AT FIRST HATE

2. Savannah

2

Savannah

October 29, 2004

The first time I saw Derek Ballantine, I thought he was the most gorgeous person I’d ever met. Then he opened his mouth.

“Hey, y’all,” he drawled, low and smooth. “Any of y’all have Halloween plans other than losing to Holy Cross?”

He pulled his Holy Cross letterman jacket more firmly around his shoulders and then leaned forward against the chain-link fence. His other basketball buddies chuckled at his incredible wit.

While Danielle and Leigh stumbled over their words to see the hot private school boys talking to us, I narrowed my eyes. Yes, we were losing the football game to the all-boys private Catholic school 42 to 10. Yes, we undeniably sucked. But this guy wasn’t even playing. His letterman jacket was for basketball, which they sucked at. I’d cheered through enough basketball games to know that we destroyed them every year. They had, like, one good guy on that team, and it probably wasn’t even this guy.

“Is that supposed to be a pickup line?” I demanded, planting a hand on my hip and stretching the baby-blue miniskirt.

His eyes dropped to my long, pale legs and back up. “I don’t know. Is it working?”

“No,” I said flatly.

He shrugged, undeterred. “Well, I’m having a Halloween party tomorrow night. My parents are out of town, and y’all should swing by.”

“Oh wow, yeah!” Leigh said with wide blue eyes. “That’d be fun, right?”

Danielle bit her lip. “I’m supposed to go to Jack’s gig. So… I don’t know.”

“What about you?” he asked, nodding at me.

“I mean, the invitation just sounded so tempting, what with the insults and all, but no.”

Of course, I didn’t say it was because Gran and Gramps would never in a million years let me go to an unchaperoned Halloween party. Let alone a Holy Cross party. They’d never liked the local Catholic schools. They had vocally opposed Lila going to St. Catherine’s, the sister school to Holy Cross. But it was hard to argue when her mom got her free tuition because she working there.

“She’s got you there, Derek,” the tall Black guy next to him said with a laugh. “Why don’t you show them some manners? I’m Trask.” He held his hand across the fence, and Leigh shook it. He smacked the obnoxious one in the chest afterward. “This is Derek. And Hooper.”

Hooper waved shyly, a blush forming on his cheeks. He was easily the tallest of the lot—well, they were all tall, but he was a giant. “Sup.”

“I’m Leigh,” Leigh said, jumping in for us. “Danielle and Marley.” She pointed out a few other cheerleaders who had wandered over to find out what was going on.

They all waved, and I heard Christina Arlington whisper in awe, “That’s Derek Ballentine.”

Derek grinned broadly when he realized he had the attention of the entire cheer squad, and again, he invited everyone to his Halloween party tomorrow night. Only I seemed uninterested. Not because he was unattractive, but because I knew his type.

I’d spent long years analyzing people like Derek Ballentine. The ones who wanted s*x after the first date, who expected the world but refused to give anything back in turn, who thought they were entitled to respect when they hadn’t earned it. I’d seen them flounder in and out of my mother’s life since I was a baby. One after the other after the other. She’d never been around enough for me to really know their names, but in my mind, they were all the same guy anyway. A placeholder for the real thing. And Mom never saw it, but I certainly did.

“Ladies!” Coach called furiously. “The game is still happening.”

The rest of the girls giggled and headed back into positions. We ran through a few cheers to try to get the crowd into the crippling defeat, but nothing could make them rally. And Derek stood by and watched me.

I’d never felt self-conscious in the tiny blue skirt and crop top before. I’d actually started cheering so that I could wear something other than pants or knee-length skirts. Gran was traditional, and she believed deeply in modesty. I thought she was trying to make up for how Mom had turned out, but I’d only said that once before in her presence and had the s**t smacked out of me. So I wasn’t prone to saying that one again.

Either way, cheer wasn’t my passion by a long shot. I preferred dancing and did so at a local studio, but the high school didn’t have a dance team, and Gran wanted me to be “involved”—i.e., she thought it looked good on my transcript. And now, I was strutting around in a skirt that my ass nearly hung out of, and the hottest guy I’d ever met was looking at me like I was a puzzle he wanted to figure out.

A cheer rose from the other side of the stadium. Holy Cross had scored another touchdown. Their quarterback, Ash Talmadge, had run the damn ball in himself. I sighed heavily as they made the extra point, bringing the final score to 49 to 10. Depressing.

“Better luck next week,” Coach called.

I grabbed my cheer bag and slung it over my shoulder, heading for the stands to find Lila and Josie. I hadn’t seen them at all in the stands the second half. That likely meant that Josie had gotten them into trouble. What else was new?

I crossed the fence and squinted for my girls when Derek stepped into my path. He was enormous in person, towering over me with bulk I hadn’t expected from a basketball player. And I hated to admit, he was hotter up close.

“So, you really don’t want to go to the party?” he asked with a quick grin.

It was hard not to look at his lips. They were the kind of lips girls spent money on fillers to achieve. Perfectly pouty and oh-so endearing. I snapped my attention away from those lips.

“Why are you following me? It’s creepy.”

He shrugged. “Public school girls don’t normally say no.”

I rolled my eyes. “To you or your party?”

He shrugged again.

“Well, let me tell you, Derek,” I said, “I’m not like any other girl you’ll ever meet.”

Then I shouldered past him to find Josie flirting with a football player, Kyle Curtis. Lila looked generally miserable.

“Hey,” I said, dropping my bag at Lila’s feet.

“Mars,” she said. “You killed it out there. That high kick put everyone to shame.”

“Obviously,” I joked. I glanced at Josie. “How long will she be like this?”

Lila raised her eyebrows. “How long do we have?”

“Josephine Reynolds,” I called. “Can we keep the flirting to a minimum? I want to go home?”

Josie put her hand on Kyle’s arm and then turned all dramatic to face me. “Marley Nelson, you will wait your turn. I am occupied.”

I rolled my eyes at her. Most days I wished that my last name was Christianson like Gran’s. Nelson was from my father, whoever he was. He’d ditched mom when she found out she was having twins at the ripe old age of eighteen.

“Maddox is going to be picking us up any minute. If we’re late, he’ll drive off without us. I’ve watched him do it.”

Josie huffed. “Fine.” She twirled her fingers at Kyle, mouthing, Call me, and then followed us out of the stadium. “You got your ass kicked.”

“Yep,” I said, “Lila’s team is better.”

Lila groaned. “Let’s not. I’ve only been at St. Catherine’s for three months, and I want to die. I will never fit in there.”

“Well, it’s better than being in Atlanta,” Josie complained.

For as long as I could remember, Josie had spent every summer in Savannah with us. Her dad would drop her off the day after school got out to stay with her mom, who had a reputation in these parts the size of Mount Rushmore, and pick her up the day before school started. But we’d all gotten so attached, and she loved Savannah like it was home that her dad had agreed to let her drive down to see us now that she had a license. Another thing Gran would never, ever let me do.

Maddox was waiting in an old Ford pickup that used to belong to Gramps. Even though we were twins, I didn’t have my license. We’d both turned sixteen three days ago, and Maddox had passed his driver’s test with flying colors. It was the only test I’d ever failed in my entire life. And so Maddox got the truck and the fun job of chauffeuring us around.

“Get in,” Maddox said, reaching across the seat and opening the passenger door.

It only had one long seat across the front, and we had to squash inside to fit. Josie practically crawled onto Maddox’s lap, then Lila, and then me after I threw my bag into the bed. He zoomed away with all the freedom that I was lacking.

Maddox parked on the street, like everyone else in Savannah, and we trudged inside. Gran was waiting up for us, as usual, with Gramps snoring softly in the old brown recliner. She got to her feet as her eyes went to the clock. As if she didn’t already know the time.

“Late game,” she said, pulling us each in for a hug. “Y’all win?”

I shook my head. “Nah. We’re no good.”

“Ah, next time, chickadee,” she said with a kiss to my forehead. “Now, change out of that ridiculous skirt. Y’all hungry?” A chorus of yeses followed. She nodded. “I’ll whip something up. I got some biscuits in the freezer, and I can make some gravy.”

“Thanks, Gran,” Josie said, knocking her hip against Gran’s. “You’re the best.”

“Nothing like Gran’s biscuits,” Maddox agreed.

“And fried chicken,” Lila said. “Makes my mouth water thinking about it.”

“I’m going to change,” I said and headed up the creaking stairs to my room.

It was still decorated in a splash of pink from the days when I’d liked the color. I was more partial to dark colors now, but it wasn’t like we could afford much to renovate. So, pink it was. Lila and Josie followed in my wake, crashing into my room and dropping onto the bed.

“So, who was that hot guy you were talking to?” Josie asked.

I slipped out of my cheer uniform and into oversize sweats and a T-shirt. “Some Holy Cross guy.”

“I missed it,” Lila said.

“He invited me to a Halloween party.”

Josie perked up. “Party?”

“We’re not going,” I told her.

“But…” She pouted.

Lila laughed. “As if Gran would let her go.”

“Tell her that you’re staying with Lila. Works like a charm.”

“I don’t want to go.”

“Well, I do!” Josie said. “Hot guys are my specialty.”

“You’re boy crazy.”

“You say that like it’s a bad thing!”

Maddox cracked his head in. “Gran said food’ll be ready any minute.”

“Excellent,” Josie said. She leaned against the door and fluttered her eyelashes at Maddox. “Do you think you could cover for us tomorrow if we go to a party?”

“I, uh… have a gig,” he stumbled over his words, as he always did around Josie.

“For what?”

“Maddox is in a band,” I said, “remember?”

“Local c*****e,” he said with a grin. “We’re, uh, we’re playing a local Halloween party for some rich dude.”

I groaned. “It’s probably the same party. Gran is letting you go?”

He scratched the back of his head. His dark hair falling into his eyes. “Well, I told her it was for a charity thing.”

Lila cackled. “Brilliant.”

Josie squealed. “Let’s do it!”

Everyone turned to stare at me. The only one who had no interest in a Holy Cross party on Halloween. But how could I say no with everyone else on board?

I sighed heavily. “Fine.”