with him. As if I don’t have my own shit to deal with – being friends with perfectionist assholes like Noah Marlowe is hard fucking work.
I listen to Noah with half an ear as I toss my books into my locker. Around us, students yell and laugh as they catch up after summer break. I hear snatches of conversation about film sets and meditation retreats in Tulum and beaches in Majorca. Stonehurst is that kind of school.
A hand claps on my shoulder. “Did you see Melinda Perez’s new nose?” A familiar British voice coos in my ear. “More’s the pity, her glorious arse is smaller now.”
“Gabe?” I whirl around. Standing before me, a leather jacket slung casually over his shoulder and the faint smell of weed clinging to his clothes, is Gabriel Fallen in all his glory. He looks like he just stepped off his tour bus, complete with his rumpled hair, eyes rimmed in dark shadows, and cheeky grin. “What are you doing here?”
“Causing all ladies’ underthings within a mile radius to simultaneously combust.” Gabriel breaks my gaze to flash his smile at two junior girls who are staring at him from across the hall. They break into giggles, because Gabriel Fallen has that effect on people. “I’m taking time off from the band to finish senior year.”
“What happened to ‘diplomas are for wankers who don’t have groupies’?” I quote Gabriel’s final words when he left at the beginning of summer for his European tour. My mockery of his British accent gets the hint of a smile from Noah.
“Please. I don’t sound as posh as all that. All your lectures on ‘rock music won’t provide for your future’ rubbed off on me, Hart.” Gabriel shrugs, and there’s a whole world inside that shrug. I know what happened. He might not have answered my texts, but he knows I know what happened. Everyone at Stonehurst has followed the headlines – DRUMMER OF OCTAVIA’S RUIN OVERDOSES IN HOTEL BATHROOM. As much as he’s trying to pretend he’s fine, the very fact Gabriel’s back at Stonehurst and not holed up in a studio in Switzerland recording a chart-topping album of grief music suggests otherwise.
Yet another problem that will fall on my shoulders this year. I almost have it in me to smooth over Noah’s intensity, but add in Gabe’s unpredictability, and I will not get a moment of peace. But still… senior year would not have been the same without Gabriel. I wrap my arms around him, patting his back, relieved that he’s here and at least… somewhat sober.
“Oof, since when did you become the Incredible Hulk?” In true British tradition, Gabriel finds physical expressions of joy disconcerting. He gazes around the corridor as if looking for a line to join to restore his equilibrium, then grabs my books from my hands. He frowns at the cover of my AP Calculus textbook. “Just reading these titles gives me a splitting headache.”
I grab my books from Gabe’s hands. “You’d better be back here to focus on schoolwork, not party and drink yourself into a stupor like last year, because Noah and I refuse to tutor you.”
That evil grin again. “I passed my SATs, didn’t I?”
“You passed because you slept with the test assessor.”
“I can’t help it if my natural wit and charm had the poor woman so overcome that she—” Gabriel cut off, his eyes focusing on something behind me.
No, not something.
Someone.
The only thing that can cause Gabriel to lose focus like that is a chick. One with legs up to her eyeballs and, in his words, a shaggable arse.
If I’m honest, I could do with a shaggable arse in my own life. I wish I could be like Noah and Gabriel, who’ve both fucked their way through the student body at Stonehurst twice over. Nothing serious. Nothing complicated.
I’m not that guy, but sometimes I like to pretend I could be.
I turn around in time to see a blonde bombshell stride with purpose from the school office. Students leap out of the way as she stomps toward us in a pair of black spike-heeled non-regulation boots. Her lips are a bow of crimson. Her face stirs something inside me – a memory. A familiar sense of longing, of loss. What draws me to her is the complete ‘fuck-off’ look in her eyes, like she’s above everyone and everything.
I always fall hard for the impossible girls.
But maybe this can be different. She’s new, which means she hasn’t had a chance to fall head-over-heels for