All Chapters of Hard to Get Away With: Chapter 1 - Chapter 7

EMERSON Dread coils low and tight in my stomach the second my boots hit the scuffed linoleum of Westheart College’s main corridor. The fluorescent lights overhead buzz like dying insects, washing everything in that sickly institutional glow that makes even the lockers look hungover.I keep my chin level, shoulders back, but the air already feels thicker—charged with the particular kind of malice only packs of bored, self-important girls can manufacture before nine in the morning.I shouldn’t even be here.Mid-semester transfer. One phone call from my dad three weeks ago and my entire life got uprooted like it weighed nothing. *We’re moving, kid. Westheart needs a new football coach and they want me. Pack light.* That was it. No discussion. No warning. Just the familiar sound of my father’s voice deciding for both of us again.So here I am, walking the halls of a school that looks more like a castle than a college—stone facades, iron gates, and the kind of money that makes the air it

EMERSON I find the locker assigned to me-#107-and spin the combination with more force than necessary. The hallway is packed, bodies shifting and voices overlapping, but I can feel the weight of every pair of eyes on my back as I yank the door open and dump my bag inside. They’re probably still processing the fact that I just told the mean girls to fuck off and didn’t even flinch. Shocking, I know. Apparently, having a backbone is a rare and highly contagious condition around here. God forbid a girl shows up who doesn’t immediately start kissing ass, fake-smiling at everyone, or folding herself into the nearest wall to make the popular crowd comfortable. The collective shock is almost entertaining. Almost. Give it five minutes. By lunch, half of them will have decided I’m either a psychopath, a complete bitch, or their new best friend. Possibly all three, depending on how bored they are. Elite colleges like this have rules, after all. Be pretty. Be agreeable. Know

RIVER For one glorious second, I just stare at her. Did she seriously— My jaw tightens. She did. The girl has been standing there mouthing off to me for the last five minutes, and now she’s decided insulting my breath is the line. The corner of my mouth twitches before I can stop it. I lean a fraction closer. Close enough that I catch everything I shouldn’t. Fuck. She’s beautiful. Annoyingly, unfairly beautiful. Up close it’s worse. Those sharp eyes. The full mouth that’s been throwing attitude nonstop. The way her lips part just slightly before she delivers another hit. Soft. Pink. The kind of mouth that would look better wrapped around my cock than around more sarcasm. And she smells fucking delicious—warm and sweet under the hallway air. The kind of scent that short-circuits my brain every time I inhale. If Lisa wasn’t involved, I’d already have her pinned against this locker for a completely different reason. My cock is heavy and interested, pressing hard against my jea

EMERSON Finding the cafeteria is marginally less humiliating than finding Wilder Hall, mostly because I have the good sense to abandon technology entirely and just follow the herd of students moving through campus on pure autopilot. They know where the food is better than my phone's useless map app does. And the second I walk in, I understand everything I need to know about this campus's social ecosystem. Near the windows, a table of girls in matching athletic wear all laugh at the same joke half a second apart, like they've rehearsed it — dance team, probably, or something equally exclusive and terrifying. Behind them, a cluster of guys hunched over laptops, arguing about what sounds suspiciously like video game strategy. Further back, a table so quiet and studiously uninterested in the rest of the room that they might as well have a sign over it reading we peaked in the library. Across the room, three tables of athletes sprawl out with the easy, unbothered volume of people