CHAPTER 6: THE SILENT TARIFF

The leather interior of Mike Weller's sports car still smelled faintly of the copper-scented first-aid ointment I had smeared onto his split jaw a week ago.

​I kept my forehead pressed against the cool passenger window, watching the manicured, iron-gated properties of Oakridge blur into a continuous wall of old-money privacy. My fingers tightly gripped the canvas straps of my thrifted duffel bag, the faded fabric a stark contrast to the pristine, stitched leather beneath me.

​"You're going to burn a hole through the glass if you keep staring at it like that," a low, gravelly voice cut through the hum of the engine.

​I didn't turn my head. I didn't need to. I could see his reflection in the window—the sharp, arrogant line of his jawline, now marred by a faint, fading purple bruise from the industrial warehouse brawl. Michael "Mike" Weller. Nineteen years old, standing at a towering six-foot-three, with a mop of golden blonde hair that looked effortlessly styled even when he'd just rolled out of bed. He wore a simple white heavy-cotton tee that made his broad, varsity-trained shoulders look impossibly wide, and his piercing blue eyes were fixed lazily on the winding road.

​He was acting like nothing had happened.

​Like a week ago, in the dim, humid shadows of the warehouse district, his fingers hadn't lingered against the skin of my jaw. Like he hadn't tucked a wild strand of my ginger hair behind my ear and looked at me with an intensity that made my cynical, thick-skinned defense mechanics completely lock up.

​It was just adrenaline, I reminded myself, my hazel eyes narrowing at my own reflection. He had just taken a pipe to the shoulder and a fist to the face protecting his team. He was high on a victory and heavy lighting.

​"I'm just calculating how much it's going to cost me to buy my soul back from your parents," I replied, my voice dripping with my trademark, dry sarcasm. I finally pulled away from the glass, crossing my arms defensively. "My mother is a saint for keeping your family's prize stallions from getting colic, but moving my entire life into your backyard feels like a highly elaborate corporate trap."

​Mike's lips twitched, the corner of his mouth tugging upward into that untouchable, arrogant smirk that usually made me want to throw an arena rake at his head. "Relax, Gilbert. The guest house is entirely detached. You won't have to see my face unless you want to."

​"And what if I never want to?"

​"Then you'll have to find a very creative way to return my car keys every morning," Mike said smoothly, glancing over at me for a split second, his blue eyes holding a dangerous, amused glint. "Because as far as the summer contract goes, you still owe me three weeks of labor."

​We pulled through the massive stone pillars of the Weller estate, the tires crunching over pristine white gravel. The main house was a colonial-style mansion, but Mike steered the car down a long, weeping-willow-lined side path that led to a beautiful, two-story brick cottage. It was supposed to be a "guest house," but it was larger than any home I had ever lived in.

​Before the engine could even cut out, the heavy oak front door of the main house slammed open.

​"Look who finally decided to bring the hostage!" a loud, booming voice echoed across the lawn.

​Jacob "Jake" Bill lounged on the porch railing, a half-eaten green apple in one hand and a basketball spinning effortlessly on the index finger of his other. Jake was nineteen, six-foot-one, with a messy, sun-bleached brown crew cut and sharp green eyes that always looked like they were searching for the nearest source of entertainment. He was Mike's childhood shadow—wherever Mike went, Jake was usually raiding the fridge or causing a scene close behind.

​Behind him, leaning heavily against the doorframe with a thick black compression sleeve wrapping his injured shoulder, was Chad Miller. Nineteen, six-foot-two, with dark, closely cropped hair and hard, gray eyes, Chad looked less like a high school senior and more like a heavy-duty bouncer. He was the varsity team's enforcer, still scowling from the medical restrictions the warehouse fight had put on his senior season.

​"Don't start, Bill," Mike muttered, swinging his long legs out of the sports car. He didn't offer to carry my bag—maintaining that cool, detached distance now that his friends were watching—but he deliberately stood between Jake's prying eyes and the passenger side.

​"I'm just saying, the compound just got seventy percent more interesting," Jake chuckled, tossing the apple core into a nearby bush and catching the basketball seamlessly. He jogged down the steps, his athletic frame moving with an easy, unbothered grace. He stopped right in front of me as I stepped out of the car, offering me a mock, sweeping bow. "Welcome to the Weller Asylum, Eloise. If Chad gets too moody because of his shoulder, just throw water at him. He hates it."

​Chad let out a low, gravelly grunt from the porch, his gray eyes tracking me with a protective, suspicious evaluation. "Ignore him. Glad you made it, Gilbert."

​"Thanks, Chad," I said, giving him a small, genuine nod. I actually respected Chad; he was loud and aggressive on the court, but he didn't pretend to be a high-society prince like the rest of the Oakridge elite.

​I spent the next three hours unpacking my life into the guest house bedroom. The room was beautiful—hardwood floors, a massive window overlooking the stables in the distance, and a desk that felt too expensive for me to even rest my laptop on. By the time my sister was settled into the adjacent room and my mother had called from the road to ensure we hadn't burned the place down, night had fallen over Oakridge.

​The estate was dead silent. The kind of silence that only wealth could buy.

​I sat at the heavy mahogany desk, the glow of my laptop screen illuminating the sharp angles of my face. The first day of senior year at Oakridge High was less than twelve hours away. The thought made a cold, familiar knot form in my stomach. Out there, in those hallways, the protective, strange summer vacuum I had shared with Mike Weller wouldn't exist. He would go back to his throne as the varsity golden boy, flanked by Allie Grace and the rest of the country-club royalty. And I would go back to being the invisible ghost who cleaned up after their horses.

​I opened a blank document on my computer, my fingers hovering over the keys. I didn't write essays when I was stressed; I wrote lyrics. Raw, unfiltered, cynical poetry that I never intended for anyone else to hear.

​Tonight, the keys clicked with a rhythmic, furious pace. But the words that spilled out weren't about my anxiety over the school hallways. They were about him.

​Golden paint on a cracked foundation,

You hold the room like an obligation.

Ice-blue eyes looking right through the crowd,

Speaking in whispers when the world is too loud.

You pull me into the shadow of your name,

Then walk away like it's part of the game.

Arrogant smile, but your knuckles are torn,

A cardboard king wearing a crown of thorns.

You tell me I'm seen, but tomorrow we're blind,

Leaving the ghost in the wreckage behind.

​I stared at the text on the screen, my heart drumming a steady, heavy beat against my ribs. It wasn't a love song. It was an indictment. It was a map of the frustrating, confusing puzzle that was Michael Weller—a boy who could bleed for his friends in a gritty warehouse fight one day, and look right through me the next.

​I saved the file under a generic name, English_Composition_Draft_1.docx. Completely exhausted, my mind slipped into a heavy sleep as I shut my laptop, unaware of the quiet storm brewing just across the lawn.