The Girl in the Love Song (Lost Boys 1)

Holden’s smile fled, and a cold shadow seemed to drop over him. “I did it to throw him off guard. That’s all.”

That wasn’t all. Not by a longshot. But we all had secrets and dark shit in our pasts. What made Ronan stick around was that I didn’t pry, and neither of us was about to start now with Holden. But as the night deepened, he told us a little about himself. How he’d moved here from Seattle and that he lived with his aunt and uncle in Seabright, the wealthiest neighborhood in Santa Cruz. The mansions even dwarfed Violet’s house.

“You had only one more year of high school,” I said. “Why leave?”

“Not up to me. After my sophomore year, my father arranged for me to take a little detour into the wilderness.”

“You mean like a camp?”

“Sure,” he said sourly, hunching into his coat, despite the fire and the warm summer night. “A camp. And that camp necessitated that I spend a year in Switzerland. At the Sanitarium du lac Léman,” he said in a French accent as flawless as his Spanish. “That’s Lake Geneva, to you and me.”

“Sanitarium…?”

“Loony bin. Crazy house. Mental institution. Take your pick.”

I faced forward. “Jesus.”

“There was no Jesus as far as I could see,” Holden said, smiling sadly. “Believe me. I looked.”

A short silence fell and then Ronan arched another stream of lighter fluid on the fire. “That must’ve been one helluva wilderness camp.”

I held my breath while Holden stared. Then he threw back his head and laughed. “Is this guy for real?”

“One hundred fucking percent.” I clinked my juice to Holden’s beer bottle. “To you for surviving the camp. And Switzerland.”

Holden swallowed, trying not to show how those words touched him. “To Ronan, you magnificent bastard.” He reached across me to toast with the big guy. “For being one hundred percent fucking real.”

Ronan dug into his jacket pocket and pulled out a small yellow device. “To Frankie, the stupid fucker who didn’t notice I swiped his police Taser.”

The earth stood still for a split second and then we laughed. All three of us. We laughed so fucking hard that for a few hours, I forgot that my heart was broken.

Chapter Nine

The gym was loud with the sounds of cheers, stamping feet, and music. The cheerleaders, Evelyn leading, performed a routine in their blue and yellow skirts and sleeveless sweaters. Metallic gold pom-poms rustled and glinted in the sun streaming in from the huge windows behind the basketball hoops.

The crowd gasped as two male cheerleaders tossed Evelyn high into the air, where she pulled off an intricate gymnastic flip and landed in the cradle of their arms.

I sat with some friends from my study group—guys and girls who were working toward their own med school or MIT dreams—and Shiloh, who had earphones in, eyes closed, tuning out the pep rally as if she were meditating in a forest.

I scanned the crowd and found Miller sitting high up in a corner of the gym with Ronan and Holden. Videos captured on cell phones had circulated in the few weeks since Chance’s party. Holden’s tap dance on the Blaylock dining room table was a hit, but his confrontation with Frankie had freaked people out.

“He’s so hot,” Evelyn had lamented a few days after the party. “I don’t get it. He’s got charisma to spare but also, apparently, a death wish. Not to mention, he burned all his bridges with River and Chance, so now he’s relegated to hanging out with your boy and the criminal.”

But Holden seemed perfectly happy with Miller and Ronan. That morning, the three were watching the performance, talking and laughing. An odd trio: a grungy musician, a tattooed bad boy, and a billionaire genius who dressed like he was walking the winter runways in Milan every day. None of whom gave a crap what anyone thought of them.

It had been a long time since Miller had hung out with me as freely.

The cheerleaders finished their routine to applause that echoed throughout the cavernous gym of polished wood.

Principal Hayes took a microphone onto center court. “And now, the Homecoming Chair, Layla Calderon, will announce your Homecoming Court.”

Layla, a gal with long dark hair in a mini skirt and a tight T-shirt, pushed a small rolling table covered with a black cloth to center court. On it were four crowns: two large and two small. She took the mic from Principal Hayes with the practiced ease of a news anchor.

“The votes have been counted and the results have been tabulated. Put your hands together and welcome your Homecoming Prince…Donte Weatherly!”

The crowd cheered, thunderous in the gym. The football team, sitting in a cluster near the front of the assembly in their letterman jackets, whooped and thumped their star wide receiver on the back as he joined Layla on the court and let her put a plastic, sparkly coronet over his brow.

He tried to walk away, but Layla grabbed his arm. “Not so fast. Every prince needs a princess. This year’s Homecoming Princess is…Evelyn Gonzalez!”