First Chances Read online

  Riley’s expression turned sheepish, and his gaze fell on Hadie and me. “So, what about you two? Are you guys official?”

  Silence fell around us as I swallowed the lump in my throat and turned to Hadie. She seemed embarrassed by the attention that was on us, and gave me a shy smile.

  “Oh, I don’t know,” I said, running a hand through my hair nonchalantly. “I was thinking about it since we kiss a lot, and I don’t usually like kissing random girls.”

  Hadie’s eyes grew wide and she smacked me across the arm, making all of us burst into laughter. “I am not a random girl!”

  “Oh, yeah?” I asked, bringing my mouth close to hers. “Then what are you? Because I don’t kiss girls who aren’t my girlfriend.”

  She stared at me in surprise and then frowned, seeming lost in her own thoughts for a moment. Finally, she tilted her head to the side as she chewed on her bottom lip. “Well, maybe I could be.”

  Even though I knew what she was referring to, I raised a brow in question anyway. It was fun teasing her and seeing her smile.

  “Your girlfriend, I mean,” she said, blushing like crazy.

  “Hmm.” I glanced up at the ceiling, pretending to think about it for a second. “Well, I guess I can send you an application. You can expect my response in 8-10 business days.”

  “Eddie!” she cried in outrage, swatting at me again as my friends starting laughing.

  Grinning, I snatched up her hand, pulling her close to me. “You better watch that hand, Hadie Swinton. You don’t want to know what I’ll do to you.”

  She fell silent, and her face was tinged with pink. Something about the way she looked made me pull her closer to me. Having her pressed against me filled my chest with an overwhelming sensation for this girl, for the way she made me feel.

  “Dude, tone down the PDA,” Riley interjected. “We’re trying to eat here.”

  I picked up a piece of baked potato off my plate and threw it at Riley, who dodged it with a laugh. Stacey punched him in the arm instead, and he looked at her like a puppy that had been scolded.

  Not caring what anyone thought, I reached over and planted a kiss on Hadie’s forehead before wrapping an arm around her small shoulders. Hadie glanced up at me, her face warm and glowing. Then all of a sudden, she frowned. “What happened to your face?”

  “Huh?” I asked, thrown off by her question.

  “Your face,” she said, squinting at me. “It looks swollen.”

  Oh, crap. I’d almost forgotten about Three and his show of stupidity. I’d been too nervous about the date that I’d become oblivious to the pain in my face from being knocked to the ground.

  A hush fell around the table as my friends caught on to Hadie’s question. Way to make it even more weird, guys.

  “Nothing, I just fell,” I lied quickly, immediately hating myself.

  I’d told myself I’d always be honest with Hadie, but this was something I had to lie about. She didn’t need a reminder of Three on our date. Honestly, I’d prefer it if he never flashed across her mind ever again.

  “Do you want some ice for that?” she asked, still frowning at me.

  “Nah, I’m a man. I can handle it,” I said with a wink, trying to push the bad feeling away, which made her giggle.

  “So what are we gonna call you guys now that you’re official?” Riley asked out of nowhere, clearly trying to change the subject. “Brad and Angelina are Brangelina; Ashton and Luca are Ashca.” He trailed off, looking around at everyone for some input.

  Even though I was grateful he was trying to steer the conversation away from my swollen face, I was also thrown off by the new topic he’d brought up. Besides, I’d never heard of anyone refer to Ashton and Luca as Ashca until this very second.

  “Ashca?” Ashton demanded, staring at him in disbelief. “That’s what you’re calling us? Ashca?!”

  “It sounds better than Lucton,” Riley said, giving her an innocent grin before turning back to Hadie and me. “Eddie and Hadie. What name can we make from that?”

  “Well, you can’t really,” Elly said simply. “When you put their names together, you get either Eddie or Hadie.”

  “What?” Riley’s brow furrowed in confusion at her words. “Are you kidding me?”

  “No, seriously,” Elly said, looking around the table as she chewed on a piece of chicken marsala. “You guys try combining their names.”

  There were several long seconds of silence as my friends’ faces scrunched up in concentration.

  “I never realized that before!” Stacey finally cried, staring at us with wide eyes. “That’s crazy.”

  I had never realized that either, but it wasn’t like I sat around trying to fuse Hadie and my names together.

  “Dude, that blows,” Riley said, seeming disappointed that he wouldn’t be able to coin a name for us.

  Frankly, I was relieved he couldn’t think of something stupid to call us.

  “Well, I think it’s sweet,” Ashton declared, shooting him a glare.

  “Me too,” Elly said, with a dreamy smile. “Like they were meant to be.”

  “You could just use their full first names,” Luca suggested, giving me a teasing look. He knew how I felt about my first name. “Right, Eddison?”

  My mom was the only one who ever called me Eddison, and I’d gone by Eddie since I was a kid. Hadie also had an interesting first name, which she probably didn’t think I knew.

  “And Hadassah,” I said slowly, as Hadie groaned from beside me.

  Clearly, she wasn’t a fan of her first name either, and maybe that was why everyone knew her as Hadie. I, for one, thought Hadassah was pretty cool.

  “Eddison and Hadassah?” Riley asked, his eyes growing as he stared between the both of us. “Holy shit, what are you gonna name your kids?”

  “Renesmee?” Elly suggested with a chuckle.

  I didn’t know what the hell a Renesmee was, but it made Hadie laugh, so I figured it was some girl thing that I just didn’t get.

  “How did you know my first name was Hadassah?” Hadie asked in a low tone, nudging me with an elbow.

  “I have my ways,” I said, trying to sound mysterious.

  Actually, it wasn’t a big mystery at all. Since my uncle was the principal at my high school, I’d spent countless hours as a student aide helping him organize student files. There were first names and middle names a lot of kids probably didn’t want anyone to know. Trust me, Hadassah wasn’t bad compared to Wilfred or Bertha.

  “Hmm,” she said, her eyes bright as she squeezed my hand.

  My heart skipped a little and tripped over itself.

  “Alright, I don’t have a lot to work with here,” Riley was saying, his forehead creased with a heavy line as he pushed his fork around his plate. “Heddison?”

  Luca shook his head ever so slightly. “Really? You want to nickname them Heddison? That’s the worst fucking name I’ve ever heard.”

  The girls laughed at that, but I had to agree. Heddison was about the worst damn name he could come up with.

  Riley shrugged, throwing his hands up in the air. “Well, it’s that or Eddassah. It’s not like I had anything manageable to start with.” He said this so seriously that you could believe for a second that this was his job.

  “Eddassah?” Stacey said, wrinkling up her face in thought. “Sounds weird.”

  “We’ll take it,” I said quickly, wanting this shameful concoction of names to come to an end. “Eddassah is good.” Even though Eddassah was terrible.

  “Yes, it’s good,” Hadie said very unconvincingly, making a face which made us all crack up.

  Eddassah was terrible, but it was ours. We were Eddassah, and I had never thought it would be possible—that a connection would be made between Hadie and me. It didn’t matter how crappy our names sounded together, I was going to take it.

  As I turned my head to survey my friends once again, I caught Ashton’s eye. She flashed me a big thumbs up, and I was glad she was here. I was glad a
ll my friends were here, so they could be a part of this moment in my life.

  Most importantly, I was glad Hadie was here, because she was that moment.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Hadie

  My heart was fluttering with anticipation as I pulled my hair back into a high ponytail. My hair was still purple, though I was kind of starting to miss the old me. Maybe it was about time to go back to my normal, boring brown.

  I mean, who had made the rule that it wasn’t cool to be normal or boring? Maybe that was who I was and there was nothing wrong with being myself. Both times that I’d hung out with Eddie hadn’t even involved drinking or smoking, and we’d had plenty of fun. And sex.

  A twinge of guilt shot through me, but I couldn’t feel bad for liking someone, could I? A huge part of me was relieved that I wasn’t spending so much time with Three anymore. Being rebellious—well, rebellious compared to what I’d been like before—was hard work. Especially when it didn’t come naturally.

  Now it was time to come back to myself.

  Right now, I was getting ready to meet Eddie at the dead garden, which was why my heart was currently dancing around in my chest. It wasn’t like he hadn’t seen me before, but now something had changed.

  I was his girlfriend. I hadn’t been anyone’s girlfriend since Lincoln, and a part of me was actually okay with that fact. A part of me was giddy-happy about it. Eddie made my heart swim laps around my chest. I was so eager to see him that I started getting ready way ahead of time.

  After I had done my makeup—which wasn’t as bold as I usually did it when I hung out with Three—I opened up my closet and rifled through my sweater collection.

  Yes, I had a sweater collection. There was nothing wrong with a good, ol’ sweater. Or twenty. Sweaters could be cool, okay?

  After deciding on a cream-colored sweater with cascading ruffles on the back, I picked out a pair of blue, denim jeans, thinking they would look pretty good together. That was, if they fit.

  No, seriously. Neither of them would fit.

  I tried the whole ‘laying down on the bed and pulling the jeans on’ trick, which didn’t work. Then I tried standing up and jumping into them, which didn’t work either. My sweater did fit—sort of—but only because the fabric stretched to fit across my belly.

  What the-?

  As I stared at myself in the mirror, wondering how I had managed to put on so much weight, my phone began to ring. Walking over to my desk, I saw it was Estella who was calling.

  “Hey, Estee!” I said, unable to hide the enthusiasm in my voice as I answered the phone. “What’s up?”

  I was actually happy. I was actually looking forward to something. It was hard to remember the last time I’d been like this. It was starting to remind me of the girl I’d been a long time ago. I had forgotten that I could still be this girl.

  “Hadie, I’m going to get straight to the point,” Estella began, “I want you to know that I love you, but I have to be real with you.”

  At her words, the excitement I’d been feeling was immediately sapped away. Something was seriously wrong if this was how she was going to start the conversation.

  “What’s wrong, Estella?” I asked, my heartbeat increasing with trepidation. “Did something happen?”

  Estella sighed, pausing for a second as though she was trying to gather her thoughts. “I was supposed to be there yesterday when Eddie surprised you. So was Mariah.” She paused again, and I wondered where the frick this was going. “Hadie, I was with Three and Vincent. I was telling Vincent what Three had done, because Vincent is the only person Three will listen to.”

  My heart sank down low into a stomach full of writhing worms. Three listened to Vincent because he had always been forefront in the Madden gang. If Three had done something that had made Estella go to Vincent, then it was something pretty serious.

  “What did Three do?” I asked, though a part of me was dreading the answer.

  “He brought two of his friends by Eddie’s house yesterday, trying to prevent him from seeing you.” Estella sucked in a deep breath, and I could tell she was trying hard not to cry. “They roughed him up, Hadie. Who knows what else they would’ve done if we hadn’t gotten there in time.”

  “W-what?” I stumbled backwards, the back of my legs meeting the edge of my bed, and I sat down on it heavily as Estella’s words circled inside my head. “But he seemed fine yesterday-” Then I stopped, remembering Eddie’s face in the dimness of the conference room. “I saw the swelling on his face, but he said he’d fallen.”

  “Because he didn’t want to ruin your night, Hadie,” Estella said, sounding teary. “He wanted everything to go perfectly. That boy would do anything for you, and look what happened to him!”

  There was a buzzing inside my head. Every good feeling in my body drained away as she spoke.

  “I wasn’t trying to hurt him,” I whispered, almost to myself.

  “Do you understand what you’ve done? What you’ve caused?” She was relentless, her tone scathing. “You strung Three along, giving him hope that something could happen between the two of you. Three isn’t a bad person, but your actions pushed him into doing something so messed up. Because of you, Eddie was hurt. You don’t play with people’s feelings like that, Hadie.”

  My mouth fell open at her words. She had never spoken to me like that before. Estella had always been calm and patient, but now she seemed like a completely different person. She’d tiptoed around me, always taking my feelings into consideration, but now she was being real with me, and that reality was causing my head to spin.

  “I-I didn’t mean to,” I stammered, not knowing what else to say.

  “But you did,” she said, sounding frustrated with my response. “What happened to you, Hadie?”

  “I-I.” My mind went blank at her words. There was nothing I could say to her. I had done something terrible, and I hadn’t even realized it. I had toyed with a boy’s feelings for no reason, and Eddie had gotten hurt in the process. “I have to see Three.”

  “Hadie-” she started to say, but I cut her off.

  “I’ll talk to you later.”

  With that, I hung up the phone as my mind began to kick into gear. How could Three do something so terrible to Eddie? Poor Eddie, who would never hurt anyone. He didn’t deserve that.

  I had to find Three. I still had enough time before my date with Eddie to drive down to Penthill and get back before he knew any different. Maybe I’d be a little late, but I could message him later if I was running late.

  Anger and frustration and devastation were coursing through me as I sent Three a quick message.

  Where are you? I need to see you ASAP!

  As I waited for his response, I decided to wear some thick, woolly leggings instead. I didn’t want to go through the disappointment of trying on another pair of jeans and discovering they didn’t fit either because of the weight I had unintentionally put on. Was it from drinking alcohol?

  Okay, yes, I was purposely thinking about insignificant things like weight gain so that my mind wouldn’t immediately jump to more serious matters, like what Three had done to Eddie. I honestly did feel terrible if Three thought I’d been leading him on, but it wasn’t like we’d been going steady or anything. All we’d been doing was hanging out. There was no reason for him to turn into a jealous psychopath.

  Just as I was pulling on a pair of brown ankle boots, my phone ‘pinged’ twice, letting me know that I had two messages.

  The first message was from Estella.

  I didn’t mean to attack you and hurt your feelings. Please call me if you need to talk.

  It was nice that she’d messaged me, but I wasn’t about to call her. I had more pressing matters to tend to, and they all had to do with the second person who had messaged me—Three.

  I’m at the shop. What’s wrong?

  I ignored his question.

  I’ll come to you. Wait for me there

  He sent back a shorter response this t
ime.

  Ok

  Grabbing my purse and keys, I headed out the front door to where my car was parked in the driveway. Getting in, I backed out of the driveway and sped down the street, the edges of my mind blurred as I thought about the mess I had created.

  It was completely unreasonable for me to drive thirty minutes to Penthill so that I could confront Three about what he’d done, but there was a good hour left before I had to meet Eddie, and I knew I could get away with being a little late.

  There was no way I could wait another moment without seeing Three and giving him a piece of my mind. He couldn’t get away with being a bully and a thug. I should’ve known from the start that it was a bad idea getting involved with someone from a notorious gang, but I had made that mistake and now I was going to make sure Three never did something like this again.

  Taking the exit out of town, I raced down the long road that connected Statlen and Penthill, passing the place where Three and I often stopped at on the side of the road. I knew I shouldn’t have been speeding, but it did help me get to Penthill in a little over twenty minutes, so I wasn’t complaining.

  I pulled up right outside the body shop Three worked at and swiftly jumped out of the car, trying to see if I could catch sight of him. Glancing around, I noticed him hunched over a car, doing something to the engine with a metal, tool thing.

  Yes, I’d just called it a metal, tool thing. I knew as much about cars and tools as Three probably knew what the names of Elizabeth Bennett’s sisters were. Which was zero, unless he had a secret fascination with nineteenth century Austen novels.

  “Three,” I called out, choosing to remain by my car instead of walking over to him.

  Three straightened up and turned around, and in the light of the auto shop I saw the guilt and uncertainty on his face. He wiped his greasy hands off on a dirty rag and tossed it onto the ground before walking towards me.

  As I watched him approach, a slow anger began to simmer within me. It wasn’t right what he’d done; this could never happen again. It was done, here and now.