Challenges authority
Difficulty conducting herself appropriately
Possible boundary issues
“I’m not going to punish you, Halston. Consider this a verbal warning.” I release a hard breath through my nose as I study her, refusing to allow my eyes to drift to the soft swell of her breasts casually peeking out of her top. Knowing her so intimately over the phone, and being in her presence knowing she’s completely off limits, makes it difficult to maintain my unshaken demeanor. “From now on, I’d like you to refrain from using curse words while on school grounds. It’s disruptive to the other students who are here to actually glean something from their high school education.”
“I don’t know.” Her lips bunch at the corner, and she fights a devilish grin. “I mean, I can try, but ‘fuck’ is one of my favorite words in the English language. What if I can’t stop saying it? Then what?”
“Then we’ll worry about that when the time comes,” I say.
“You could always bend me over your knee and spank me.” She rises, wrapping her lips around the sucker before plucking it out of her mouth with a wet pop. “Or maybe you could fuck my brains out and break my heart.”
“Excuse me?” My skin heats as she recites my words, but I refuse to let her see that she’s having any kind of effect on me.
“You’re him,” she says, as if it’s some ace she’s been keeping up her sleeve this entire time. “You’re Kerouac.”
I’m at a rare loss for words, trying to wrap my head around all the ways this could go very fucking wrong for me.
“Don’t worry. Your secret’s safe with me.” Halston rises, her gaze lingering on me one last time, and then just like that, she’s gone.
Chapter Twenty
Halston
The last block of the day is taking for-ev-er, so I ask for a hall pass and make my way around the school, loitering at every drinking fountain and every bulletin board. The teacher’s probably wondering where the hell I am, but I’m not afraid to tell him I got my period. That usually shuts them up.
Rounding the corner by the front office, I’m making a beeline for drinking fountain number six when the door swings open and out walks Kerouac.
Or rather, Principal Hawthorne.
We both stop so as not to bump into each other, though he’d be so lucky.
I saw the way he looked at me in his office this morning, the way his body responded to my voice. I knew the instant he started talking that it was him, though it took all the strength I had to ignore his chiseled jaw, dimpled chin, thick, dark hair, and hooded, honey-brown eyes.
Principals are supposed to be old with gray hair, glasses, and dad bods.
They’re not supposed to look like fucking supermodels.
Our eyes lock, and I smirk. To think, all those times I was talking to this.
This is what was on the other end. That stock photo doesn’t even hold a candle to the striking Adonis standing before me. No wonder he doesn’t want to commit. For a man like that, the world is one giant, all-you-can-eat buffet of beautiful women.
“Excuse me,” he says, stepping out of my way like a gentleman.
God, that voice. That gentle, low rasp of a voice. I about creamed my pants when he did the overhead announcements earlier. Almost had to excuse myself from class so I could finish the job in an empty bathroom stall.
It doesn’t help that all anyone can talk about lately is how fucking hot the new principal is. I overheard a group of senior girls earlier making a wager to see who could sleep with him before they went off to college. The winner was to get a thousand bucks.
Ha. Stupid girls.
If they only knew who they were dealing with.
But I’m no better than they are. I know the man that lies beyond the carefully crafted exterior, behind those dark, hooded eyes and that confident stride. The man on the inside is a million times sexier than any of them could begin to imagine.
“You’re excused.” I make my way to the fountain, press the button, and lower my mouth to the jet stream of fresh water. His stare is heavy, weighted, and I’d give anything to know what he thinks when he looks at me.
The halls are empty and quiet. It’s just the two of us.
Across the way a male teacher drones on about World War I and the Lusitania, and when I glance into the classroom, I spot Bree sitting in the front row, gnawing on the tip of her pen as her eyes wander in our direction.
I move out of her line of sight. Ford follows.
“I’d like to talk to you sometime,” he says. “About—”
I rise, turning to him. “About what? Nothing happened.”
He squints, studying me. He must think I’m planning to blackmail him, but he’d be mistaken. While his rejection stung at the time, I’m over it and I’ve got bigger fish to fry—specifically a bottom-feeder by the name of Bree.
“I tried to reach out to you after we last spoke,” he says, keeping his voice down. “I wanted to make sure you were okay. Couldn’t find you on the app.”
“I deleted it.”
His lips press, and he nods. All those long phone calls and messaging sessions this summer, and the man can’t find more than a handful of things to say to me now. He must still be in shock. I can’t say that I blame him. He’d have a hell of a lot more to lose than I would. The stakes are higher for him. I might be legal and an adult, but there isn’t a single red-blooded soul in this entire school district who’d be okay with a principal striking up a sexual relationship with one of his students.
On paper, it would seem atrocious. Scandalous. Disgusting.
But it doesn’t keep me from wishing we could’ve made it work, as insane as that is.
“You know, we’re going to be seeing a lot of each other around here, so let’s do ourselves a favor and get the fuck over what happened,” I say, arms folded as I maintain my icy demeanor. My ego may be bruised, my heart may be longing for him, but I’ll be damned if I run away with my tail tucked like some rejected schoolgirl. “If you’re going to look at me like that every time you see me—”
“I’m sorry.” He won’t stop staring. “I just … I can’t believe it’s you.”
“Believe it.” I begin to walk backwards, distancing myself from him.
He may have closed the door a few weeks ago, but I’m the one who locked it.
Chapter Twenty-One
Ford
Pulling into my driveway, I kill the engine and exhale.
I read her file today.
After she left my office this morning, I contacted the school guidance counselor and asked her to send me anything and everything she had on Halston Kessler.
By the time lunch was through, I had a thick file on my desk with “Confidential” stamped over each and every page.
I’m not exactly sure what I was looking for, but whatever it was, I found it.
And then some.
Bree’s silver Prius pulls into the Abbotts’ driveway, parking outside the third stall of their garage, and I watch from my car as a passenger climbs out the other side. The girl has wild blonde hair, and she flings a bag over one shoulder as she heads inside, not waiting for Bree.
Bree yells something.
The girl turns back.
It’s her. Halston.
I’d have never paired the two of them as friends—they couldn’t possibly be more different, but high school’s a trying time and stranger things have happened.
Halston comes back to the car, retrieving something from the back seat. Bree spots me, waving, and Halston glances in my direction. I’ve no choice but to get out and say hello. Sitting in the car, staring, would be inappropriate at this point.
Exiting my car, I walk toward them, doing my best to be a friendly principal and not a man who spent the entire school day obsessing over a woman he has no business so much as thinking about.
“Hi,” I say, hands resting on my hips. Halston keeps back, staring. Bree smiles, acting like nothing happened.
We’re all just fu
cking acting like nothing happened.
“How was your first day, Principal?” Bree asks.
Glancing toward Halston, because I can’t help myself, I nod. “It went well, thank you.”
Halston smirks, taking a sip of her iced coffee, her red lips wrapped around a green Starbucks straw.
“I didn’t know you lived here.” Halston moves my way.
Bree watches us. “How could you not know? He moved in two months ago.”
Well shit. Halston must be Abbott’s niece.
Halston shrugs, electric jade eyes trained on me. “Guess I was a little too … preoccupied to notice.”
“We should probably head in,” Bree says, still observing.
“You go ahead.” Halston takes another sip. “I’ll be in in a sec.”
She loiters for a moment before disappearing inside, though I fully expect her to watch us from behind a pulled curtain.
“We couldn’t really talk earlier,” I say, closing the space between us. “I just want to make sure you’re okay.”
Halston rolls her eyes. “Good god. You must think I’m weak or something.”
“That’s not true.” I look at her, but all I can think about is her file.
Everything she’s been through.
Everything she’s overcome.
“The good news is, guys like you are a dime a dozen,” she says, shrugging.
“Guys like me?” I smirk. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You know, the ones who’re afraid to commit, afraid to limit their options.”
“It was never about limiting my options.” I exhale, pinching the bridge of my nose. Every person I’ve ever loved has left me in some capacity or another. Over the years, I’ve found it easier to separate emotions from sex, to swear off commitment altogether. The only time I ever found myself second-guessing that decision was the last time I spoke to “Absinthe” on the phone.
But she hung up before I had a chance to say it.
“Anyway,” she says, wrapping her lips around the straw and smiling. “I don’t know about you, but I find this entire situation to be fucking hilarious.”
“I don’t.”
“You’re worried.” Halston adjusts the slipping bag on her shoulder. “And you shouldn’t be.”
My gaze holds hers, and I wonder what it must have been like for her to grow up in a meth house. To miss years upon years of school. To know what it was like to go to bed hungry, to not have heat in the wintertime.
But there was one case note, specifically, that broke my heart in fucking two.
At thirteen, her father pimped her out to one of his friends in exchange for drugs. She lost her virginity, her innocence. And it wasn’t just once. It went on, according to the notes from the social worker, for the better part of a year.
How she can stand here with her head held high and a resilient gleam in her eye is beyond me.
“Okay, if we’re just going to stand here staring at each other …” Halston lifts her brows.
“Sorry.” My brows meet. “I was just thinking.”
“Thinking what?”
About how beautiful she is inside and out, how genuine and unapologetic she is, and how fucking much I’m going to miss talking to her, knowing her in an intimate way that goes beyond the physical.
“Have a good night, Halston.” I say her name, a reminder that my bittersweet, addictive Absinthe is real.
And then I watch her walk away.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Halston
“What the hell kind of name is Thane?” I ask my Chem II lab partner on the second day of school. If we’re going to be working side by side the rest of this semester, I need to know if he can handle me. I need to prepare him.
“What the hell kind of name is Halston?” he zings back.
I smile. “Touché.”
Our teacher passes out beakers and blue fluid and some form we’re supposed to work on together, but we’re not paying attention.
“I hope you’re good at chemistry,” I say, “because I’m not.”
“My dad’s a pharmacist,” he says. “Scientology runs in the family.”
“You did not just call it ‘scientology.’” I laugh, rolling my eyes.
“I’m messing with you.” He bumps his arm against mine, and I’m suddenly aware of his sweeping height and the faint, agreeable scent of his crisp cologne. “My dad’s a pharmacist. And I’m amazing at chemistry. You’ve just won the lottery of lab partners. Congratulations.”
I try not to pay attention to who’s who around here. I could give two shits about popularity or whether or not anyone likes me, but Thane Bennett is the guy who walks the halls of Rosefield High School with a dimpled smile, leaving throngs of swooning girls in his wake. He’s an all-star quarterback. The star forward on the basketball team. And last year, he broke three state records on the track team.
But more important than any of that, Thane Bennett is the love of Bree’s life. She’s been crushing on him since they were kids. I used to hear all about him when we could actually tolerate each other enough to endure a sleepover here or there. I’ll never forget her practically making out with his school picture, tongue and everything.
“Lucky me.” I wink.
Our hands brush when he reaches for the assignment sheet.
I feel him staring, but I pretend not to notice.
When the first half of the block is over and the bell rings, our teacher lets us take a five-minute break. Thane disappears, returning with two chocolate bars from one of the vending machines. He slides one in front of me.
“What’s this?” I inspect it before looking at him like he’s insane.
“I was hungry. Didn’t want to eat in front of you, so I got you one too.”
Popular, athletic, intelligent, and polite.
I suppose I see the appeal …
“You don’t have to do shit like this,” I say. “I feel like you’re trying to win me over or impress me or something.”
“And what if I am?” His mouth curls at the sides, accented with two centered dimples, and his messy, sandy brown hair falls in his crystalline blue eyes. “What if I think you’re pretty and funny? What if I want to ask you out?”
“Then I’d say you’re blind, deaf, delusional, and wasting your time.” I rip the wrapper of the chocolate bar, snapping off a tiny square and letting it melt on my tongue.
He’s undeterred, still wearing that panty-melting smile that works on all the other girls. Unfortunately for him, it doesn’t have the same effect on me.
“I’m taking you out Friday night,” he says.
I choke on my chocolate, sputtering and coughing into my elbow.
“You are, are you?” I finally manage to ask a minute later.
“I am.” He stands closer to me than before, so close his body heat merges with mine. Or maybe I’m imagining it because it suddenly got twenty degrees hotter in here.
This isn’t supposed to happen. Preppy, popular boys with dimples aren’t supposed to ask girls like me out, and girls like me aren’t supposed to get fucking butterflies in their stomachs over this kind of shit.
“I’ll check my schedule and get back to you,” I say.
“I’ll pick you up at six. We’ll do dinner. And a movie. And after that we can just hang out somewhere and talk.”
“Why?”
He scoffs, though his eyes are smiling. “Why what?”
“Why do you want to hang out with me?”
“I don’t want to hang out with you. I want to take you on a date,” he says. “And I want to take you on a date because I think you’re beautiful. And interesting. And different.”
“You’ve known me all of forty-five minutes.”
“So?”
“What if we go on a date and you try to kiss me and I knee you in the balls and then we’re stuck being lab partners for the next four months and it’s really fucking awkward?” I ask.
Thane chuckles. “What if we go on a
date and have an incredible time and I get to spend the next four months being lab partners with my girlfriend and it’s really fucking amazing?”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa.” I hold my hand up, backing away. “Slow your roll.”
“My bad.” He slips his hand around my wrist, pulling me back to our table. Our assignment is untouched, and glancing around, most everyone around us is nearly finished. “One step at a time. A date this Friday. Another one next Friday. And then I’ll take you to homecoming the weekend after that.”
I pretend to gag myself with my pointer finger. “Gross. I don’t do school dances.”
“Then we’ll just do something else that night.”
My scrutinizing stare flicks to him. He can’t be serious. “But you’re probably going to be in the homecoming court and all that. And you’re playing in the game. You can’t not go.”
Thane shrugs. “I don’t need a stupid crown. I’ll take myself out of the running. And the game is Friday, the dance is Saturday. I’ll still play.”
“I have an extremely hard time believing you don’t have some ulterior motive right now,” I say. “Did you and your football buddies make some kind of wager? See who can snag me first?”
“Football buddies?” He laughs. “And no. No wager.”
“That’s exactly what someone who made a wager would say.”
“Halston and Thane.” Our teacher, Mr. Caldwell, clears his throat, standing in front of our table, the buttons of his shirt about to pop. “Let’s stay on task or I’ll be reassigning both of you to different partners first thing tomorrow.”
Thane reaches for a beaker, measuring out fifty milliliters. I have no idea what we’re supposed to do, but I grab a pen and try to look busy until Caldwell waddles away. As soon as his back is turned, we exchange looks and bite our lips to keep from laughing.
Thirty minutes later, the final bell rings.
“You want me to walk you to your car?” Thane asks as I load my notebook in my bag.
“I don’t have one, but if I did, my answer would be no.” I walk away, he follows.
P.S. I Hate You Page 31