Rule #6: You Can't Elevate the Outcast - Paperback

The salty wind blew around me, causing my hair to slap me in the face. I sighed and glanced forward to see if either of my parents had noticed—they hadn’t. Instead, they continued their heated conversation about the pronunciation of some French word they’d just heard on the radio.

They were wind whipping me and completely oblivious to it. 

“Ma,” I finally complained, leaning forward in an attempt to get her attention. I tapped her shoulder, which got me a cursory nod in my direction. “You’re killing me back here.” I gathered my hair together at the nape of my neck in an effort to stop it from flying around me. 

I was going to see Bradley today, and there was no way that I wanted to look like a Muppet who had been washed and left out to dry. With the level of humidity in the air, plus the wind…that was my inevitable fate. 

“Oh, get over yourself,” Priscilla, my older sister, said as she flipped the page of her book. 

Even though we sprang from the same loins, we couldn’t be more opposite. While I was blue eyed and blonde, she took after Dad with her dark eyes, dark complexion, and dark personality. Wrap that up with her current hairstyle—a half pony with a shaved scalp—and I was convinced one of us was adopted. 

Or, at least, fathered by the mailman. 

“Sorry, sweetie,” Mom said as she finally turned to face me. 

I shot Priscilla a look before I focused my attention back on the culprit of my quickly frizzing hair. “Window,” I said as I motioned to her door. 

Mom glanced over her shoulder and then looked back me. She sighed but started to roll it up. 

“We’re not turning on the air conditioning just so you can have perfect hair,” Dad piped up from the driver’s seat.

Even though he was a heart surgeon, Dad was a penny pincher. He refused to pay for anything. He even filled up water bottles and put them in the toilet tanks, so we used less water. 

I never understood his antics, but Mom called it “endearing” and left it at that. No matter how much I complained that he refused to pay for my cheerleading uniforms or the newest iPhone, I couldn’t get them to budge. 

Which is why I got a job at the local diner. It wasn’t glamorous, but it helped pay for things. Thankfully, Bradley got a job there as well. It wasn’t so bad when we could spend our evenings smiling at each other across the counter. 

And maybe slipping to the back for a heated make-out session. 

“Ugh. She’s got that goofy look again,” Priscilla said as she shifted so that her back was facing me. 

I swatted her arm, and she awarded me with a death stare before focusing back on her book.

“I’m sorry I have a love life, and you don’t,” I said as I folded my arms. “Maybe if you tried harder, you wouldn’t scare off half the population.”

“Haley Rose, that was not called for,” Mom said as she shot me a look that said apologize, now. “We all express ourselves in our own ways. Priscilla is just living her best life.”

“Bleh, Mom, don’t psychoanalyze me.” Priscilla shoved her hand into her pocket and pulled out her earphones. Once they were stuck snuggly in her ears, she raised her book so we could no longer see her. Which meant Mom’s attention was now on me. 

I’d kind of walked into that one. Mom clearly wanted to talk about what I’d said and how I should apologize, but I really wasn’t in the mood. So, I decided to turn my focus to the Shaws. 

The Shaws were my parents’ best friends, and we were headed to their house right now. Lucky for me, my parents and my boyfriend’s parents were lifelong friends. Which meant when they hung out, Bradley and I hung out. 

Tragedy hit the Shaws last year when Bradley’s mother passed away after a car accident. Bradley’s older brother, Colten, had been with her but survived. In an effort to help out Mr. Shaw, my parents packed us up every weekend and headed over to their house to help with chores and to keep Dirk company. 

I never complained because it meant Bradley and I had the entire Saturday to ourselves. And tonight, we’d planned a bonfire on the beach with our friends from school. It was the last weekend of summer break, and the party was going to be amazing. 

Just what I needed. 

“How is Mr. Shaw doing?” I asked and waited for the spark of distraction to light in Mom’s eyes. 

She blinked a few times, and then her lips tipped up into a smile. “Dad talked to him on Wednesday. Apparently, Ms. Jensen actually called him to see if he was willing to join her art class on Friday.” She sighed. “While he said no, she said he was cordial about it. Which means, he just might be ready to move on.”

“Stop pushing that man, woman,” Dad said, his deep voice startling us both. 

“I’m not pushing him…just opening doors.”

“You’re pushing him,” Dad muttered as he flipped on his blinker and took a left into the small beach community of Dreamy Escape. 

I always made fun of Bradley for it, saying that the community he lived in sounded like an ice cream flavor. He’d just laugh it off. His mom’s family had owned the land, and when it was sold off to a developer, she’d been allowed to name it. 

It was nice for them now that she was gone. It’s something to remember her by. 

“Dreamy Escape,” Mom whispered—no doubt thinking the same thing I was. 

I’d grown up with Betty. She had been like a second mom to me. Our families celebrated birthdays and most major holidays together. When Bradley and I got together, it was strange at first, but it felt natural. He’d been in my life for so long, I couldn’t really imagine myself with anyone else. 

My parents weren’t thrilled that we were dating—they’re in the camp of “boys are a distraction” and “you need to think about college.” But behind their lectures, I could see that they were relieved. 

There were definitely worse boys that I could date.

“Did you hear Colten’s back?”

My ears perked at the mention of Bradley’s older brother by a year. Just as Priscilla and I were complete opposites, so were Colten and Bradley. That was a fact made even more apparent when Mrs. Shaw died. Colten folded in on himself to the point where, most days, I didn’t recognize him. I think he felt guilt for surviving when she passed, but I wasn’t sure. From the small tidbits I got from hearing my parents talk about him—Mom thought the same. 

He was dark and brooding and spent most of his time holed up in his room. When I did see him last summer after the accident, it was like I was staring at a vampire. His hair was long, and his clothes were dark. He kept to himself, only muttering a few words here and there. 

With him and Bradley being so close in age, I’d been friends with both. But eventually, Bradley and I grew closer, and Colten drifted away. It made me sad, but to be honest, I liked my life. I wasn’t interested in getting in the way of whatever point Colten was trying to prove with his new look and attitude. 

Even if he felt guilty, I knew that it would hurt Mrs. Shaw to see him act this way. It almost angered me that he did it. After all, he was supposed to honor his mother’s legacy, not defile it. 

Dad nodded, but from his tight lips, I could see that he didn’t want to talk about Colten. At least, not in front of me. Mom didn’t push it further, and even though I was left with questions, I knew that no one was going to answer them so I might as well move on. 

Thankfully, it was only a few minutes until we were pulling into the Shaws’ long driveway. They had the primo spot in this community—their house was right on the beach. 

As soon as the car stopped, I opened my door and jumped out. 

Mr. Shaw was circling around the grill he’d set up just outside of the house. He had a pair of tongs in one hand and an instruction manual in the other. The smoke that was billowing from the grill had me giggling. 

Mr. Shaw could fix your computer if it crashed, but he had a tendency to ruin anything else. His glasses were thick and covered in ash. 

“Hey, Hal,” he said, a smile stretching across his face. 

Which only made me miss Bradley more. While Colten took after Mrs. Shaw, Bradley looked similar to his dad. 

“Where’s Bradley?” I asked as I headed for the storm door and pressed the release. 

“Out back, getting ready for the bonfire,” Mr. Shaw said, his voice fading as I headed into the house. 

I could see Bradley down near the ocean. He was piling up logs into a tepee formation. I smiled as I headed to the fridge to grab a drink. As I passed by the hall mirror, I groaned when I saw the status of my hair. 

So much for taking the time to curl it. It looked like a bird’s nest had been dropped on my head. 

“Parents,” I grumbled as I reached up and started raking my fingers through my hair. 

“You know, there are people starving in other countries.”

I yelped and turned, face-to-face with Colten. His hair had gotten longer. It was clean but fell down, covering half his face. His eyes were dark as he stared at me. 

Not sure what to do or say, I forced a laugh as I attempted to tuck my hair behind my ear. 

“You don’t say,” I whispered. 

It was so strange that we used to be friends. Colten had been the Shaw brother that I’d shared my secrets with. He’d been the one who would stay up late with me after a movie ended with Bradley fast asleep on the couch and just talk to me. 

Sure, they had been junior high problems, but Colten was in high school then. To me, he was the smartest person I knew. 

Looking at him now, I felt bad for him. After Mrs. Shaw died, he spiraled. He went away to spend some time with his aunt in New York. Now that he was back, he had to take his senior year over again, which put him graduating with us. 

If he were still the Colten that I knew from when we were kids, I would have celebrated. Now? I was worried that he was going to drag down the last and—I was determined to make it—the best year of my public-school life. 

Colten’s stare was so intense that it shook me inside. I wasn’t scared of him. I knew him. Probably more than anyone else in his life. But I could sense the change in him. He was battling with something inside, and it hurt me to think of him in pain…until I met his dark, cool eyes. And then that sympathy slipped away. 

“I should get out and help Bradley,” I whispered, desperate for a reason to leave. To get out of here. 

Colten flicked his gaze toward the sliding glass door and then back to me. He sighed and shrugged as he moved into the kitchen. “Go get your Ken doll.”

I wanted to respond. I wanted to call him out on his crap. I wanted to defend my boyfriend. But those feelings paled in comparison to how much I just wanted to get out of here. 

I wanted to run to Bradley’s open arms and bury myself in them. I wanted to forget the darkness that surrounded Colten and focus on the happiness and sunshine outside. 

I knew Colten was going through something, and I did have sympathy for him. But I couldn’t let him weigh me down. I was protective of my happiness, and I wasn’t going to let him take it away from me. 

I grabbed a drink from the fridge, scurried past Colten, and headed out to the back patio. Once my feet hit the sand, I kicked off my flip-flops and headed over to Bradley. When he saw me, all the icky feelings I got from seeing Colten slipped away. His smile was like my own personal sun. 

“Hey, babe,” he said, dipping down to press his lips to mine. 

I giggled as I kissed him back. I let my soda drop to the sand and buried my hands in his hair. 

His arm wrapped around me, and he pulled me close. I allowed all the stress from the drive and seeing Colten slip away. 

I was where I needed to be. 

My life was perfect. And nothing was ever going to change that.

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