that up before.

  That kiss had been the scariest decision of my life, and it had hardly even been a decision at all. It had been instinct. She’d been sitting across from me outside the beach house, eating freshly picked blueberries, and I’d just leaned over and pressed my lips to hers. It was years ago.

  There had been absolutely no finesse to it.

  It had also been a mistake, arguably, for the way she’d reacted. My brave, brave girl, and she’d been shell-shocked. I’d been terrified that I’d screwed everything up after that.

  “Hayden?” Her voice is quiet. “Maybe you don’t remember. It’s fine, I was just thinking out loud.
”

  Fucking hell.

  I wish I could look her in the eyes. I need to see what she’s thinking in this moment. Is she just reminiscing with an old friend?

  Or is this… an opening?

  “I remember,” I say. “You freaked out.”

  “Did not.”

  “Did too.”

  I can hear the smile in her voice when she continues. “Okay, maybe I did, a little. I just didn’t know what to do.”

  “You’re cute.”

  “That’s not what you’re supposed to say, Hayden. You’re supposed to tell me that I was a perfect kisser and a veritable vixen.”

  Hell, I can’t hide the smile on my face. “Lils, not even you were a seductress at age thirteen.”

  “How rude.”

  “Lily.”

  “No, I’m honestly offended. Wounded, even.”

  I reach over and grip her thigh right above the knee, like all of her brothers used to do to one another. Only, I don’t grip her as tight as they ever had. She laughs and yelps, pushing against my hand. “Fine, I’m not offended.”

  I let go. “Good.”

  “So, was I yours?”

  “What?”

  “Was I your first kiss?”

  Did her voice sound hopeful? I turn up on Ocean Drive and consider my response. More likely than not, I’m a desperate man, begging for her scraps of affection. And how I wish I could answer yes to that question, too.

  But I’d never lied to Lily.

  “No.”

  She snorts. “A playboy by fourteen. I’m not surprised.”

  “It was before Paradise Shores.” I park on the driveway, right next to Rhys’s expensive Mustang. A statement car, he called it. I called it pretentious. “And it didn’t mean anything.”

  Lily chuckles. “Of course not. You were a kid.”

  I grab her sports bag from the back. “Right. Exactly.”

  Maybe I should get that into my head too, one of these days.

  Childhood kisses don’t count.

  * * *

  A few months later, at the ripe old age of thirteen, Atlas had to be put to sleep. Eloise Marchand had tried everything she could, but the dog was too sick. Vet’s orders. The dog had been sweet, and it was a shame, but I didn’t take it as hard as the Marchand kids.

  Henry pretended like he didn’t care—it was getting hard to tell if it was even a pretense anymore. Parker was a mess.

  Rhys and I, we brought out the big guns. We pulled out the sofa-bed in his room and brought up the old Nintendo. It had been years since that last got played. After my first arrival here, the boys had upgraded to newer and newer consoles. Now we regularly played the latest releases.

  “Here,” Rhys says. “I found a six-pack in the basement.”

  I grab one of the beers he tosses my way. “You sure?”

  He shrugs. “Dad won’t care.”

  Henry accepts one too. “I suppose it’s as good a day for underage drinking as any other.”

  “To Atlas,” Parker says and raises his can. We all toast.

  Rhys turns on the flat-screen TV in his room. The garish symbols and the cheery music of the old game flicker back to life.

  I have to give it to him, there’s something nostalgic about the whole thing. It fits the mood. Maybe that’s what he wanted to do—to bring the brothers together one last time.

  Henry is only here for the weekend, back from New York, and Rhys has to go back to college soon. Parker and I already have one foot out the door with graduation approaching.

  Henry reaches for one of the controls. “Has someone checked on Lily?”

  Rhys nods. “She wants to be left alone.”

  “All right.”

  I take another sip of my beer and watch as the colorful Italian brothers race across a pixelated landscape of mushrooms and plants.

  Lily has never known life without that dog. She’s kind, and she could take things hard sometimes. I’d seen it happen before—with dropped plates or mean girls at school.

  It doesn’t feel right that she’s in her bedroom alone. I feel it in my bones, but out of all of us boys in Rhys’s bedroom, I have the least reason to feel protective. I’m not Lily’s brother, thank God.

  But I’m not her boyfriend either. I watch as Mario gets eaten by a flesh-eating flower on screen and fully empathize.

  Several hours later—and a couple of more six-packs—and we lost Henry. He mentioned an early morning and something about a remote conference call.

  I glance over at Parker. He’s fallen asleep, one hand still on his remote control. Never one to give up on victory.

  “In it to the end, huh?”

  Rhys rolls his eyes. “He’s got pride, I’ll give him that.”

  “Too much, sometimes”

  I stand and stretch from side to side, my body aching. The morning runs are good for me, but maybe I’ve overdone it lately.

  Rhys shuts off the video game and the screen goes dark.

  “Keep an eye on him, will you?”

  I look over at him. Rhys is tall now, the tallest of all the brothers, and just as unpredictable as always. “On Parker?”

  “Yes. He’s impulsive. You know that.” Rhys glances over at his bedroom door, shut now to avoid bothering the rest of the family. “And Lily. Especially Lily.”

  I meet his gaze head-on and want to sink through the floor. If only he knew just how much I kept an eye on her. He’d never invite me into their house again.

  “Sure.”

  “Thanks, man.”

  I nod goodbye and leave him to deal with his dozing brother. The house is dark and silent, but I know it by heart. I’d snuck out of the Marchands’ house enough times by now to know which floorboards to avoid.

  Stopping by the closed door to Lily’s room is habit. I’d been inside plenty of times, but never in the dead of night. And never when she was in bed.

  Her room isn’t quiet. I can hear the sound of faint crying.

  Hell. She wanted to be left alone. Of course that’s what she wanted. Lily doesn’t break down in front of other people—we all know that. Rhys should have forced her out to be with us. Their teasing would have made her feel better.

  I pause with my hand on the doorknob.

  I shouldn’t enter—I know I shouldn’t—but walking away from Lily in pain feels like an impossibility. If the roles were reversed, she would never have left me alone.

  I turn the knob. Her room is softly lit by the fairy lights she’s draped around her bed. I can faintly make her out, lying on her side, dark hair splayed across her pillow.

  “Lily?”

  The sound of her tears stops, but not without effort. “Hayden?”

  “Yeah.”

  The sheets pool around her as she sits up. Her hair is a stark contrast against the white of her tank top. For a moment, she just stares at me in the darkness. The tear tracks on her cheeks break me.

  “You shouldn’t be alone.”

  She scoots over and folds the covers back. It’s not what I had in mind, but… hell. It’s undoubtedly a solution.

  “Lily…”

  She swallows hard, but doesn’t say anything, just looks at me. My heart breaks a little, seeing her so sad. The need coming from her is palpable. She didn’t want to be alone, either.

  I kick off my sneakers and pull off my sweatshirt. Dressed in just my T-shirt and jeans, I slip into her queen-sized bed.

  “You okay?”

  Lily turns to me. With the soft glow from her fairy lights, her face looks magical. Familiar and achingly new at the same time. Her long eyelashes cast shadows down her cheeks.

  “No.”

  I smooth her hair back. “I’m sorry. So sorry, Lils.”

  “I know.”

  We just look at each other for a long moment before I stretch my arm out. She curls closer, placing her head on my chest. I can feel her breathing, the soft movements of her body tucked against mine. I’ve never held her like this before.

  “Don�
��t cry,” I whisper. “Everything will be all right.”

  “I forgot,” she murmurs, turning up to face me. I’ve never seen her so unguarded before—and never this close.

  “Forgot what?”

  She closes her eyes. “I hurt when you’re in pain. I forgot that it goes the other way, too.”

  I run a hand over her long, silken hair and feel the soft rise and fall of her breath. Oh, Lily. If only I could stay here forever, holding her in my arms and dreaming of a world where we had a future.

  It took a while, but eventually she fell into a restless slumber. I followed suit soon thereafter, letting her deep breathing drag me down. It was the first night we fell asleep together, in her bed in the Marchand house in Paradise Shores, but it wouldn’t be the last.

  8

  Lily

  The present

  I pull the blinds in my living room and refuse to look at my front yard. Instead, I get ready in aggressive, fast movements. I shower with too hot water and use too much eyeliner.

  “It’s going to be fine, Lily,” I tell myself firmly. A casual date with Turner, someone I have fun with at work. My brothers’ best friend and someone I’ve known for years. A party during the middle of the day, in my hometown, with family all around. There’s literally nothing that could go wrong.

  Except everything.

  Why had he come back and sent my entire world back into uncertainty? The butterflies in my stomach feel unworthy of the woman I am now. I’m twenty-eight, for Christ’s sake, not a girl of eighteen with a childhood crush.

  When I dare to peek from behind my curtains, Hayden is gone. The gate is fixed, though. He’s even cleared the path of fallen leaves. The man is a complete mystery to me.

  I look at myself in my floor-length mirror before I leave. A white dress with a boat-neck neckline hugs my chest, narrowing at my waist before billowing out in a flattering A-line skirt. My hair is long and loose, curled lightly at the ends. I’m wearing my favorite pair of Tommy Hilfiger wedges. A bag is slung over my shoulder, made out of woven straw and leather straps. I’d bought it in the south of France as a teenager, and it’s still my favorite summer bag.