JUST A LITTLE COMPLICATED
REESE COLLINS
EMPIRE PRESS
First published by Empire Press in 2020.
Copyright © 2020 by REESE COLLINS
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
ISBN: 978-0-6488128-0-7 (Paperback)
ISBN: 978-0-6488128-2-1 (Ebook)
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, events or locales, is entirely coincidental.
Contents
From the Author
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Epilogue
From the Author
THANK YOU!
For not only taking a chance on me as an author but also Just a Little Complicated.
I hope you love reading it as much as I have loved creating it. Nick and Hailee will always hold a special place in my heart.
If you’d like to keep up to date with new releases and the world of Sanctuary Cove, follow me on Instagram or join my newsletter.
Reese x
P.S I live for reviews and would love to hear from you!
For my Nanna - We miss you everyday.
Prologue
“Hails, you got a sec?" Nick steps in front of me, effectively blocking my path back into the party.
Nine months. Thirty-six weeks and approximately two hundred and seventy-three days. That’s how long I've avoided being alone and in this situation with him. I will not break that streak now. I cannot break that streak. And I sure as hell don't trust myself after a couple of drinks, confessional Hailee is not coming out to play tonight.
Yet, I still feel that pull, that intense attraction that I first felt last summer. It's like a gravitational pull slowly inching me closer to the previously goofy boy who I've watched become confident, slightly rebellious and even hotter than I thought possible.
Maybe it's the extra two inches he has grown, or maybe it's the fact that he has a sophisticated five o'clock shadow when most of the boys in our grade still can't even grow enough to shave. Or maybe it's the heat that collects in the pit of my stomach when he looks directly at me. Just like he is now.
Oh shit.
No Hailee, I chant to myself. The lid needs to stay shut. The vault needs to stay closed. He’s dating your best friend and you’re dating his.
As if the very thought of my best friend conjures her up, I see her running out the front door of the party.
"Uh, there's Hope." I stammer, never more grateful to see my best friend. "Maybe later?" I lie before brushing past him to follow her, not waiting for him to reply.
However, as I catch up to her, I instantly know something's not right.
"Hey, what's wrong?" I open the passenger door to her car and climb in just as she starts her red convertible Beetle. Tears are already streaming down her face.
"Holy crap, Hope! What happened?"
She doesn't answer me and keeps her eyes forward, focusing on the road. I watch her and my heart breaks to see her like this. I've never seen her cry before. She constantly has the biggest smile plastered on her face. If she wasn't my best friend, and I didn't love her, I might hate her for her optimism and energy.
"Hope, why don't you pull over and we can get a cab?"
When she doesn't answer and just keeps driving, I try another tactic.
"Hope, please talk to me?" I plead. "Is it Nick? Is it another girl? Fuck, if he cheated on you, I’ll…I’ll..well I don’t know but I’ll do something.”
She tenses and her hands shift across the steering wheel.
"That jerk!” I yell, punching the dashboard.
The previous ball of heat boils into anger, rage and guilt. Anger and rage that he would do that to her, she's the perfect girlfriend. Guilt because I've lost track of the times I caught myself daydreaming about him myself.
"You can't always choose who you fall in love with, HB," she whispers, but I can sense the torment in her voice.
She's hurting.
"Pfft, love?" I scoff in disbelief. Whatever. "And who is he apparently-"
I'm suddenly cut off and thrown back against my seat before smashing the side of my head against the window.
What the-
A dull high-pitched noise is pulling at me and making me fight the fog and confusion that is filling my head. I attempt to open my eyes, but it's just a blur of shadows and I can't focus. I reach up to touch my pounding, dizzy head only to feel something warm and sticky.
Images flit back randomly while my vision becomes a little less blurry.
The car. It rolled. Shit.
The car around me comes back into focus, and I realize I'm still upside down. My seat belt restraining me against my seat.
Hope! I swing my head around to where she should be, but her seat is empty.
"Hope!" I attempt to scream, but it comes out more like a drowning cat.
I try again, "Hope!" No answer. She's fine, I tell myself. She has to be.
I grab at my seatbelt to unclip it, but it won't budge. My head spins rapidly and I feel like I'm going to be sick.
"I got you." A distant voice breaks through just before the spinning envelops me and drags me into the darkness.
I'm not sure how much time has passed when I come to, again. I can feel warmth wrapped around me, and it's somewhat comforting and familiar. My head is pounding like someone is going to town with a jackhammer. I reach up to touch it, when the desperate voice starts again, sounding more panicked.
"Help is coming. Stay with me. I can hear the sirens, they are nearly here. Please stay with me. Come on, I need you to stay with me."
Sirens? Who's coming? What?
"Open your eyes!” the voice shouts.
I'm shaking. No, I'm being shaken. Stop shouting. I just want to go back to sleep. Just let me sleep.
"You need to wake up.”
Sorry whoever you are, but I'm too tired.
"You need to wake up, I cannot lose you.”
The desperate plea in the voice cuts through me like a knife, making my eyes flutter and open slightly. I can feel them burning from the brightness surrounding me. It's closing in, slowly suffocating me. I momentarily see a face staring down at me. Even with the look of anguish plagued across the face, it's still the most gorgeous face I have ever seen. I
t's also the last face I see before the brightness suddenly explodes, blinding me.
Chapter 1
THREE MONTHS LATER
First day of Senior year.
The last first time I'll ever walk through the doors of Sanctuary Cove High after summer break. And honestly, that dream of getting out of here and graduating is the only thing propelling me forward today.
This is not how my Senior year is supposed to be. It should be all rainbows and unicorns and...Hope.
All right, so maybe not actual rainbows and unicorns, but definitely Hope. My best friend should be walking beside me right now. Dressed in her cheer uniform, golden curls uncontrollably escaping her high ponytail, and a giant perfectly straight smile plastered on her face, giddy with excitement about the year ahead. Not to mention the constant commentary about how this year will be the best year yet, with football games, parties, cheer championships and Prom.
Prom. The thought alone makes my heart hurt. The girl who was destined to be Prom Queen, Junior and Senior year won't even see her Senior Prom. Unfair doesn't even begin to cover it.
To escape the side glances and whispers, I pick up the pace to my locker and keep my head down as I go. If I do this until graduation and not draw any more attention to myself, then I can get out of this place and put all the constant reminders and heartbreaking memories behind me.
Only nine and a half months to go. I'm not sure how many days that is, but I should probably work that out. I feel that knowing the exact number of days I have left, will definitely help...or maybe it will just depress me even more.
The hall fills with the usual excited buzz of the first day. Limbs are flying everywhere. Boys are high fiving and bro shaking, while the girls are emitting high-pitched squeals as they hug each other and gush about their summers. The memory of being one of those girls feels like a lifetime ago.
With determination I push all five feet of myself through the unforgiving crowd. Someone has been busy over the summer. The tall silver lockers that line the main halls are the same, but the walls are a new vibrant shade of royal blue and sunshine yellow, which in typical Sanctuary Cove style also happens to be our school colors.
Different sized posters are already covering the walls advertising recruitment for the various school clubs, and the school team banners are hanging overhead, shamelessly bragging about their latest achievements.
Sanctuary Cove Cubs, the basketball team – 2018 Regional Champions, Sanctuary Cove Steppers, the dance team – 2016, 2017, 2018 State Champions and the next one is the Sanctuary Cove Panthers, our beloved football team. They were terrible to put it nicely until last year and don't have any recent wins, so it's a little different. Sanctuary Cove Panthers, 2018 Regional Quarterback of the Year, Nick Marshall.
At the very thought of that name, I slam the locker I've had for the last three years shut. The name used to elicit something forbidden in me, but not lately. All I feel now is hatred.
I spin around to my right, toward homeroom. I don't even care that I'll be early. But before I can even take two steps, I'm momentarily halted by a familiar face watching me from a few lockers down.
Mason Harris.
Fighting the extreme guilt that fights to consume me, I spin back around and speed away through the hall as fast as physically possible. I cannot deal with Mason this morning. I feel awful, flat out turning in the opposite direction, especially when it's blatantly obvious I saw him, but today is all about self-preservation.
Self-preservation and survival.
Not enough though it seems, because in my rush to get away from one part of my past, I collide straight into another one. The Universe it seems is working hard against me today, because standing there only a few inches away wearing his usual goofy smile is the last person I want to see.
Nick Marshall.
"What the hell!" I shriek, as my bag drops to the floor and basically everything falls out on display including my bright pink flowery tampax box.
So much for keeping a low profile.
"Sorry-" Nick responds, taking a cautious half step back, holding his hands up in defense.
"You need to watch where you are going!" I snap, cutting him off.
"Hey! You're the one who ran into me!" He snaps.
Then of course when I thought it couldn't get any worse, it does.
"Don't forget your meds." A familiar, yet I wish it wasn't, voice interrupts and kicks my stray bottle of aspirin back towards me.
"It's aspirin, Natalie." I spit
"Whatever you say mental Munroe,” she cackles, flicking her long bleached hair over her shoulder as she walks past me and disappears down the hall.
I huff and bend down to collect the contents of my bag. Nick joins me on the floor out of what I can only imagine is obligation. The last thing I need is to be indebted to him and give him another reason to hassle me.
"Nick, just leave it. I got it." My voice going back to normal with only the slightest quiver.
"Lee, just let me help," he says and I hate myself for the way it still affects me. It's not enough though, even using his exclusive nickname for me.
"Don't call me that! And I said, I don't need your help." Anger boiling back up inside me like a kettle just about to blow its lid. Again.
"Fine," he grunts.
The previous goofy smile is a distant memory as he drops my Bio book back to the floor before straightening his varsity jacket on his six-foot two frame and storms off down the hall.
The loyal subjects of Sanctuary Cove High parting for him without him even looking up.
Chapter 2
"Hailee, the Principal wants to see you in the office." Mr. Kennedy, my homeroom teacher instructs, just as I attempt to slide into the room unnoticed.
Groaning quietly I spin back out the door, but not without noticing the whispers and sniggers. I would normally say I can't believe my luck, but with what has happened over the last few months, it's just my luck.
I have literally only been here half an hour and I have already run into the last two people I want to see and now I’m being summoned to the principal's office.
The office building is over the far side of the school grounds, so at least I'll miss all of homeroom and if I'm lucky some of first period. The buzz of the second bell radiates through the halls, causing the last few students to break into a run, their sneakers squeaking against the vinyl.
Twenty minutes later, and after taking my sweet time, I enter the main office waiting room. Bypassing the empty reception desk, I stride straight to Ms. Evans’ office and knock softly on the open door.
"You wanted to see me?" I offer with forced enthusiasm.
"Yes. Hailee. Hi, please sit down." She motions to the empty chair opposite her tidy, sleek black desk.
Ms. Evans is not who you typically picture as a principal. Late thirties with wild long brown hair that is usually semi-confined with a brightly colored hair scarf and an equally vibrant maxi dress.
However, don't let her boho style fool you, she is just the right amount of fierce principal when needed. I can bear witness to that when Hope and I were caught last year smoking behind the field house. Well, Hope was smoking. I was just along for the ride. I tried it once back in freshman year and couldn't get the taste out of my mouth for days, so no thanks for me.
"Are you okay, Hailee?" Ms. Evans asks in her soft, genuine voice.
"Yes," I quip, fighting the tears that come with the memory.
Unintentionally, it comes across as a little icy and harsh. I know people only mean well, especially Ms. Evans, she's always been my favorite, but I'm also getting damn tired of that question.
"I won't keep you long." She continues, not deterred by my angst. "Here is your new schedule, your dad phoned and asked if we can put in a few more AP classes."
"Thanks." I mumble as I take my new schedule printed on thick sunshine yellow paper showcasing more of that school spirit.
I shouldn't be all that surprised, but it would have been nice
if he had told me.
He's been on my case about it all summer, 'You need more AP classes to boost your GPA and make your college applications look good.' I just kept dismissing him, saying I'll think about it, but I knew he was right. If I want to get out of here and into Yale, I need to up my current GPA. Thankfully, my SATs and extracurriculars are already set.
However, any school spirit I might have had quickly vanishes when I take in the new class schedule. If I still had a life, it would have just been thrown out the window. And then run over by a truck. AP Physics, AP Biology, and AP English in addition to Chem Lab and History. Amen though, to still having two spare periods and Gym. At least that's not going to completely destroy my soul.
"These subjects will not be easy and if you are struggling, you need to let me know asap, so I can get you some help." She offers with a kind smile.
I nod to pacify her, but there is no way in hell I will let her assign me a tutor.
"Hailee," she sighs, leaning forward on her elbows and giving me a sad pity filled smile. One that I've gotten way too used to seeing on people lately.
"I know you had a rough end to last year, but it's a new year and you need to be planning for your future. In life things happen every day that we can't control, but we can't just shut the world out and give up on everything and everyone. I'm not saying you should forget, but don't let it define the rest of your life."
Just a Little Complicated: A Highschool Sports Romance (SANCTUARY COVE Book 1) Page 1