Ace of Hearts Read online

  “You know what’s really uncool?” she asks as she arches an eyebrow at me. “When you talk with your mouth full.”

  I swallow the food I’m chewing, knowing it’s one of Mom’s pet peeves.

  “See, maybe I’ll embarrass you.” I take another bite of my sandwich, making her laugh.

  “You going to tell me why you’re nervous all of a sudden?”

  I finish chewing before I answer her. “Nope.”

  Her mouth falls open in surprise. I tell my mom pretty much everything. We have always been close. I’m not sure if it was because it was only her and me for a while or something else. A lot of the girls I grew up with didn't have the same relationship with their moms. Our relationship is probably so strong because it had been only the two of us for so long. Plus, above all else, my mom is chill. Even if she isn't trying to be. She often plays the I’m not your friend card, I’m your mom, but she is only fooling herself. She is both.

  Unless I step out of line, then she isn't so chill anymore. She seems to know how to walk that fine line between both. Luckily I don't have the habit of doing anything that would make her upset. The worst thing my mom can do to me is give me one of those disappointed faces. It gets me every time. I would rather her yell at me a million times than see that look on her face.

  “I’m not sure, Mom. If I figure it out you’ll be the first to know.”

  That has her smiling again. “Well, I’ll talk to the school today and make sure you get your parking pass. Maybe you’ll get to drive tomorrow.”

  I shrug. It’s not so bad when my mom is dropping me off driving a Tesla but driving my own feels a bit awkward at times. I lost that battle of not getting one when my mom went on and on about how good they are for the environment.

  “I’ll still make you breakfast,” she adds, thinking that’s my problem with driving myself. “Besides, you’ll end up eating donuts every morning if I don’t and I have to try and get some healthy stuff into you.” She waits beats before she mumbles, “Not that you can cook.”

  “I can’t cook because you are always beating me to it,” I defend. Okay, I can’t cook. She’s tried to teach me. I have no idea why I can’t master cooking. It’s mixing a bunch of stuff together. It should be so easy. I am in advanced chemistry, for christ’s sakes.

  “Hmm humm.” She purses her lips, fighting a laugh. I don’t fight my own. I laugh because it is ridiculous how terrible I am at it. “Can’t win them all, darling.” She pats my leg.

  “This is your stop, kiddo,” Mom says as we pull up in front of my new school. I wipe my sweaty hands on my jeans and gather my things.

  “Thanks for driving me. Love you,” I say, getting my things together.

  “Love you. Have a great day. Just be yourself.”

  That sounds easy enough. For some reason the boy from the other day flashes through my mind again. He’s made a habit of doing that since I saw him in the food court at the mall. I’m not sure you would even call him a boy. I keep wondering if he goes to my new school, but I’ve pushed that idea aside. There is no way he’s in high school. He has to be in college. Still, that nervous rush hits me again when my mind drifts to him. The same feeling I’ve been having all morning about my new school. I don’t have time to try to understand why that feeling would be linked to him. I push the thoughts of him away and concentrate on what I’m doing.

  Mom reaches over, grabbing my hand and giving it a small squeeze. I take a deep breath and push the passenger side door open. I can feel the stares coming from the small bunches of students that have gathered in front of the entrance. I shut the door, swing my bag over my shoulder and begin to walk into the uncertainty of my first day.

  4

  Owen

  “What’s the hurry?” Ben Hamilton asks as I quickly wipe my freshly showered body off with a towel.

  I glance at Carter at the end of the bench but he’s either pretending he can’t hear or is too engrossed in the contents of his phone to spill my deets. Not that it’s a secret. As soon as I find Alice everyone in school will know what’s going on because I’m slapping my name on her butt. Or she can slap hers on mine. Either way works.

  “Got to meet my girl.” I pull on my briefs and jeans and then root around for my stick of deodorant. I can never find anything in my damn locker. FU is filled with money and this locker room looks like something you’d find in those Division One football schools with its dark wood benches and the marble tiled floors, but the lockers are still too small to fit anything more than a pair of shoes and a backpack.

  “What girl? You don’t have a girl. Or do you and I’ve been a shit friend and haven’t noticed? What the fuck?” Ben sounds legit distressed.

  I slap him on the shoulder. “Nah. It’s new. I’ll introduce her at the next party. We’re doing something after Friday’s game, right?”

  Ben breathes a sigh of relief and turns to our captain. “You’re hosting, aren’t you, Carter?”

  Carter nods but still doesn’t look up. Whatever is on his phone must be riveting. None of my concern, though. If Carter wanted us to know, he’d tell us. I throw on the rest of my clothes and grab my backpack.

  “I’m off. See you losers later.”

  At the door, Billy Cunningham stops me. “Hey, I heard you were taking comparative English.” He pulls out a slip of paper. “My sister took it last year so I have notes and shit if you want to look it over.”

  I take the paper even though I have no intention of cheating my way to a good grade, but Billy’s trying to be helpful in his own fucked-up way and I’m not going to call him out in front of the team. He’s already on Carter’s shit list because of something that happened before I came. “Appreciate that. I’ll let you know.”

  “Yeah, well, we can’t have our new star wide receiver flunk out.” He gives a funny laugh and darts through the door.

  Before I exit, Carter’s at my shoulder. “Be careful,” he says.

  “Yeah, I know.” I stuff the note into my back pocket. “I’m not doing anything that jeopardizes the team. Besides, I signed up for the class because I actually like to read.”

  “Don’t care if you do or you don’t,” Carter replies. He pushes the door open, holding it for me. “All I care about is winning the championship and that means you’re on the field and not in the stands. However you go about doing that is none of my concern. If you fuck up, then we’ll talk.”

  He tilts his head and waits for me to go, but I’m not ready. Not until I have my own say. “You already gave me this lecture when you recruited me last spring, remember?”

  Carter showed up at the gas station where I was working and asked me if I was going to fill tanks all my life or if I wanted something better. I told him to fuck off but the asshole kept showing up. He eventually wore me down with the promise that he could raise my stats high enough to get a look from a Division One football team. All I needed was a decent quarterback which was him, of course. What sucked was that he was right. I didn’t have a decent quarterback and unless someone threw me the damn ball, I couldn’t do shit. One night of viewing his videos on Youtube convinced me that I should transfer. I made up my mind fast.

  “Yeah, some people need a refresher is all,” he says, chin out.

  “Not me or maybe you haven’t been paying attention in practice.” You only have to tell me once how to run a route or execute a play and he should know that by now.

  Carter dips that obnoxious chin in acknowledgment. “You’re right. Sorry.”

  “You two done having your love fest so that the rest of us can leave? I want to get a BJ from one of the cheer squad before class,” Mason LeFleur complains from behind me. Mason is our resident manwhore. The guy seriously cannot function without a mouth on his dick every other hour. I think he has a problem.

  “You only have ten minutes before shop starts,” Carter reminds him.

  How he keeps everyone’s schedules straight, I’ll never know. As Mason argues that shop isn’t a real class since yo
u’re required to just produce one project by the end of the semester, I slip out.

  “Careful of the girl, too,” Carter calls after me. “Team rules.”

  I flip him off. I’ve heard that lecture too. Bros before ho’s, he said. That’s the pledge we all make. Not that the girls are ho’s, of course, but that the team comes first. Always, which is why he said “team rules,” which is code for don’t do anything that fucks with the team.

  I’m good at multitasking, though, so I’m not worried about securing both the girl and the trophy. Winners win and I’m a winner. And today, winning starts with meeting Alice. Thanks to Carter, I have a name and a class schedule. She’s also taking honors English. In fact, her class schedule is eerily like mine except she’s taking two more science classes than I am. I hate science and would rather stab myself in the eye than sit through advanced classes about that shit. I like reading, arguing, and art, which makes us perfect complements to each other. When I reach the front steps, there’s a horde of guys sitting along the stone barricades.

  “What’s going on?” I ask a pimply-faced underclassman. I know he’s younger than me by the way that he immediately steps to the side and gives me space.

  “Ah, we’re waiting.”

  “For what?”

  “For the girls.”

  “For the girls to do what?” I scan the grounds. There aren’t any girls. It’s like a sausage convention on the stairs.

  “For the girls to arrive.”

  “Are you fucking kidding me?” Every single one of these assholes is sitting here waiting for the girls of FU to roll up in their cars? What a mess. I don’t want Alice to go through that her first day. I stroll to the middle of the ding-a-ling convention and place my fingers in my mouth, executing a loud, ear-piercing whistle. Everyone snaps to attention. I spot a couple of junior varsity players and point my fingers at them. “Get every one of these dickheads inside.”

  They don’t move. I clap my hands. “Now. Team rules.”

  The JV boys scramble into gear and in the next minute, the stone steps are clear. I walk down the wide staircase to the sidewalk and wait. At any minute, she should be pulling up. I inspect the cars—the Rolls Royces, the Bentleys, the Beemers, the Mercedes. Toward the end of the line is one white Tesla. My favorite car. I’ve had my eye on those since it was released. Someday, after I sign my big NFL paycheck, I’m buying one—and whatever else Alice wants. The line moves slow as the students spill out of their cars and move on into the school. Some are surprised that there’s no one waiting. Some give me odd looks. I pay zero attention to any of them as I’m focused on finding one single girl.

  The Tesla finally reaches me. The passenger door opens and, no lie, a ray of sun beams down as Alice climbs out of the vehicle.

  I smile. See, it’s all a sign. I’m God’s favored son and this is the evidence. My girl has arrived in my dream car and the sun’s shining high in the sky.

  “Hey,” I say.

  Alice tips her head up in surprise. Wordlessly she points a finger at her chest.

  My grin broadens. “Yeah, you.” I lope over to the car door and stick my head inside. “I’m Owen McCoy. Nice to meet you, ma’am,” I say to Alice’s mother.

  The mother smiles. “Oh, I didn’t realize you’d already made friends, darling.” She holds out her hand. “Nice to meet you, Owen.”

  I give it a firm, but friendly shake. “Nice to meet you, too. Don’t worry about Ace. I’ll take care of her today.”

  “That’s wonderful.” A car horn honks and Ace’s mom jolts into position behind the steering wheel. “I better get going.”

  “Wait, Mom—” Ace says, but I’ve already shut the car door.

  I sling an arm around Ace. “Let’s go.”

  She glares at me. “Who the hell are you?”

  5

  Alice

  It’s the boy from the mall. The one who was staring every time I looked up. My nervousness evaporates as annoyance settles in.

  “Why is your arm around my shoulder?” I shrug it off. “I’m not sure what you think you’re doing, but I’m not interested.”

  At my last school, guys always tried to claim the new girl. They wanted to be the first to “lay pipe on virgin territory” as one asshole declared loudly during class. He got detention for that but it never wiped the smirk off his face.

  I hate smirkers. I particularly hate smug hot guys because they always think that they can get away with anything because God put their features together a certain way.

  “You’re right. You’re right.” He raises his palms. “No hands on you without permission. That’s smart and I know you’re smart.”

  “What the hell does that mean?” I swing to face him and make the mistake of looking into his eyes. I remember them being brown from the first time I saw him at the mall, but what I hadn’t noticed at the time was the warm honey color that swam around the irises. Being this close to him allows me to see all the dangerous detail up close. I’ve never known that an eye color could be this rich and inviting.

  There are crinkles at the corners of his eyes from his genuine smile. He doesn’t look away and neither do I. My pulse picks up as we stare at one another. Neither of us says a word. I’m not sure I’m even breathing.

  His hand reaches up. “May I?”

  I find myself nodding. A dimple forms on his left cheek, making his already handsome face dangerously gorgeous. He tucks a piece of my hair back into place, his fingers gently caressing my cheek. I close my eyes for a second, his touch lingering on my skin.

  A slamming car door breaks me out of my trance. This time when I open my eyes I hope they look as if I’m trying to burn a hole directly into that handsome face of his. The last thing I need is for him to know I’m attracted to him. That his simple touch has done crazy shit to my insides. A crush is the last thing I need.

  “I told you not to touch me,” I snap, which is irrational because I know he asked and I know I nodded, but I needed to get him to step back. I fold my arms across my chest and lift my chin, waiting for him to call me out.

  “You did, didn’t you?” He gestures for me to move. “After you, then.”

  I don’t like that he agreed with me. It’d be better if he thinks I’m a bitch and never wants another thing to do with me because I don’t have much of a defense against him. I need to move, though, because standing here next to him isn’t good for my nerves. I order my feet in motion and my body follows, heading toward the giant double glass doors set at the top of a wide, cement staircase. My phone dings from inside my bag. I dig in and pull it out, grateful for the distraction.

  Mom: He’s handsome!

  Oh God. Of course she is texting me about him. I steal a peek over my shoulder as I start to pull one of the doors open. Owen is still standing where I left him and he’s also still smiling, not fazed by my brush-off.

  I jerk my head back around. Damn it. He saw me looking back at him. Why couldn’t I have played it cool and not looked back? My phone dings again.

  Mom: Oh, you should invite him over for dinner. Obviously I’ll cook. LOL

  I send back an angry face emoji, which gets me a kiss-blowing emoji back. I fire one back before putting my phone away and pulling out my schedule, which I have memorized already.

  I have a few minutes before my first class. I already took a tour of the school last week. It’s super nice, even fancier than my boarding school, which surprises me because this school has kids from all walks of life. It’s entirely funded by some patents owned by the founder—Franklin somebody or other. Since I have time, I should probably just go to my first class and find a seat but I find myself stalled in the middle of the hallway for no good reason.

  When a warm body comes up behind me, I know exactly what’s going on. When I was in the car earlier I’d been thinking of him and he materialized out of nowhere. Once again my thoughts have summoned him and his rude arm to my side. Even though my body enjoys having that arm around me, I wasn’t going to
let him assume that he could do whatever he wants.

  I turn my head around toward him and my eyes meet his amazing gaze. My demeanor instantly softens with his warm look and he’s still smiling at me.

  “Why are you following me?”

  “We have the same class, Ace.”

  “Ace?” I lift an eyebrow at him. That’s the second time he’s called me that.

  “You ever not ace something?” That smile fully comes back now. He looks almost proud of me. When it comes to school and most things, I do excel at them so the nickname fits. I put my everything into the things I do. My mom taught me that. Except cooking. I definitely do not ace that.

  “How do you know I ace everything?” I challenge. This is only the second time we’ve ever met. It’s only the first we've ever talked. I was sure I’d never see him again after that day in the mall.

  “I could say I just know everything but the truth is—” He leans down a little so his mouth is close to my ear. I should pull back but my body leans right back into him. “I asked. After I saw you at the mall, I did some research, found your name and your class schedule.”

  “That’s creepy,” I declare but inside, in the back of my head, I’m thrilled. I hate myself.

  “I told you about it, though. I think that takes some of the weird factor away. Besides, when I see something I want, I go for it, but I have a feeling you get that. Don’t you, Ace?” The way he says the nickname he’s given me is all too knowing. I have to fight myself from having a goofy grin on my face. So I go with changing the subject because I don’t know what to make of Owen.

  “At my old school we had a board that showed club sign-ups and other random stuff the school had going on. Is there somewhere that displays that information here?” My attempt at redirecting our discussion seems to work.