The Tenth Girl Read online

  “What is that guy’s problem?” I shrug, annoyed.

  “That guy is Cain Kent. Superstar quarterback. Most popular guy in school. All around jerk but hot as Hades. He is the guy that teenage girls have wet dreams over. If you’re trying to make waves as the new girl, you just got your wish.”

  My stomach drops out just a little, because that wasn’t my intention. I just wanted to submerse myself in English class, not become the apple of some douchebags beautiful green eyes.

  “Whatever, I’m not worried about Cain Kent. I’m here to do well and graduate.” We walk together out of class and down the hall.

  “Sounds like a plan to me. I think I like your style, Harper. When do you have lunch?” Her cheer uniform garners a lot of waves and hellos as we walk.

  I look at my schedule. “Um, fifth period.”

  “Me too. Come find me, I usually sit in the senior courtyard, out the big window doors in the cafeteria.”

  I have to look at her, because it’s hard to understand why she’s being so nice. So I ask her. “Why are you being so nice?”

  She shrugs, and I can sense her easy nature. “Because new people are interesting. Because I like the color of your hair or the fact that you just told off the biggest man on campus. Mostly, I’m just bored of all of these morons around here. So let’s be friends.”

  I take this into consideration, and decide that maybe I want a friend. I’ve never really been a “friends” type of girl; In Florida, I mostly just kept to myself, read, wrote and worked if I wasn’t at school. I didn’t really need a lot of interaction … I guess I was a self-sufficient introvert in that way.

  But something about Mary-Kate connects with me, and I nod. “Okay, I’ll come find you during lunch.”

  * * *

  I wander into the cafeteria for fifth period, staring up at the vaulted ceilings and then down the line of food options. It wasn’t a five-star restaurant, but it was a hell of a lot better than what I’d had at my high school in the Keys. There was a vegetarian station, a whole line for barbecued meats, and even a wok station with chicken lo mein that smelled half decent.

  And the students … you could damn near drown in how many people packed this massive space. Before, I’d gone to school where the average graduating class size was about three hundred, and maybe a third of those people actually showed up to school each day.

  At Haven, there were about seven hundred kids in each grade. And none of them missed … or so it seemed from the amount of bodies I had to plow through in the halls. No one went off campus for lunch either, I assumed, since benches and benches of lunch tables were packed with eating, gossiping, laughing high school students.

  I finally found the senior courtyard that Mary-Kate had told me about earlier, and pushed through the doors. My stomach rumbled as I did, and I realized that I’d been too nervous to eat breakfast, and had forgotten about the granola bar I’d zipped in the front part of my backpack.

  Oh yeah, I forgot to mention the backpack. Apparently, Jansport was a no-go at this school. Almost every girl in the place carried a large tote bag in either leather or a colorful print. I was like a fish swimming upstream, the uncool stream that is, with my navy blue backpack.

  Looking around, I take in the enclosed eating area. It’s essentially a brick patio wedged between the open square two of the wings of the building formed. There are a handful of students out here, and about ten or so picnic tables.

  “Harper!” Mary-Kate waves at me from a table farther away from the entrance back into the school.

  I walk toward her, and see two other girls, one in a cheerleading uniform and one in plainclothes, sitting with her.

  “Ladies, this is Harper,” she introduces me as I walk up, and I feel awkward taking a seat but do it anyway.

  “Hi, I’m Tisha.” The girl in the uniform gives me a once over.

  The one in plainclothes is a little nicer, sticking her hand out for me to shake. “Hey, I’m Imogen. I really like your earrings.”

  Touching my lobes and feeling my mother’s borrowed sapphire studs there, I smile. “Thanks. Nice to meet you both.”

  I take out my granola bar, too anxious to go in and try to figure out the lunch lines, and scarf it down. Mary-Kate starts talking, rambling on about this or that going on at school, what she’s wearing to the homecoming dance in two weeks and more of the typical high school gossip.

  “So, you’re the new girl?” A sharp voice comes from behind me.

  I turn, shielding my eyes from the sun beating down on the courtyard. A girl stands there, but really, she’s more like a woman. Curvy and tan, with hair out of a Pantene commercial and teeth so brilliantly white they’d definitely pass the tissue test, she looks like she belongs on a pageant stage.

  “Um …” There are two girls flanking her, all three of them in cheerleading uniforms, and they’re definitely looking at me like I’m a threat.

  Mary-Kate steps in. “Annabelle, hey!”

  I’ve only known her for a couple of hours, but I can tell that my new friend’s voice is way too high. This girl intimidates her, which I didn’t think was really possible.

  “MK.” She nods at her, almost like she’s putting her in her place. “I don’t believe your new friend has been introduced to me.”

  As if she can’t just speak for herself? Who is this girl, Beyoncé?

  “Harper, this is Annabelle Mills, captain of the cheer squad.” There is something Mary-Kate isn’t saying, but it’s implied.

  This girl is the head honcho. The queen bee. The girl all other girls at this school both emulate and fear. There is one in every town, and it looks like I just stepped on her nest, and she’s pissed.

  “That’s right.” Annabelle bends down, looking at me like a child who needs to be dealt with. “And I’ve been hearing an awful lot about you in the short time you’ve been at my school. My school, got that? I say who is and isn’t in. I fill these halls with what everyone should be talking about, and with your little stunt this morning, you’re now the talk of the town. I don’t like that. You don’t want me not to like that, Harper, I promise.”

  My hackles were rising, and while I wanted to tell her to fuck off, I also didn’t want to draw any more attention to myself. I could care less about this high school and it’s cliques. The more anonymous I could stay, the better. So, I simply nodded. “Got it.”

  She straightened, smiling a smile that could curdle milk. “Good.”

  Annabelle snapped her fingers, turned on her heels, and the two girls with her raced to the double doors to let her back in the building. I kid you not, they opened the doors for her like she was unable to touch a door handle.

  Just before she was about to stride back into the school, she turned. “Oh, and Harper?”

  I was still staring at her, hadn’t stopped since she came out here to challenge me. “Yes?”

  “Don’t even think about going near Cain. He is mine.”

  Chapter Six

  Cain

  The locker room smells like sweat and dirty football equipment, but to me, it is the scent of my life.

  It is the aroma of victory, of my future, of a Friday night well spent.

  Of course, today is only practice. We have a game in five days, and Monday practices after school were typically the easiest. Drills, working out plays that had failed in last week’s game, sometimes film.

  But we were deeper into the season, and this game meant more this week. So I knew we were in for some hell.

  That was fine, I worked best under insults and doubts.

  As usual, my teammates are gossiping, calling each other pussies, and boasting about which girl they were going to bang this weekend.

  “So, Kent, got girl number ten lined up?” Josiah, the second string running back, asks.

  My mind flashes back to innocent blue eyes, and a biting, harsh mouth. The way she challenged me, whatever her name was … it has me interested. Girls in Haven … hell, girls I’d encountered anywhere, d
idn’t challenge me. They fell at my feet, or on their knees to get dick-level. They swooned, acted interested in my football stats while toying with my arm muscles, tried to take their shirts off during games of beer pong.

  But school me on class manners and English lit? No, they most certainly didn’t do that.

  “There are a few possibilities in my line of sight.” I smirk a cocky grin.

  I could win easily, bag any football groupie or dumb freshman at a bonfire as soon as this weekend. But for the same twisted, sick reason that I was playing this game, I wanted the final score to be … meaningful.

  Not in a, fall in love type of way. Fuck that shit. No, I want the tenth girl to be a conquest. I wanted to slay a dragon, hook a big fish.

  “I bet Kent can’t get that tenth girl to sleep with him before Christmas break.” Grady, our defensive end, one of my best friends and another contestant in the race to ten girls, throws his pads over his head and begins to strap them on.

  “We’re already in the middle of a bet. No side bets. Plus, you really want me to beat your ass that quickly?” I lace up a cleat and grab my helmet from a bench.

  Grady smirks, his blond hair running long down his bulked up neck. “You’re just threatened that I might beat you.”

  I snicker. “Yeah, right. What number girl are you on, six? And with your jacked up dick, there is no way you’ll convince four more girls to sleep with you by June.”

  “You never know, crazier things have happened.” Will, a cornerback and another guy in on the competition, gives his input.

  Will is in last place with three girls, and I know he has no intention of winning. He fell for the third girl he slept with and they’ve been together since. Even though we technically still count him as one of the six, we know he’d never cheat on Lynn to win a bet.

  “Yeah, crazy things like you falling in love. Pussy.” Emmit, another player in on the competition, walks by in full gear.

  Emmit, Grady, Will, Paul and Joshua, and I were competing for bragging rights and the key to The Atrium as well.

  Ah, the key to The Atrium. Complete solitude in one of the creepiest, and coolest places in Haven. The ability to own it, to throw a party whenever you felt like it.

  Not like I didn’t already have an entire house at my disposal. That’s what you got for being an army brat.

  My mind wanders back to the girl in question, the one I was considering for number ten.

  I still hadn’t gotten her name, but fuck if her face while she’d been yelling at me wasn’t burned into my memory. All that light hair, that freckled skin. Pure innocence, waiting to be ruined.

  Was I sick? Probably. Was I an asshole? Definitely. The therapist my dad had taken me to in elementary school had warned us both that my mother abandoning us could cause commitment phobia and anger issues when it came to women, both in a relationship and authority sense. Guess that guy with the million degrees was right, although I don’t think you need a masters to determine that.

  My mother had up and took off when I was six, not that I remember much of it. Or her.

  Whatever, my anger and ego is just who I am. And girlfriends aren’t something I am interested in anyway. Sex, that’s what I am after.

  And hopefully, Little Miss Virgin will comply.

  As if Grady can read my mind, he speaks up. “Cain isn’t going to win. Not when random new girls are calling him out in class. What’s with that chick, man?”

  My gut roils in annoyance. She tried to embarrass me. Me. “Man, fuck that girl. If she thinks she’s going to gain her five minutes of fame here by challenging me, she’s got another thing coming.”

  “I heard she’s pretty hot.” Emmitt laces up his black uniform pants, the twinkle in his weirdly purple eyes mischievous.

  “Yeah, like some kind of sexy fairy or some shit. I saw her sitting in the senior courtyard at lunch with MK, she’s got a big rack for her body.”

  “We talking C’s or D’s?” Emmitt asks.

  Josiah taps a finger to his chin. “I’d say C’s, but they look fucking huge because she’s pretty small.”

  “All the better to pick a girl up. Maybe I’ll add her to my competition list.” Grady winks at me.

  Something in me rolls, a wave of raw instinct telling me to say, “No one adds her to their list. That one is mine to bang if I even want her.”

  Will gives me a strange look. “Sounds like you want her, man.”

  We have an all-pads practice today, and our conversation ceases when one of the assistant coaches yells at us to get our pansy asses out on the field.

  I walk out of the locker room, the gold and black colors of our school painted over every inch. Football in Texas is an industry, and in Haven, it’s no different. Our facilities are state of the art, and after winning State last year, we got some big donor money from some of the richer families in town, and in the county. Our sport was a religion in this neck of the woods, and people worship accordingly.

  It was a blessing and a curse, being held in that high of a regard. Most of the time, I felt like a damn god or something. But the pressure, it could fuck with your head. Especially as the one player that always got blamed if we lost. I constantly felt like I was on a hamster wheel; I had to keep moving in order to power the world.

  Luckily, though, football was a genetic part of me. My father often said I came out of the womb trying to read a playbook. As a kid, he said that instead of playing video games or playing hide and seek, I was drawing up routes and using my stuffed animals to execute them.

  I love football like I love breathing. It is a part of me, and since I can remember, I’d thought like a quarterback.

  “All right, men. We’re running offensive plays today. I want every pass play in the book fucking memorized. We’re six and oh, and if you think I’m going to lose my hundredth game, you’re fucking wrong!”

  Our head coach, David Nichols, is yelling already and it’s only Monday. We have a game on Friday against one of the better teams in the conference, and none of us want to lose, obviously. But especially not Coach Nichols. It will be his hundredth win as head coach at Haven, and while he’s a damn stickler, he’s also a damn good coach. I’m lucky that I don’t have one of those abusive assholes I’ve heard about. He works us hard, but he also praises and teaches.

  The sun beats down on the turf, and the light from the bleachers almost blinds me. My muscles rev like an idling engine, and the red pinny I have on over my black uniform says I’m off limits. My right arm, my throwing arm, flexes and tenses, so ready to get out there.

  In no time, my offensive unit is on the field, all of the guys looking to me for direction. The play maker, the brains of the operation, that’s what I am. I relish it, being the head honcho, and my mind is a steel trap when it comes to memorizing plays. After huddling and explaining the play in as little terms possible, because we have to think of this as a game scenario and the clock running down, we clap our hands and get in formation.

  Sweat trickles down my forehead under my helmet, and even though I know I won’t get hit, I prepare as if I might. One of my Pop Warner coaches once told me that the best players have talent, yes, but the work they put in is more important. That if you treat every second of every practice exactly like it’s the most important game of your life, then there will be no way that any player will ever be better than you.

  And that’s what I try to do every single time I step out onto this field.

  The line bends down, the ball is placed in my center’s hands, and “Haven Black seventy, Haven Black seventy, hut, hut!”

  Things start to shift, the defensive line begins to blitz, and I shrug out of the way, sidestepping like I’m a champion ballroom dancer. Light on his feet, that’s what all the papers say about me.

  I read the defense and assess my receivers running down the field. Split-second decisions and an arm like a goddamn NASA rocket, that’s my job.

  Emmitt is sprinting down the field, his wide receiver body tall and
lean as he cuts his route and escapes coverage.

  Something in my head clicks, I’ve come to think of it as the “go signal.” I can’t describe it, have never told anyone about it, but there is this … maybe a chime that goes off in my brain at the exact moment that I should throw the ball. Each time it happens, I let it fly, and I know it will land perfectly in a pair of my teammates hands, ensuring a touchdown.

  And so, I let it fly, putting the perfect spiral on the ball aimed directly for Emmitt.

  I don’t have to watch it arc, or here the applause and whoops from my coaches and teammates, to know that it landed exactly where I wanted it to. Does that make me cocky? Yes.

  But when you have talent and hard work, no player on the field is going to be better than you.

  Chapter Seven

  Harper

  Working in a bait and tackle shop while I lived in Florida had happened by accident.

  I don’t particularly like fishing, I’d rather sit on a boat and read a good book than stare at a pole in the water. But when I’d been looked for a job my sophomore year of high school, the guy Mom had been dating at the time liked to catch trout, and was friendly with the owner of the store he bought supplies at.

  Turns out, my relationship with the Warrens, the owners of Keys Bait and Tackle, lasted far longer than that moron’s date-span with Mom. But hey, I was thankful for the job.

  It had been an easy, relatively safe job working behind the counter and assisting in finding specific products.

  When we arrived in Texas, I knew that both Mom and I would have to find jobs. While we weren’t paying rent at my grandmother’s, or so I thought, I knew we had little to no money. Mom needed to find a teaching job, or somewhere that would hire her quickly, to begin saving. I didn’t know what her end game was, if she planned to stay here or move on after I graduated.