Before Hadley (3 page)

Cass shook her head. “Her dad claimed he hadn’t been in his safe in months.”

“Geez. That sucks.” I dug into my backpack on the floor beside my desk, seeking my notebook and a package of licorice.

“For you,” a deep British voice said.

I glanced up at Caynan who stood beside me with a grin. He’d placed an iced coffee on my desk. I nodded toward it. “What’s this?”

“I was behind you at the drive-thru before you gave up and took off. Thought you might like one.”

My entire face scrunched up. “Why?”

He shrugged as he slid into his seat beside me. “I just thought it was a nice gesture.”

“Nice gesture?” I scoffed, wondering what nice gesture he’d done for the two girls sandwiching him in the cafeteria.

He nodded, his lips twitching in the corners. “After nearly plowing you over at the party.”

“Nearly? You definitely plowed me over. Lucky I’m still alive to talk about it.”

He laughed, a deep throaty laugh. “I just couldn’t remember if I apologized. So, I got you the coffee.”

My eyes narrowed. “How do I know you didn’t slip something in it?”

His brows slanted in. “Like what?”

I shrugged. “I’ve seen movies. The poor unsuspecting co-ed gets drugged in her iced coffee.”

That made him laugh even harder. “And what would I get out of drugging you in the middle

of  English class?”

“So you’re saying you’d drug me, just not at school?”

“What?” His face was incredulous. “I never said that.”

I lifted my shoulders. “Who knows. You could be some crazy Brit on the lam from the…what do they call cops over there?”

He paused.

“You two are adorable,” Cass interjected, pulling our attention to her—our one-woman audience.

I willed her with my eyes to zip it. “Are not.”

She ignored my plea. “Oh, no. You’re definitely adorable.”

Ms. Atwood walked through the door already talking about the story she assigned yesterday.

I turned my attention to the front of the room, though the urge to drink the coffee was overpowering.

“
Psst
.”

My eyes shifted to Caynan who stared across the aisle at me.

“You know you want to.”

I turned back to the front of the room, resisting the urge to grab it at all costs.

I never backed down from a challenge. I was stubborn like that.

CHAPTER THREE

Caynan

For the most part, the rest of my first week in Jacobsville was just like every other. I got lost. I got propositioned by several willing females. I focused my energy on baseball, not school.

Thanks to my two homeruns, we won today’s game easily. Coach pulled me aside after and   asked me about my future plans. I brushed him off saying I’d been considering the military. That always garnered a look of admiration, but an understanding that college ball wasn’t in my immediate future. He assured me, if my plans changed, he had contacts at the local colleges who would come see me play. I thanked him, knowing that would never happen.

I pulled to a stop down the road from my teammate Mark’s house that night, the closest I could park with all the cars lining the street. Once I switched off the engine, a pounding on my window startled the hell out of me. Even with my soft top down, I hadn’t heard anyone approach.
Damn
. I must’ve been slipping. A tall redhead with green eyes stared in at me laughing hysterically with her friends.

I pushed open my door and stepped out, donning my confident grin and accent. “What’s up, ladies?”

“Sorry.” The redhead twisted her hair around her finger. “Didn’t mean to scare you.”

“I wasn’t scared.”

She practically sighed. “I’m Monica.”

“Good to meet you.”

The girls with her giggled. It had to be the fucking accent. Why couldn’t my father have chosen somewhere in the US? “You heading to Mark’s?”

I nodded. “Which one is it?”

She linked her arm through mine. “Come on. We’ll take you there.”

Hadley

The floor beneath my feet trembled with the bass from the band outside. Most were out there listening to the lead singer butcher pop-country songs, but Pete, Cass, Eric, and I were in the middle of a high stakes game of High-Low-Jack at Mark’s kitchen table.

“And then the ball flew out of the field,” Pete explained, his animated arm pointing to an invisible fence across the kitchen.

“He’s that good?” Eric asked as he threw down a card.

“Dude. The guy can crush a ball like nothing I’ve ever seen. Either he’s on some serious ’roids or he’s not human.”

We all laughed at Pete’s exaggeration.

“Speak of the devil,” Pete beamed as Caynan stepped into the kitchen with Monica latched to his arm.

Wow. They worked fast. Earlier in the week we’d seen him between two girls in the cafeteria. Monica clearly wasn’t deterred by his player ways.

Caynan scanned the kitchen before his eyes latched onto mine. His smile faltered, but he quickly recovered, stepping up to the table and eyeing the cards in our hands. “Hey.”

Pete congratulated him on a great game while I focused on my cards.

“Hey, Hadley,” Monica said.

I cringed at the sound of my name. My eyes lifted, just in time to catch Caynan’s eyes expanding. I’d made it through the entire week without Ms. Atwood calling on me. Instead of giving Caynan the chance to gloat over the revelation, I glanced to Monica. “Hey.”

“You guys heading outside?” Caynan asked.

“After this game,” Pete answered for us.

“If Cass and I don’t win all their money.” I threw down my king. “They always want a rematch when we win.”

Eric and Pete groaned, mumbling lame excuses for their poor card playing skills.

Monica tugged on Caynan’s arm. “Let’s go get a drink.”

I looked up briefly, catching Caynan’s eyes. Instead of showing excitement to get his buzz on with a willing female, he appeared unaffected—distracted even. But he nodded before following her outside into the crowd.

“Jealous, Hadley?” Cass teased.

My eyes shot across the table at her. “What?”

“
Puh-lease
. Every time you two are in the same room, I can feel the sexual tension.”

I cocked my head, drilling her with a fierce glare.

Pete looked to me, his freckled face scrunched up. “Sexual tension?”

I shook my head. “She’s delusional.”

“Am not.”

I wanted to wipe the smug grin right off her face. “We sit next to each other in English class. That’s all.”

“He bought her a coffee,” Cass announced like that would win her case.

“To thank me,” I explained.

“
Sure
.”

I scratched my nose with my middle finger and threw down my last card.

“Thank you for what?” Eric asked, completely interested in Cass’ theory. Of course he was. Most. Whipped. Boyfriend. Ever.

“Katie’s party. We kind of collided.”

“Was that when his shirt was on or off?” Cass asked, purposely trying to get a rise out of me.

I jumped to my feet with heat pulsing in my cheeks. “Anyone want a drink?” All three of them thrust their empty red cups my way. I grabbed them by the rims and stepped outside, maneuvering around the bodies filling the massive deck. Beyond it, on the back lawn, the band raged on a stage with flashing lights and huge speakers.

I burrowed my way to the keg in the corner of the deck. There was a line. No big surprise. I kept my eyes on the prize as I inched closer, wondering why I bothered coming to these parties in the first place. I mainly kept to myself, sitting with Cass and Eric the majority of the time.

Once it was my turn, I balanced the cups on top of the keg and rotated them until they were all filled. I picked them up by the rims and maneuvered back through the swaying crowd, spilling beer as I did.

Out of nowhere, the cups were pulled from my hands. My head flew to my right. Caynan strode toward the back door with the cups in his hands.

“I had them,” I huffed.

“Now I have them.” He grinned over his shoulder as he walked through the open door, setting the cups down on the table in front of each of my friends and handing me mine as I sat down.

“Did someone find a friend?” Cass asked, as irritating as ever. “You wanna play?” she asked Caynan, jumping up from her seat as she did. “You can be Hadley’s partner.”

My wide eyes bore into hers. Could she not take a hint? I wasn’t interested.

“I just need to use the bathroom first,” Caynan explained.

“Don’t you mean the
loo
?” That was my best attempt at being cultured—which really translated to me catching a few episodes of that show about an English family and their servants.

He shot me a wide grin. “Right. Where is it?”

Pete pointed down the hall. “Last door on the left. Or if the line’s too long, there’re a few upstairs. Mark won’t mind if you use one.”

Caynan nodded, before taking off down the hall.

My face shot to Cass. “Seriously?”

She pressed her hand innocently over her heart. “What?”

I shook my head. “I’m not interested.”

“Yeah. Okay. What girl wouldn’t be interested in that?” She nodded toward the hallway where he’d disappeared.

“Someone who knows it’s got heartbreak written all over it,” I countered.

“No one said you have to date him.” Cass sipped her beer. “Just go out with him and have a little fun. You’re entitled you know.”

Monica stumbled through the French doors in her three inch wedges. “Has anyone seen Caynan?”

I lifted my drink into the air. “I rest my case.”

Caynan

My eyes shot around, taking in the dark-wooded, paneled walls in the shadowy office. I’d already searched the closet and the spot on the wall behind his father’s framed jersey. I circled the mahogany desk. Framed pictures of Mark and his mom sat at the front and a blotter covered the center. My gloved hands tugged on the desk drawers. They were locked. Typical. But no one kept anything of any real value in a desk anyway.

I stood behind the leather swivel chair, looking at the room from a different angle. I leaned back against the wall, hearing a
click
as the wall unhitched behind me. I stepped away, turning to examine it. My hands moved over the wall until I located the raised portion. I dug my fingertips into the horizontal groove and pulled. A portion the size of a mini-fridge swung open.

Bingo
.

I pulled a tiny flashlight from my pocket and stuck it between my front teeth, shining the light on the safe’s dial. Unlike most young millionaires who went all high tech, demanding the most expensive electronic locks, Mark’s dad was more like the old-money millionaires, sticking with the old-school combination dials. Truthfully, if didn’t matter. I hadn’t met a safe I couldn’t open.

Try putting that on a college application.

Footsteps in the hallway tore my attention away from the safe and to the closed door. I switched off the flashlight, closed the wall panel, and ducked into the closet.

“Caynan? Are you up here,” Monica called from the hallway.

I waited, knowing even if she opened the office door, except for the intermittent glow of lights from the stage outside, the room was cloaked in darkness. Her heavy footsteps eventually moved away from the room and clomped noisily back down the stairs.

I didn’t have much time.

I slipped out of the closet and hurried back to the safe. With my ear to the metal door and my fingers gripping the dial, I twisted it back and forth, listening for the magical clicks and the scrape of gears unlatching, indicating success was near. Don’t get me wrong. Cracking a safe took time. But I had patience. And somehow, a calmness always came over me when the pressure was on.

Having some difficulty hearing with all the noise outside, I slipped my phone from my pocket and pushed my ear buds in. I tapped the mobile stethoscope app and held the phone to the door of the safe, twisting the dial with my free hand. The screen showed each click, while the earbuds carried the sound. I waited for a double click indicating the notch inside had slipped under the lever arm giving me the first number.