Secrets We Keep (Thistle Cove 1)

1

Kenley

“Your desperation is showing,” Alice says, slamming the passenger side door. “At least pretend like you aren’t looking at him.”

“I’m not looking at anyone.” I drag my gaze away from the crowded parking lot and the flow of students toward the main building. Specifically, a purple and gold letterman’s jacket that just vanished into the front doors. I reach into the backseat to grab my backpack.

“Sure,” she says sarcastically. “You can fool a lot of people. You can even fool him, but not me, Kenley Keene.”

I catch Alice’s eye over the roof of the car. She may sound harsh, but I know she’s right. I hate it when she calls me out for my deep-seated insecurities about Rose and Finn.

Who, interestingly enough, did not walk into the school together. Finn, curiously, was alone.

I take a deep breath, grab my camera bag, and shut the door. “You agreed to let it go.”

“I did let it go, you seem to be the one stuck in the past.”

Alice and I meet at the front of the car, her hands wrapped around the straps of her purple backpack. The irritation in her hazel eyes has shifted to sympathy.

She removes one hand from the backpack and curls her pinky. “Let’s shake on it.”

“Shake on what?”

“Letting it go.”

I look at her finger, ready and waiting. Rose may have been my best friend once upon a time, but those days are gone. That ended with betrayal and a terrible prank three years ago. And my crush on Finn? Foolish. We’ve lived next door to one another for thirteen years. He’s made his choice.

It definitely wasn’t me.

I curve my own pinky and hook it around hers, squeezing tight.

“Deal.”

“Deal.”

“No one is going to mess up our senior year,” she says, grabbing my arm and leading me toward the school. “Not Rose Waller. Not Finn Holloway. Not anyone. I promise you that.”

I didn’t know it then, but some promises are best not kept.

“Who are you stalking now?”

“I’m not stalking anyone,” I say to Ezra Baxter, suddenly feeling like a stalker. I’m sitting at my desk in AP Lit, my camera in my hands. I bought a new lens, paid for by my summer job lifeguarding at the community pool, and I’m trying to figure out how to get it to focus.

“He’s just mad the last good photo he took was a mugshot,” Ozzy Drake says, sliding into the seat behind mine.

Ezra’s jaw tics, which gives off scary vibe, but it isn’t really a bad thing. He’s got amazing bone structure. Like, perfectly cut cheekbones and a straight, symmetrical nose. I’ve known him since he and his family moved back to Thistle Cove in the third grade. Back then, he was scrawny. In middle school, I had six inches on him. Now he has tousled, messy, almost black hair, warm brown skin, and a mysterious scar over his eyebrow. He’s good looking if you’re into juvenile delinquents. Which I’m not. He has a record. And a reputation.

I shift slightly and snap his photo while he gouges his pen into the ancient desktop.

Ozzy shifts behind me. Another classmate that I’ve known forever. Longer than Ezra. Oz and I were in preschool together. At four, we’d had an elaborate wedding in the treehouse back by Carter’s Creek. It had no chance of lasting. That was the year Finn Holloway moved in next door.

“Hey, Oz,” I say, getting a good look at him. He’d grown over the summer, returning from a creative writing program at the university a head taller than when he’d left. His shoulders stretch out the soft, cotton fabric of the Nirvana T-shirt he’s had since ninth grade. Brown hair curls out from under his cap.

“Keene,” he says, with a slight nod. He opens his mouth to say something more but then his eyes flick to the door.

Finn Holloway has arrived, drawing my attention away from everyone else. He’s alone. Second time today. I know Rose is in this class—it’s the only AP Literature class for seniors. He grabs a seat near the front—right where she would want to sit—and tosses his backpack on the empty chair next to him. His eyes dart around, fliting over my face and then Ozzy’s quickly. I give him a small smile, which he weakly returns, before hunching over and checking his phone.

I tilt my camera just so and snap a photo.

“Ezra may be right, you are a stalker,” Ozzy mutters under his breath.

I look at the digital screen. “Just testing my new lens.”

He rolls his eyes and tugs his trademark cap down over his ears. He’s always wearing it. Even when it’s still warm outside.

Juliette, Rose’s current best friend, walks through the door, mid-laugh. Her long red hair falls in soft, perfect waves over her shoulders. The color of her hair comes from a bottle, but the blue of her eyes is real. They’re just like her dad’s, and they zero in on Finn. Whatever made her smile a moment before is short lived, her lips tugging downward as she looks at the empty seat next to his.

“She never showed?” the redhead asks.

“Nope.”

Juliette pulls out her phone. “No texts.”

“Me either.”

She frowns and takes the seat on the other side of Finn. “Maybe she’s sick.”