Chapter 1

Chapter One

Moore

Two years later

I walk past Allie in the hallway and slam my fist against the locker to her left, making her jump. I hate the way it makes me feel. Shame and frustration and resentment have been like acid inside of me, eroding my bones every second of the last two years. Ever since that night in the field when she tricked me into thinking she felt the same. Maybe she did. Until her father reminded her that I’m nothing but a poor handyman.

Yeah, she remembered pretty quickly that she’s better than me.

Better than everyone, the rich, stuck-up brat.

What’s worse is that she fucking ruined me in those dreamlike moments in the field behind her house. She brought me to my knees. Made me reveal myself in ways I never imagined doing for anyone. And now? Now she’s left me lonely and sick to my stomach and fuck-starved for two years. Obsessed with her, unable to let her go and loathing her for it. Because she won’t even look at me anymore. I’m nothing but the dirt beneath her pink Mary Janes.

Two years ago, I decided that if she was going to make my life hell by ignoring me after what we shared, then I could return the favor. So I do. I demand she acknowledge me by bullying her. That’s the only term for it. I’m her bully and I hate that—I fucking hate it—but so be it. It’s true what they say about misery loving company. Because I’m miserable without her and she’s coming with me.

My jaw is thisclose to shattering as I watch Allie calmly collect the books from her locker and hurry toward our next class. On top of being a bully, I’m also a glutton for punishment, because I still maneuver us into having the same six classes every year. My aunt works in the front office and she feels bad for me, on account of my parents abandoning me when I was still in middle school, leaving me in the trailer alone. Not bad enough to invite me to live with her family, but bad enough that she slips me Allie’s schedule every semester so I can match it to mine.

Before I follow her, I stop at her locker, sliding something in between the slatted opening, and continue on my way. When I walk into class behind her a moment later, I slow to a stop in the doorway at the sight of one of the basketball players kneeling down to speak with Allie where she sits at her desk. Coaxing a smile out of her. I don’t know the kid well, but he lives on the rich side of town. Close to Allie, although no one has as much money as her father. If this kid is asking her out, she’d probably say yes.

If I let it get that far, which I won’t.

I never do.

She’s mine.

Even if she never looks at me or speaks to me again, she’s mine.

Even if I’ve been a horrible asshole to her for two years and she pales every time I pull into the parking lot on my motorcycle, she is mine.

Feeling choked, I stride down the aisle toward my usual seat, directly behind Allie, and slam my textbook down onto the desk, shooting Allie’s shoulders up to her perfect, little ears. Startled, the basketball player looks up at me, backing away so quickly, he knocks into a desk across the aisle. “H-hey, Moore. What’s up?”

He’s not the first to try and make a move on Allie.

He knew this was coming, it’s there in his darting eyes. Yet he tried anyway.

Because she’s worth the risk of an ass kicking. She’s worth a lifetime of them.

“Do you have a class this period?” I ask him.

The guy nods, adjusting the straps of his backpack. “Yeah…”

My smile is murderous. “Well get the fuck to it, then.”

He almost trips over himself to get out of the classroom and I resume my daily routine. Staring at the back of Allie’s head, tracing the curve of her shoulders, my cock getting hard over her expensive lavender scent. “So that’s what you like.” I say, leaning forward to speak an inch from the back of her neck. “You like them with spiffy crew cuts and letterman jackets. Prospects for college. A trust fund. Don’t you? A spoiled rich girl like you needs someone who can keep her in the lap of luxury. I bet you’d introduce him to daddy, wouldn’t you?”

She doesn’t respond. She never does.

Her eyes stay resolutely on the front of the class where the teacher has started writing today’s lesson outline on the board. My fingers dig into my palms, a trapped bellow creating pressure on the inside of my throat.

Talk to me.

Look at me.

“Too bad, Allie. I’ll scare every single one of those limp dicks off. You’re going to sit alone in your house on prom night crying into your designer sheets like a baby. And I’m going to laugh.”

The only sign that she hears me at all is the quickening rise and fall of her shoulders. Even that small display that I’ve upset her is agonizing, floods me with self-loathing, but I can never stop. She ripped out my fucking heart and I can’t deal with the consequences of that alone. I can’t let her go. I’ll never let her go.

My hands shake with the need to settle on her shoulders, to stop the trembling I caused. From there, I’d slide my fingers up into the soft, brown hair that reaches the middle of her graceful neck. I don’t have a lot of money, most of the cash I earn as a handyman goes to food and renting my plot of land, but I’d give every last cent for her to turn and lock those aquamarine eyes on me, just one last time. Sometimes when I jerk off, all it takes is fantasizing about Allie looking at me, giving me her attention again, and I lose it. One stroke. Maybe two. Done.

What the hell am I going to do when she’s in college next year?

Even my aunt, the school guidance counselor, doesn’t know where Allie plans to attend. The uncertainty has me shaken. I need to know where she’ll be so I can start looking for work in the same town. If she thinks college is going to keep me away, she’s wrong. I won’t have the benefit of sitting behind her in class, but I’ll find ways in nonetheless. I have to. I can’t breathe without having her close. And I can’t breathe with her close. It’s a strange condition, this obsession, but she’s an addiction I’m never giving up.

“Do you actually think that dumb jock would be a good choice for your first time, Allie?” I grip my desk so tight it nearly snaps, just thinking about her being touched by someone else. “At least that’s one thing us poor motherfuckers have going for us. We know how to fuck. If you went out with that punk for a while, you’d eventually give in and come slumming it one night, wouldn’t you? Knock on my trailer door, begging me to ride you right.”

Pink is starting to climb her neck.

I have to bite down on my tongue to keep from licking the rise of color.

But I think if I actually got to touch her skin, my wall of bullshit would crumble. I don’t know how to fuck. In theory I do, but not in practice. Since seeing Allie for the first time freshman year, there’s been no one but her. No one before that, either, or I was too young to be sexually active. She gave me my first hard-on when we were fourteen and she showed up to gym class in a white T-shirt and no bra, her tits jiggling around during volleyball—and my dick has never gotten stiff for anyone else. She owns my cock as sure as she owns my heart.

How easily she’s neglected both to the point of agony.

“Left you a little something in your locker—”

“Stop,” she breathes.

Every organ in my body seizes. Did she just speak to me? It’s the first time in two years that she’s even remotely acknowledged my existence, and if I wasn’t sitting down, I would probably be on my knees, the effect of having her address me is so powerful. “Allie,” I choke out. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.

That’s all it took.

One pleading word out of her mouth and I’m cracking.

“Just stop,” she says again, turning her head slightly. “Please.”

I collapse back in my chair, pulse thundering in my throat. My head is enflamed, heart mutilated. If we weren’t in the middle of class, if I didn’t feel like a monster, I would pull her into my arms right now. I’d hold her until she stopped struggling, then beg her to hit me, bruise me, make me pay for every shitty thing I’ve ever said to her. But before long, the bell is ringing and she’s diving out of her seat to get away from me. To put distance between us as quickly as possible—and I have no choice but to watch her, because my legs don’t seem to want to work properly.

Still, I manage to get out into the student-packed hallway, my plan to apologize for being crude and ugly and antagonizing for so long. My head, however, is telling me not to say sorry. It’s telling me she deserved it for being such a stuck-up snob, for blowing me off, for valuing money and status like everyone else. But my heart is telling an entirely different story. It’s insisting there is an explanation for her behavior. Am I going to apologize or not?

The decision is taken out of my hands when Allie opens her locker and the photograph I left before class drifts to the ground. It’s a picture I cut out from the senior yearbooks that were handed out earlier this week. In the photo is a smiling Allie above the caption Most Likely to Succeed. Except I’ve crossed out the caption and added my own. Most Likely to Be a Trophy Wife.

Watching her read it, I almost get sick right there in the hallway.

Usually, she’s perfectly composed, not betraying a hint of emotion where I’m concerned. Today, though…she’s not pulling it off. Something is not okay with her and I don’t like it. She has to bite down on her bottom lip to stop it from quivering as she shoves the photo back into her locker, out of sight, her luminous eyes finding me briefly, slaying me where I stand. Betraying with one single look how much she has been affected by my actions. Christ. She hasn’t been indifferent at all.

Before I can react, before I can call her name, she’s gone, vanished into the crowd of rowdy students excited to be leaving for the day. And I know what I have to do. I have to see her. To apologize. To get an explanation for everything.

Tonight. I’ll return to the field for the first time in two years.