CHAPTER 1: The Six-Thousand-Dollar Scratch

​If my life were a movie, the main character would be a background extra.

​"Eloise, the high-protein horse mash goes in the north paddock bins, not the south. If Mr. Montgomery’s stallion gets colic because you can't read a label, it’s your paycheck."

​"Understood, Mrs. Gable," I said, my voice flat, maintaining the exact level of monotone sarcasm required to keep my soul from leaving my body. "Heaven forbid the horse suffers from a mild stomach ache while I’m funding my lavish lifestyle of thrifted socks and knock-off cereal."

​Mrs. Gable gave a sharp, judgmental sniff, her eyes scanning my oversized green hoodie and paint-splattered jeans before she turned on her heel and walked out of the feed room.

​I let out a long breath, leaning my forehead against a cool metal sack of grain.

​Welcome to Oakridge—a small town where the grass was perfectly manicured, the country club memberships cost more than my mother made in a year as a nurse, and I was currently ranking as the town’s premier invisible nobody. At seventeen, my track record was flawlessly tragic: No boyfriend, no first kiss, a dad who skipped town years ago, and a younger sister, Lizzy, who treated me like a highly contagious disease whenever we were within fifty yards of her social-climbing friends.

​The only things keeping me sane were my shifts here at the high-end boarding stables, my secret notebooks filled with lyrics I’d never sing out loud, and a dark-haired guy named Ethan Grey who ran the high school music department and occasionally looked in my general direction.

​With a full month left of summer before the nightmare of high school resumed, my only goal was to stay under the radar, earn enough under-the-table cash to survive, and avoid human contact.

​The universe, however, had other plans.

​Ten minutes later, I was hauling a massive, rusted iron arena rake across the gravel parking lot toward the storage shed. The summer sun was brutal, sweat was sticking my ginger bangs to my forehead, and my notoriously clumsy feet were doing their best to cooperate.

​Then, I saw the car.

​It was a custom, midnight-black sports car parked diagonally across the fire lane. It practically screamed daddy's money and moving violation.

​Beside it stood the town's reigning local royalty.

​Mike Weller. He was our school's star varsity basketball athlete—tall, built, with a sharp jawline, effortlessly messy blonde hair, and piercing blue eyes. He wore a crisp blue-and-gold varsity jacket like a cape of pure privilege, spinning a basketball on his finger. Next to him was his childhood best friend, Jake Bill—just as rich, fine, and hot, sporting an expensive designer tee and a bored expression that matched Mike’s perfectly. They were currently locked in their own world, probably discussing how much money their parents threw away at the country club last weekend.

​"Nice parking, varsity," I muttered, dragging the heavy rake past the rear bumper. "Really considerate of the fire hazard."

​My left sneaker hit a patch of loose shale.

​In a split second of pure, unadulterated cosmic malice, my ankle gave out. The weight of the iron rake shifted violently in my grip. I stumbled sideways, my arms flailing as I went into full-blown drama-queen panic.

​SCREEEEECH.

​The sound of metal gouging into expensive, pristine clear-coat paint sliced through the quiet afternoon.

​I hit the gravel on one knee, but the sting didn't even register. My soul literally left my body. My eyes wide with absolute horror, I looked up. A deep, jagged, silver-white scratch was now carved directly across the passenger door of the pristine black sports car.

​"Oh my god. Oh my god. I'm dead. I am literally a deceased person," I frantically whispered to myself.

​I scrambled up, completely losing my cool, instinctively pulling the sleeve of my oversized green hoodie over my hand and frantically rubbing at the scratch as if my cheap cotton could somehow reverse a multi-thousand-dollar disaster. "Come on, un-scratch! Dissolve! Go back to where you came from!"

​"I don't think fabric softener fixes a custom paint job, ginger."

​The voice was low, slow, and completely arrogant.

​I froze, my hand still pressed against the ruined metal. Slowly, I turned my head.

​Mike and Jake had stopped their conversation. Jake was leaning against the hood with a hand over his mouth, trying—and failing—to hide a massive smirk. Mike, however, was looking at me like I was a strange, microscopic bug that had just landed on his designer shoes. He didn't look furiously explosive; he just looked incredibly annoyed and deeply amused by my frantic meltdown.

​He took two slow steps toward me, his blue eyes raking over my flushed, freckled face, messy bun, and dusty jeans. There wasn't a single spark of recognition in his eyes. He clearly had no clue who I was, let alone that we went to the exact same school.

​"You look like you're having a really dramatic Tuesday," Mike noted, his tone entirely effortless and rude, a cold smirk pulling at the corner of his lips.

​My heart was doing triple-flips against my ribs, and the sheer terror of my mother finding out—or worse, Mrs. Gable firing me and making me pay for this out of pocket—had my internal drama queen screaming at maximum volume.

​"I was," I said, trying to voice-act my way out of a cardiac arrest. "Until your car violently assaulted my rake. Honestly, I think it was intentional. It clearly didn't like the color green."

​Jake let out a sharp laugh from the background. "Yo, Mike, I think the ginger is blaming the paint."

​Mike didn't laugh. He just stepped closer, inspecting the deep, ugly gouge up close, completely unfazed by my attempt at humor. He looked back up, his expression turning cold and elite.

​"Well, your rogue tool just cost about six grand in custom bodywork," Mike said carelessly, as if six grand was pocket change. He tilted his head, eyes locked onto mine. "So, what's the play here? You got a platinum card hiding in that giant hoodie, or do I need to call the owner of this place and have them handle your paycheck?"

​No. No, no, no. If he called Mrs. Gable, I was ruined. I’d be blacklisted from every side hustle in this small town.

​"Wait! Don't call anyone," I blurted out, the panic cracking through my sarcastic armor. I held my hands up in a pleading gesture, my inner drama queen taking the wheel. "Look at me. Do I look like I have six grand? If I had six grand, I wouldn't be standing in a gravel lot smelling like horse manure. I am entirely, completely broke. Please don't tell her."

​Mike exchanged a brief, amused look with Jake, realizing he had total control of the situation. He leaned his hip against the hood of his car, adjusting his varsity jacket. He wasn't waiting for a deal—he just realized a solution that required zero effort on his part.

​"I don't care if you're broke," Mike said smoothly, his tone shifting into something purely dominant. He pointed a lazy finger at me. "But I’m not paying for this deductible out of pocket. So here's how this works. You're at my beck and call. Whenever I need something done, you do it. You carry my gear, you fetch my drinks, you do the tedious shit I don't want to handle. You're my personal assistant until I decide we're even."

​"Your... what?" I stuttered, my jaw dropping. "I don't even know your schedule!"

​"You don't need to know my schedule," Mike sneered lightly, stepping back around to the driver's side door. "When I need you, I'll find you. If you skip out, I call your boss. Simple."

​He hopped into the driver's seat, and Jake slid into the passenger side, still snickering. The engine roared to life, a loud, wealthy growl that seemed to vibrate right through my cheap sneakers.

​Mike rolled down the window just a fraction, flashing one last arrogant, devastating smirk.

​"See you around, ginger."

​And with a spray of gravel, the midnight-black sports car sped out of the parking lot, leaving me standing alone in a cloud of dust, clutching a rusted rake and completely bound to the school's most arrogant player.