The Sinner: A High School Bully Romance (Haven Grace Prep Book 1) Read online

  “What’s stuck up his ass?” Becca asks.

  Carter smiles. “I saw him talking to one of the Callahan twins a few minutes ago. She ran off when I asked who she is. He’s probably pissed I fucked up his game.”

  Kinsley shakes her head. “No, he said he’s known her since he was a kid. I didn’t think Grayson knew anyone from here.”

  “Before this morning, all you knew was his name,” Paige sasses.

  She scoffs. “Whatever. I’m going to go make sure he’s okay.”

  Just as she goes to walk away, I grab her by the wrist—a little tighter than necessary. “Leave him alone and go to class.”

  The thought of Kinsley going anywhere near Grayson has me seeing red. If she knows what’s good for her, she will stay away from him. Otherwise, I’ll do whatever it takes to ruin her life, and I won’t even bat an eye as she begs me to stop.

  “Ooh,” Jace coos. “Has someone other than Brady Laurence finally gotten Savannah’s attention?”

  “Please.” I wave him off dismissively. “I’m just trying to save the poor guy from being hounded on his first day. The last thing your shitty team needs is for your new star player to run off because Kinsley is breathing down his neck.”

  Carter scowls. “Aye! Who are you calling our star player?”

  Laughing, I reach up and pat his cheek. “Aw, don’t get butthurt, Carter. You’re still my favorite.”

  “Damn right, I am.”

  The bell rings, and we all start heading separate ways. It’s the one period we aren’t all in the same class. When I get to mine, Miss Layton gives me a look, but it softens when I smile shyly. It’s when I’m about to reach my seat that I stop. Sitting in the normally empty seat next to mine is Grayson, and he looks anything but thrilled at my presence.

  “Fifty-eight, fifty-nine, sixty! Ready or not, here I come!”

  I start looking around for my friends. If I know Tessa as well as I think I do, she ditched this game as soon as I started counting and went inside for a snack. As for Delaney, she’s probably somewhere stupid like behind a tree or in a bush.

  “Laney,” I singsong as I walk around the backyard. “Come out, come out, wherever you are.” A giggle from behind one of the bushes gives her away. “Ah-ha! Got you!” I jump out in front of her.

  She screeches and falls back onto her butt, totally caught off guard. “Savannah!” she whines. “Do you really have to scare me every time?! Stop it!”

  “What’s the fun in that?” I offer her my hand and pull her up off the ground. “I think Tessa went inside. Go find her while I go find Grayson.”

  Looking around my yard and hers, I know he’s not here. There’s only one other place I can think to look. I run across the street and into Grayson’s backyard, quietly closing the gate behind me. I get to the treehouse and climb up. If he isn’t up here, it’ll at least give me a good vantage point to look from.

  The second I open the hatch, Grayson pops out with a “Boo!” My foot misses the step and I scream, nearly falling out of the tree. He grabs my hand at the last second and holds onto me while I find my footing again, then he falls over—laughing hysterically.

  “It’s not funny, Gray! I could have gotten really hurt!” I sit in the corner and cross my arms, pouting.

  He looks over at me and smiles. My heart rate quickens at the sight of it, something that’s been happening more and more often lately. Just like that, I can’t possibly be angry at him anymore. Not when he’s smiling at me like I’m his favorite person. Still, I do my best to act upset.

  “Oh, come on. I had to after the way you scared Delaney. I could hear her squeal from here.” He gets up and comes over to sit next to me, poking me in the cheek when I refuse to look at him. “Savi.” Poke. “Savi.” Poke. “Savi.”

  This time when he goes to poke me, I slap his hand away. “Stop. I’m mad at you.”

  He sighs and wraps his arms around me, pulling me into him. I try my best to control my breathing, but with him this close, I don’t stand a chance. Instead, I lean my head against him, and the tension leaves my body.

  “I’m sorry,” he whispers.

  “You’re still a jerk.”

  I can feel him relax, realizing he’s already forgiven. “I know.”

  But that’s the thing about being best friends; we can never stay mad at each other for long.

  EACH CLASS PASSES, AND I’m yet to get a second glance from Grayson, let alone get to talk to him. I can’t figure out whether he doesn’t remember me, or he doesn’t want to remember me. Even when we’re all in a group conversation, he keeps to himself and messes with his phone, not even looking up when someone says his name. If I didn’t recognize him, I’d think he just coincidentally has the same name as the boy who stole my heart all those years ago.

  At the end of the day, I’m packing up my stuff when Carter and the others saunter off down the hall. I say goodbye, still distracted by making sure I have everything I need. The second day of school means homework starts, and I don’t have the luxury of slacking, unlike some of the people here. Just as I close my locker, I turn around to see Grayson leaning against his. His eyes bore into mine, but not in the way I imagined so many times over the years.

  It’s clear he has no intention of saying anything to me, so I start to walk away. However, at the last second, I realize that I can’t let this fester. I need to know what’s going on. I stop and twist back.

  “Do you really not remember me?” All the strength in the world wouldn’t be enough to mask the pain in my voice.

  He shoves his phone into his pocket and steps toward me. “Oh, I remember you, Sweet Savi.” The nickname is spit from his mouth like venom, making my insides churn.

  “Y-you do?”

  “Of course I do. I remember every last thing about you.” He invades my space, pushing his body up against mine and placing his lips next to my ear. “But trust me when I say you’re going to wish I didn’t.”

  4

  Grayson

  I push past Savannah, mentally pleading for her not to come after me. Seeing her again has threatened to knock me off my axis. She’s just as gorgeous as I remember, and that could be nothing but detrimental to my plans.

  A part of me had hoped that she was just as unhappy as I have been. That her life was irrevocably changed by her actions, the way mine was. It may not have made up for the pain she caused, but it would have helped. However, when I heard Jace say that she wasn’t at practice last week because her father took her on vacation to Bora Bora, I could hardly contain the anger inside of me.

  “Yo, Hayworth!” Carter shouts as I step outside.

  I pull the pack of cigarettes from my pocket and put one in my mouth, lighting it as soon as I sit on the ledge. Kinsley scowls, making her distaste for my choices obvious.

  “Smoking is bad for you, Grayson.”

  I snort and blow the smoke right into her face. “Do I look like I give a fuck?”

  Carter pats my shoulder as Jace laughs. “As long as you can play like you have been, I don’t give a shit what you do.”

  A few minutes later, the door opens, and Savannah comes walking through it. She doesn’t even acknowledge us, or me for that matter, as she walks down the stairs and straight to a black Cadillac Escalade.

  “Who’s that?” I question, nodding toward the car.

  Kinsley turns around to see what I’m referring to and then rolls her eyes. “That’s Brady.”

  Brady. I heard Carter say the name earlier, but I was too furious to even process the importance. It sounds familiar, but I can’t quite put my finger on it. Even with all the research I’ve done on Savannah, I don’t remember anything about him.

  “Is he her boyfriend or something?”

  Jace raises his eyebrows. “Why? You interested?”

  An involuntary grunt leaves my mouth. “Nah. Stuck-up bitches aren’t really my thing.”

  I level Kinsley with a look, hoping she gets the message. Emma narrows her eyes at me while Pai
ge and Becca can’t seem to contain their amusement.

  “Yeah, it’s her boyfriend,” Paige finally tells me. “She doesn’t really talk about him though. She’s protective of their relationship.”

  I mull that over. There was a time where she was protective of our relationship too, before she went and fucked me over like it was the easiest thing in the world. I breathe in the nicotine, hoping for it to calm me down before I take my anger out on some undeserving fool. It’s important I save my wrath for the only one who truly deserves it. I want her to rue the day she turned her back on me.

  I WALK IN THE front door, hearing the sound of my mom giggling in the kitchen. As soon as I enter the room, every bit of patience I built up on the drive home vanishes.

  “What the fuck is he doing here?” I growl, referring to my mother’s shithead ex-boyfriend.

  My mom frowns. “Grayson, be nice. Justin drove all the way from Campton to see us. The least you could do is be respectful.”

  “Yeah, Grayson,” Justin taunts. “Show a little respect.”

  I take a step forward, clenching my fist tightly. “Shut the fuck up, prick. You don’t get to speak to me after what you did to her.”

  “Grayson Matthew!”

  Turning my murderous stare from Justin to my mother, I shove my finger in his direction. “He doesn’t belong here. I want him gone, and you should, too.”

  I don’t give her a second to answer before I storm out of the room and up the stairs. How dare she let him come here after the night I had to pry him off of her. He had been staying with us for a bit—which essentially was the PG way of telling your son that your boyfriend is moving in—when he came home wasted off his ass one night. My mom started yelling at him, pissed that he smelled like some other bitch’s perfume.

  I had gone into my room until I heard a bang over my headphones—making the whole wall vibrate. I ran out to find him on top of her, with his hands around her neck as she was clawing at his arms. In a split-second decision, I charged at him full force. It knocked him over and freed my mom from his grasp, but that didn’t stop me. I pummeled my fist into his face so many times I lost track of when he went unconscious.

  The cops came and arrested him that night, and my mother was granted a restraining order. He was sentenced to a year in prison, but judging by the fact that it’s only nine months later and he’s out, I’m assuming he’s on parole. The fucker is lucky I didn’t kill him that night. Had my mom not screamed at me to stop, I probably would have.

  I slam the door shut behind me with a force that causes it to echo through the entire house. He has a lot of fucking nerve coming here. I grab the closest thing to me, a picture frame from my dresser, and throw it across the room. It shatters into a million pieces as soon as it hits the wall and only then do I realize what I just threw. I watch the photo fall gently to the floor before going and plucking it up out of the scattered pieces of glass.

  I’m only a kid in the picture, standing in front of both my parents with a broad grin across my face. My father has a protective arm around my mother’s waist, holding her close to him, while my mother beams happily. It’s exactly what I envision when I remember the happier times of my childhood, but like the frame the photo was in, those times are just a memory.

  I walk over to the window and look out at the house across the street. The blue shudders and beige siding look the same as they always have, but something about it feels different. A part of me wonders if she and her father still live there.

  “Grayson?” My father calls from downstairs. I’m up in my room playing with the new dinosaur toys I got for Christmas. “Come down here. There’s someone I’d like you to meet.”

  I groan quietly as I get up and leave my toys behind. When I reach the top of the steps, I can see my parents standing with another man and a little girl by the front door. She looks shy, with her blonde hair in a ponytail as she keeps a tight hold on the bear in her arms. I slide down the banister, laughing the whole way until my father catches me.

  “Honey, what did I say about sliding down that?” my mom scolds.

  I drop my head toward the floor. “That I’m going to get hurt one day.”

  My dad drops down onto one knee in front of me. “Your mother just wants to keep you safe, Gray. She’s not trying to ruin your fun.”

  “Your name is Gray? Like the color?” the little girl asks.

  I look up at her, and the first thing I notice is her light blue eyes. They remind me of the sky right before sunset. I smile, and it widens when she smiles back.

  “Grayson, but my dad calls me Gray.” A slight look of disappointment graces her face before I continue. “But you can call me Gray, too.”

  That makes her happy. “Okay! I’m Savannah, but my dad calls me Savi.”

  “Savi.” I test the name on my tongue. “I like it.”

  “Why don’t you take Savannah to see your new toys?” my mom suggests.

  I nod, grinning widely, and wave for Savi to follow me. We go into the den where the Christmas tree is, my presents still scattered underneath it from after I unwrapped them all. She instantly starts playing with the remote-controlled car—one of my favorite presents this year.

  “So, did you just move here? I’ve never seen you before.”

  She nods, still shy. “Yeah. We moved in across the street. My dad said that he’s been friends with your parents since he was in college. Whatever that is.”

  “Did you want to move here?”

  I can tell it’s a touchy subject by the way she won’t look at me. I almost tell her she doesn’t have to answer when she sighs. “No, but when my mommy went to heaven, Daddy said we should move.”

  My eyes water at the thought of losing one of my parents. “I’m sorry.”

  She wipes a stray tear from her cheek. “Me too.”

  We spend the afternoon playing with every toy I have, and when we get bored of them, we move on to playing hide and seek. She’s not a very good seeker, but I’m also the best at hiding. By the time her dad announces that it’s time for them to go, we are both exhausted. I walk her to the door and give her a hug goodbye.

  “I’m really glad you moved across the street,” I tell her.

  She smiles. “Me too. Bye, Gray.”

  “Bye, Savi.”

  PULLING UP TO SCHOOL the next day, I’m not entirely prepared to see Savannah again. In my plan to ruin her life, I never considered that she might be the most popular girl in school. It’s one thing to torment and torture someone who only has a couple of friends. It’s another to get away with doing it to the captain of the cheerleading squad. Still, I’m determined to get my revenge. I just need to be more careful and calculated about it.

  I park my car and get out, walking up to the front steps. I decide to have one last cigarette before going inside. Just as I start to light it, that same familiar Escalade pulls up out front. I can see through the mirror as Savannah reaches over and gives the driver a hug before getting out. She starts to walk toward the doors when she stops. As if she can sense my presence, she turns to look at me. Her eyes start at my face and move down my body. When she reaches my hand, she frowns—clearly spotting the lit cigarette.

  A decade ago, I wouldn’t have dreamed of doing anything that causes her even the slightest bit of upset. If she told me I shouldn’t do something, I’d drop it in a heartbeat. But now? I bring the cigarette up to my mouth and take a long pull. She stares intently as I exhale. It’s nothing more than a silent fuck you, and she knows it.

  Her shoulders fall and she turns away, continuing her walk inside. However, when the sun hits her just right, I notice the light reflecting off a chain around her neck. For a brief second, I wonder if it’s the same necklace I got her for her tenth birthday, but I quickly brush that thought off. She destroyed my entire life while still acting like my best friend. If she did keep the gift, it’s probably tossed in one of her many jewelry boxes somewhere.

  I finish my cigarette and walk inside, deciding to
skip my locker and head straight to class. I wave hello to Delaney as I take the desk I sat in yesterday. She and I really need to get together and catch up. We haven’t talked since the day before my mom and I left town. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t miss her and her crazy-ass sister.

  A couple minutes after the bell rings, the door opens, and in walks Carter and the rest of the gang—including Savannah. She’s laughing at something Jace said, and I grip the edge of the desk to keep my cool. It’s not that I’m jealous. I just don’t believe she deserves anything good in life. If Jace wants to fuck her, then….yeah, no. Over my dead body.

  I fist bump Carter as he walks by and takes the desk behind me. Kinsley smiles flirtatiously and slips into her seat. Then, I spot Savannah. She stops short as she sees me, and something unfamiliar flickers in her eyes. She looks like she’s fighting an intense mental battle before she runs her fingers through her hair.

  “You’re in my seat.” She tells me, and well, I may not be able to do much until I figure out the social dynamic in this place, but this is one thing I can do.

  I chuckle and raise my brows at her. “I’m not moving.”

  Looking around, she spots the only other available seat—next to Delaney. I half expect for her to smile triumphantly, since it should hardly be an inconvenience to sit next to her best friend, but instead, she frowns.

  “Grayson, just go sit over there.”

  “No, thanks. I’m good.” I cross my arms over my chest.

  The teacher clears his throat behind us. “Miss Montgomery, is there a problem?”

  She rolls her eyes before she focuses them on me, glaring. “Nope.”

  Kinsley snickers next to me as Savannah makes her way to the seat across the room. However, she shuts up as soon as Sav turns around and glowers at her. I make a mental note to pay attention to the relationship between the two of them, but first I want to see what’s up with her and Delaney.