HIDDEN CREEK LOVE: a hidden creek high novel, page 21
I opened my eyes, turned and tried to walk but fell forward.
When my hands hit the sand, I looked up, waiting for Wes to appear.
Only he didn’t appear.
He was gone.
Just like I had secretly wanted.
* * *
“You want to talk about anything?” Julia asked me.
“Nothing,” I said.
“How long are you going to stand out here?”
“Until the sun comes up.”
“Are you going to give me smart ass answers?”
“Probably,” I said.
“Great. Just what I need. When was the last time you talked to your parents?”
“Why?” I asked.
“Just curious. I’m thinking of how to handle this one.”
“Do whatever you want, Julia.”
“I’m going to go back inside. You need to get some sleep soon. I’ll leave you alone now. But I can’t for long.”
“Thanks.”
Julia went back inside the house and I took a deep breath.
I waited until Julia was asleep and then I took her keys to go find Wes.
There were a handful of places he could be.
His mother’s.
The shop.
Jett’s.
Cherry’s.
I drove by the shop and saw all the lights were off. That was the last place I wanted to go, though, just in case his father was there.
My stomach tossed and turned as I drove to Cherry’s.
Everything had gotten the best of me and him. That was the one thing that wasn’t supposed to happen. Wes and I were supposed to stand strong. But how could we when he hid things from me?
A brother?
A little brother?
That meant I moved away and Carolyn got pregnant?
And from there… what happened? Because it was obvious Wes no longer had a brother. And it was obvious that his father had left. Even if he was back now. Was that why Wes seemed so bothered by his father now? Afraid that his father would spill some kind of secret to me.
It made my head hurt to think about.
All I wanted was the taste of Wes’s lips to mine.
I parked at the far end of Cherry’s and snuck up to the house, just so I didn’t wake her in case she was sleeping. When I spotted Wes’s SUV, I let out a sigh of relief.
My favorite part about Cherry’s house was how tucked away it was.
Her long walkway had little turns in it. I remembered jumping the rocks in my sundress, pretending I was a princess trying to escape a deadly dragon. Back then, Wes was the deadly dragon.
But now…
“She knows about Azel, Noe,” a voice said.
I froze in place.
I smelled the smoke of one of Wes’s cigarettes.
At first I couldn’t see them.
I looked at the porch and nobody was there.
“Why didn’t you tell her?” Noelle’s voice asked.
I looked up and realized they were sitting on the roof.
On the side of the house.
I slowly backed up and moved to the right to hide behind some of the tall shrubs so they didn’t see me.
“I just didn’t know how,” Wes said. “And I try not to think about it. Aira is from a different part of my life. Maybe I was just trying to keep her away from there.”
“I thought you loved her.”
“Of course I love her. She just… what just happened…”
Wes flicked the cigarette off the roof.
My eyes followed it down to the gravel. The cigarette sat there, smoke lifting into the air.
When I looked back up I watched as Noelle took his hand.
She squeezed it tight and brought it to her lips.
“You know I know everything about you, Wes. And I love you for it. I accept you for it.”
My heart slammed inside my chest as the anger and jealousy kicked up.
Wes climbed to his feet and shook Noelle away. “You know what this is, Noe.”
“You told me when you were done at Hidden Creek High we would finally have our chance. Right?”
“I know what I told you,” Wes said.
“And if you and Aira aren’t together, why does it matter?”
“I didn’t come here for that.”
“Not anymore, right? I’m not needed by you.”
“Don’t say that, Noe,” Wes said. “You have no idea what happened today.”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” she said. “Were hearts broken? Get used to it. That’s all I know. You didn’t tell Aira about your brother for good reason.”
Wes rubbed his jaw. “Yeah. Good reason. And now I lost her.”
Wes thought he lost me.
I slowly swallowed the dagger size lump in the back of my throat.
I covered my mouth and slowly started to walk back, needing to get out of there.
“I should have known it was coming,” Wes said. “She hid stuff from me. I hid stuff from her. I think I just wanted her to get through whatever she was going through because of the fire at her house. And now everything is a mess here.”
“Come inside with me, Wes,” Noelle said. “You need to forget about it. Forget about her. At least for right now. You belong here. This is your home. You never left. Remember that.”
Just like that, Wes disappeared.
I could no longer hear their voices.
I could only assume they were in Noelle’s bedroom.
My heart begged me to trust him. To know that he wasn’t going to jump into bed with her because he and I had a fight. But he said he lost me.
I was shaking as I reached for my phone.
I wanted to text him and see what he had to say.
If he lied, we were done for good.
It was as simple as that for me.
And if we were done for good, then everything in Hidden Creek High would change yet again.
This time I’d be ready for it.
hey … we need to talk … where
My screen went black.
It took me a second to realize my phone was fine.
Something was covering my phone.
A hand.
That’s when I felt someone behind me.
I gasped.
“Hello?” I asked.
I heard someone exhale a breath.
That’s when I let out a scream.
* * *
I stood in the middle of the stones and tried to figure out what just happened.
Someone was there.
Right?
Someone had touched my phone.
Someone had been behind me.
Someone…
“Aira?”
I yelled again and turned, holding my hand out with my phone in it as though it were a weapon.
“What are you doing here?” Wes asked as he walked down the porch steps from Cherry’s house.
Standing in the doorway was Noelle.
“Wes,” I said. “I saw someone. They were behind me. I swear…”
“What are you doing here?” Wes asked again.
“I came to find you. I was trying to text you. Look…”
“You were standing here?”
“I was over there,” I said and pointed to the shrubs.
Wes stopped walking. He looked from the shrubs to the house. Up to the roof.
“You were spying on me,” he said.
“No. I came to talk to you.”
“Then why were you hiding?”
“Wes… I heard you talking. Okay? I didn't mean it like that. I wasn’t…”
My chin quivered.
“Go home, Aira,” Wes said. “We’re done here.”
“Done?”
“You heard me.”
I opened my mouth to tell him that someone had tried to attack me. But then I suddenly second guessed myself.
Who would be here at Cherry’s? Who would have seen me standing there?
I thought about the beach. When the panic hit me and I smelled the smoke from the fire at my old house. Meaning… I imagined it?
“Wes, please,” I said. “We need to talk about everything.”
“No, we don’t,” Wes said. “Right now, I have nothing to say.”
He slowly put a cigarette to his lips and lit it.
He stood there defiantly, stubborn, everything about him that made me love him… it was now making me want to hate him.
“You lied to me,” I said. “You said you wouldn’t hurt me…”
“I guess I won’t be able to hurt you anymore now,” he said. “Go home. Call Kailey for a ride. I’ll stand here and wait.”
It was awkward as I turned and sent Kailey a text.
She showed up a few minutes later.
Those few minutes were nothing but silence as Wes just stood there and smoked his cigarette.
He dropped the cigarette and stepped on it. “Aira.”
I looked back at him, tears in my eyes. “What?”
“I’m sorry for everything. It wasn’t supposed to be like this.”
He turned and walked back to Cherry’s house. Walked back to Noelle.
I climbed into Kailey’s car and hurried to turn off the blaring music she had playing.
“What happened?” she asked.
“Wes and I are over,” I said.
The reality sank into me.
Wes and I were over… and someone was after me.
Want more #hch?
Book 3 is titled HIDDEN CREEK DARKNESS and it’s AVAILABLE … just go to Amazon.com and type in ‘Jaxson Kidman Hidden Creek Darkness’ to order your copy today!
But… here’s a little preview of the book before you order!
* * *
HIDDEN CREEK DARKNESS
Chapter 1
Aira
“Since when do you smoke?” Kailey asked me as I leaned back against the top of the bleachers and took a drag of a nasty tasting cigarette.
It was a fresh habit, something that kept my mind from going too crazy with all the crazy stuff going on. What Kailey and Charlotte and Emma didn’t know was that the nightmares were back. They were worse than ever too. Raging pictures and images that overtook my mind while I tried to sleep. Except these nightmares were a little different…
“Maybe I’ve been smoking my entire life and just hid it from you,” I said.
“Really?” Kailey asked.
“No,” I said. “Stop believing everything you hear.”
I put my elbows behind me on the bleachers and looked around.
The sky was clear blue, the air nice and warm. The smell of the ocean lingering around, battling with the smell of my smoke.
Charlotte was hunched forward, staring down at her phone. Scrolling, her thumbs smashing at the screen, back to scrolling.
“You okay over there?” I asked.
Charlotte’s head popped up and her eyes widened. “Uh, yeah.”
I wiggled forward and jumped down a seat to sit next to her. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.”
“You know, you can still talk about Flynn. It’s really not that big of a deal.”
“Maybe it kind of is, though,” Emma said.
“How so?” I asked.
I looked back at Emma and our eyes battled for control.
Strange enough that’s what everything had suddenly become.
About control.
To be fair, Emma was the one who symbolically gave me her baseball bat. After she thought I spread the wild rumor about Mika and all. Which I didn’t. Which I had a different plan for. But life in Hidden did whatever the fuck it wanted. And if you weren’t ready for a fight, you’d get run over.
Which I wasn’t going to allow to happen.
Hence the nightmares again.
Hence the smoking habit I was still getting used to.
Hence the fact that a certain bad boy wasn’t there with me to make me feel safe.
Emma tightened her lips the way she tightened her legs shut around Ryker and looked the other way.
I rolled my eyes.
That was the reason why Ryker ended up between Kailey’s legs.
And then of course there was Charlotte… in this something like a relationship with Flynn.
“What did he do now?” I asked Charlotte.
“He’s just distant. I think… I don’t know, it’s weird.”
“What’s weird?” I asked.
“Aira, are you going to talk about the most obvious thing right now or what?” Kailey asked.
“Which is what?” I asked.
“You and Wes,” Kailey said.
I swallowed hard. I slowly stood up.
There was sudden urge to fight Kailey. I felt like the town and the school had gotten to me. Finally sinking its teeth into my skin, making me one of its own.
“What is there to talk about?” I asked. “Have you seen Wes around? I haven’t.”
“He’s at the shop right now,” Charlotte said.
“Good for him,” I said.
“That’s what makes this weird. Because Flynn wants to be there for his friend. I want to be there for my friend. And we’re just stuck in the middle of it all.”
“Because of me,” I said. “It’s my fault.”
“I didn’t say that,” Charlotte said.
“Nobody is saying anything is your fault,” Kailey said. “We can be here for you. Talk to you. I would love to hate on Wes. To know what he did.”
“I can get another baseball bat,” Emma said. “We can really make him pay.”
“That’s what it is, right? It’s always revenge. Mika tells everyone I cut myself so the rumor about her secret abortion is leaked. Right? Someone comes near me and Wes beats the hell out of them. Emma won’t fuck Ryker so Kailey does. And then poor Charlotte here, she can’t finish up her complicated relationship because it’s weird because of me and Wes. Just a big circle of… what?”
Emma stood up. “You’re feeling it, obviously. I’m sorry for that. But nobody did it to you. If anything, I remember all of us trying to warn you about Wes. But you insisted things were great. Because you knew him when you were a kid. Yet you knew nothing of those years in between.”
“Did you all know about his brother? About Azel?” I asked.
The three of them looked at each other. Then at me.
“Of course we know about Azel,” Kailey whispered. “That’s just something you don’t talk about around here.”
“Another big secret,” I said. “Great. So Wes had a brother. What happened?”
“Aira…,” Charlotte reached for my hand.
I pulled away.
I hurried to stick the cigarette into my mouth for a drag.
It still tasted bad but it helped to calm me.
“Flynn is at the shop with Wes right now,” Charlotte said. “He wants me to drop by. But I told him I can’t do that to you, Aira. I’m on your side. Even if I don’t understand what’s happening.”
I climbed down another row of the bleachers and stared at the three of them.
“It’s the secrets,” I said. “Always the secrets. We promised each other no more secrets and we both screwed it up. Then I went to find him and he was with Noelle. He was at Cherry’s house with her. On the roof. Then in her bedroom. And then…”
I shook my head. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to bring up that I thought someone had been behind me. Even if the image of it was still clear in my head. The way my phone went black - a hand covering the screen. The way I heard someone breathing.
Yet when I screamed and turned and looked there was nobody there.
“Aira, you know Wes and Noelle by now,” Emma said.
“No, I don’t,” I said. “Look at the years I missed, right? You just talked about it. All those years…”
“What did you think happened?” Kailey asked. “Then and now? They’re secretly fucking each other?”
I swallowed hard. My heart raced a little.
“You don’t have to say it like that, Kailey,” Emma said. “Jeez. Even for me that’s tough to hear.”
“Yeah, well for how wild Wes is, he wouldn’t do that to Aira,” Kailey said. “Sorry for saying it like that.”
“I don’t really care,” I lied. “I hope they have each other and fuck each other and everything else.”
“You don’t mean that for a second,” Charlotte said.
“Yes, I do,” I said.
I took one more drag of my cigarette and flicked it away. I had that down pretty sweet.
I turned and walked down the bleachers, my bag thrown over my shoulder.
“Where are you going?” Kailey called out.
“Have to talk to someone,” I called out.
It was my normal meeting with Miss Carson. To talk about my feelings. To talk about everything that had happened in my life. I thought I was done with her, but if I didn’t keep talking to her then I wouldn’t be allowed back into HCH. Which wasn’t the worst thing in the world. However, if I didn’t go to HCH then I’d have to go back to my other school. That meant living with Mom in her fake apartment. And dealing with all those fake people.
When I got to the bottom of the bleachers, I jumped off.
My feet hit the ground just as a football landed next to me.
I looked down at the ball and then forward to see Ryder running toward me. He was shirtless, his tan skin laced with sweat. When he noticed me, he slowed a little. His face still showed a little of what Wes had done to him.
Amazing to see the cocky jock flexing his jaw, pointing to the football next to me.
“How about a little help?” he asked.
“With what?” I asked.
“Toss me the ball, babe,” Ryder said.
Babe?
I looked down at the ball again and grinned.
I bent my knees and put my hand to the ball. I lowered my left shoulder and swung my bag around to the ground. I unzipped the front pouch and took out a small but capable knife. When I stood up, I had the ball in one hand and the knife in the other. As I jammed the knife into the football, Ryder’s eyes grew large.
“You’re a crazy bitch,” he said.
I crouched down and hid the knife in my bag.
I slipped my arm through the strap and stood up again.
The football was mostly flat by then.
I flicked my wrist and the football was more like a leather frisbee.
