LOGIN“Wakey, wakey, sleepyhead.”
Dizzy’s annoying face hovered inches from mine. I groaned and tried to bury myself deeper into the pillow. “It’s barely six, you tiny little crab crawler,” I muttered. “It’s 7:15, you overgrown donkey!” He ripped my duvet and pillow away in one dramatic sweep and bolted out of the room. That little shit. I sprinted after him, but he was faster—darting down the stairs and using Dad’s legs as a human shield. Dad stood in his usual spot, sipping coffee and reading the newspaper like nothing chaotic was happening around him. Dizzy smirked at me from behind Dad’s protection, knowing he was safe. I groaned, walking past them, but not before ruffling his perfectly combed hair. “Hey!” he complained. I finally took a proper look at him. He was already fully dressed for school in his crisp uniform. Meanwhile, I was still in my ratty sleep shirt and shorts. “Morning, Dad.” “Mornin’, sweet cheeks,” he replied without looking up. “Where’s Mom?” I asked, noticing the empty breakfast table. “In the kitchen.” Dad finally glanced at me. “Why aren’t you dressed yet?” He shook his head. “Your mom’s gonna throw a fit if she sees you like this.” “I’m not a kid anymore. I’ll be eighteen in a few months.” “Yeah, yeah,” Dizzy mocked from the doorway. I shot him a death glare that promised violence. He just smiled sweetly. “Mom—” he started. I didn’t wait for him to finish. I raced back upstairs. --- I adjusted the hem of my skirt for the hundredth time. I’d outgrown my uniform ages ago, but the school still hadn’t replaced the tailor after Principal Freeson fired the last one for flirting with seniors. Now the rest of us had to suffer through dangerously short skirts. My phone buzzed. **Calling: Bad Bitch** Alessia. I answered while shoving pancakes into my mouth. “Hello—” “Bitch, where are you? I’m outside waiting!” “Two minutes, max.” She hung up with an exasperated sigh. If there was one thing Alessia hated more than anything, it was lateness. And I was chronically late. I tied my shoelaces while chugging scalding coffee, grabbed my bag, swiped on some lip gloss, and sprinted out the door. “Bitch, hurry up!” Alessia yelled from her car. “I’m here!” I slid into the passenger seat and buckled up. We sped toward school with Alessia blasting some questionable R&B on full volume. Her music taste was… unique. “Oh my god, did you hear?” she said, perking up as we walked toward the main entrance. “Lena came out. She’s a lesbian.” I acted surprised, even though I’d suspected it all summer. Lena had been giving Alessia serious fuck me eyes for months. “Also, Grace Martin moved to England to finish senior year. Rumor is she got knocked up and no one knows who the father is because she’s been sleeping with half the football team.” That one actually shocked me. Grace always came off like an innocent little nun. We reached our lockers, still giggling as we pulled out our English books. --- English class was refreshing as always. I could live in that subject forever. After class, Alessia and I split up. I was still digging through my locker for my highlighter when I finally found it. The second I slammed the locker door shut, I came face-to-face with a pair of striking icy blue eyes. My soul left my body. Hayden Vaughan. He looked even more intimidating up close—and annoyingly hotter. His leather jacket hung over a half-buttoned uniform shirt, showing a hint of toned chest and ink. “Um… hi,” I stammered. He didn’t reply at first. His eyes slowly dragged down my body, lingering on my short skirt before rising back to my face. He leaned one shoulder against the locker beside mine and folded his muscular arms. “You waved,” he said, voice low and rough. It rumbled from deep in his chest. “Last night.” Shit. “Um… about that,” I scrambled. “I was watching this Japanese movie and the guy did this weird hand thing and then he could fly—” I was lying through my teeth. He clearly didn’t believe a word. “Yeah?” He tilted his head, a smirk tugging at his lips. “And what was that movie called?”“Who on earth are you talking to at this hour?”Alessia’s voice cut through the dark of the guest room, half-joking, half already suspicious. I had been so completely lost inside my own head that I hadn't even heard her footsteps approach the half-open door.My phone was still lit in my hand, screen bright enough to expose me. Hayden’s last message sat open like an unconfessed crime I hadn't managed to bury fast enough.I locked it so fast I almost dropped it.“No one,” I said. “Just scrolling.”She stood in the doorway in an oversized T-shirt, arms crossed, studying me.“At one-thirty in the morning?” She arched a single, perfectly shaped brow. “Must’ve been some remarkably riveting content.”“It wasn’t.”The lie came out smoothly. Alessia lingered for another long, suffocating heartbeat, studying me, before giving a small shrug as if she were actively choosing to ignore the obvious signs.“Whatever. Don’t stay up too late and get some actual sleep. You already look like a ghost the
*This has to stop.*I typed the message three times before I finally hit send.The reply came faster than I expected.*Define this.*I stared up at my bedroom ceiling, took a shaky breath, and forced myself to be as explicit and direct as humanly possible.*The texting. The window thing. All of it. Alessia is my best friend. And my house is complicated right now. We can’t keep playing whatever twisted game this is.*There was a longer pause this time. I watched the three dots appear, disappear, appear again. My stomach twisted with a sudden wave of dread.Then his answer came through.*Okay.*Just that one word.No sarcastic argument. No infuriating teasing. No stubborn, late-night pushback.*Okay.*I waited for more. Nothing came. After five full minutes I flipped the phone face-down on my nightstand, rolled onto my side, and repeatedly told to myself that this was precisely what I had wanted.Then why was there this hollow ache in my chest.---At school, Hayden moved through the
*Come to the window.*My phone buzzed with a new message.I shouldn’t have listened, but I got out of bed anyway, crossed the dark room on bare feet, and pulled the curtain back just enough to see. Hayden was already standing there on the other side of his glass, bathed in the dim, yellow glow of his desk lamp. He was completely shirtless, one forearm braced heavily against the wooden frame, his phone in his other hand. The low light from his room cut across the bruises on his ribs. He was looking straight at me.My phone lit up again.*Took you long enough.*I typed back before I could stop myself.*How did you even get my number?**You left your phone unlocked the night I was bleeding on your floor. Wasn’t hard.*Of course he took advantage of that.*That’s an invasion of privacy.**You cleaned blood off my face and let me sleep in your bed, Dawn. Pretty sure we're past privacy.*I stared at the message, then at him. Even from here, I could see the arrogant curve at the corner of hi
I waited until Mom took the keys off the counter and left for her afternoon grocery run.Dad was in his study with the door half-open, the low sound of papers shifting and the occasional click of a pen the only proof he was still in the house. I stood in the hallway longer than I should have, heart beating too fast for a conversation that was supposed to sound casual.I knocked the door once and stepped in before he could tell me to come back later.He glanced up from the desk. The motorcycle notebook was nowhere in sight. Just a stack of unpaid bills, a closed silver laptop, and that blank face he wore whenever he didn't want to be bothered.“I need to ask you something,” I said.He tapped his pen once against his blotter. “Make it quick, Dawn.”I kept my voice curious without accusation. “The other night at dinner Mom mentioned you brought up Hayden Vaughan. I didn’t know you knew him.”Something tight and hard flickered behind his eyes for half a second.“I don’t know him.”“You
The words kept looping through my head, over and over until they stopped even sounding like my father’s voice.*We need to eliminate him before he discovers the truth.*I sat on the edge of my bed in the gray morning light, still in the clothes I’d fallen asleep in, staring at the spot on the carpet where Hayden’s bloodied shirt had been only hours ago. The first-aid wrappers were gone. I’d thrown them away before anyone else woke up. The only proof left was the faint smear of dried blood I’d missed on the windowsill and the hollow ache under my ribs.He had been in my room. Bleeding out. Whispering against my neck and begging me to let him stay the night. And somewhere downstairs my father had been calmly discussing the need to erase him.A heavy knock rattled my door frame.“Dawn? Breakfast is on the table,” my mother called. “You’re going to be late for school.”I forced myself up off the bed, walked into the bathroom and washed myself until the water ran cold, and tried to look li
Blood was already smearing onto my windowsill by the time I got the lock open.Hayden climbed through without a word, one arm braced against the frame, his breath coming short and rough. Up close it looked worse. A cut near his hairline still welled dark red. His split lip had reopened. The swelling around his left eye was already turning deep purple. I didn’t ask questions. I just pointed at the edge of my bed and went for the first-aid kit under the bathroom sink with shaking hands.He sat where I told him to. Shirtless by the time I came back — he’d stripped the blood-stiff fabric off and dropped it on the floor like it didn’t matter. I squeezed myself between his knees and worked in silence with cotton swabs, antiseptic and gauze. The sharp hiss of his breath when the alcohol hit the cut on his temple. I cleaned the blood from his cheek, his jaw, the side of his neck, pretending my pulse wasn’t slamming so hard I could feel it in my fingers.He didn't say a word to me.I couldn't







