Hopeless: A High School Bully Romance (Playa Del Mar Book 1) Read online

  Hopeless: A High School Bully Romance

  Playa Del Mar High, Book 1

  McKayla Box

  Hopeless: A High School Bully Romance

  Playa Del Mar High, Book 1

  By

  McKayla Box

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Hopeless: A High School Bully Romance

  Playa Del Mar High, Book 1

  All rights reserved.

  Copyright ©2020

  Cover design by McKayla Box

  This book is protected under the copyright laws of the United States of America. Any reproduction or unauthorized use of the material or artwork herein is prohibited without the expressed written consent of the author.

  Created with Vellum

  Other Books by McKayla Box

  The Sunset Beach High Series

  Fall

  Winter

  Spring

  Summer

  The Del Sol High Series

  Blinded

  Burned

  Eclipsed

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Untitled

  Chapter 1

  Four years gone, in the blink of an eye.

  At least that’s what it feels like.

  “What are you waiting for?” my mom asks.

  Things to feel right.

  She is standing in front of me, an expectant smile warring with the frown lines creasing her forehead. A warm breeze teases her blonde hair, several shades darker than my own, and she impatiently bats an errant strand away from her face.

  I look past her, to the little house just beyond where she stands waiting. The white stucco exterior, the bushes blooming with bright red flowers that sit in front of a large bay window. I remember curling up in that window as a kid, watching as cars lumbered by, as bikes with riders navigated their way toward the beach just a few steps away, their surfboards tucked under one arm. And I remember the rest of the house: the worn wooden floors, the white Formica countertops in the kitchen, the bedrooms too small to fit much more than a bed and a dresser. But the inside of the house didn’t matter because what lay beyond was enough to turn the head of every single person who stepped across the threshold. An unobstructed view—and unfettered access—to a vast, sandy beach and the oasis of the Pacific Ocean.

  “Come on, Sydney,” my mom urges. She turns her back to me and continues up the sidewalk to the entrance of the house.

  My grandpa’s house.

  Well, not anymore.

  Now it’s my house. Mine and my mom’s.

  I take a hesitant step away from the trunk of the car, my emotions at war with themselves. Sadness over my grandpa’s death, and the fact that we didn’t make it home in time to say goodbye to him. Anger toward my mom, for leaving my dad and yanking me away from the place I called home these last four years, back to a place I didn’t have any desire to come back to. And maybe, just maybe, a little anticipation, because even though I dreaded coming back to Playa del Mar, I knew I had at least one friend waiting for me. A friend who didn’t disappear when my parents upped and moved me halfway around the world. Someone who turned out to be a better friend long-distance than he ever was during the years we spent together in elementary and middle school.

  I smile, thinking of Ben Elliott and how seeing him is literally the only thing I’m looking forward to about moving back to the town I spent the first thirteen years of my life in. I pull my phone out of my shorts pocket and check to see if there are messages from him. He knows I’m coming today. He promised he would be here.

  But the only thing on my screen is the lock screen photo of me and Jada, my best friend in Christchurch, New Zealand.

  The best friend I’m not sure I’ll ever see again.

  Great. Another emotion to join the soup already bubbling inside of me.

  Tears sting my eyes and I blink furiously, trying to stem them. The last thing I need is to be emotional right now. My mom needs for me to be strong, I remind myself. She’s the one whose dad died. She’s the one whose marriage fell apart. She’s the one who has to figure out how we’re going to survive on our own. Having Grandpa’s house will help, of course. At least we have a place to live. But we can’t eat the floors or the walls. She’s going to have to find a job. Who knows? Maybe I’ll need one, too. California isn’t exactly cheap, at least from what Mom has told me. I wouldn’t know because I’ve never had to worry about how much things cost or where our next meal is going to come from.

  And that is all about to change.

  I push thoughts of Ben and Jada from my mind and lean down to get one of the suitcases I pulled from the trunk of our rental car. There are six of various shapes and sizes, everything we own packed into those suitcases. Somehow, I misjudge where the handle is and nudge it instead, which sends the bag sliding on its rollers toward the street just as a black Camaro comes barreling down the road. It screeches to a halt to avoid hitting it.

  My mom gasps and I lurch out into the road to grab the bag.

  The passenger window of the car is rolled down and Post Malone is singing on the radio. I mumble an apology as I look into the car.

  A guy stares back at me. At least I think he’s staring, but it’s hard to tell because he’s wearing sunglasses that completely hide his eyes. They don’t hide his chiseled jaw or his mop of gorgeous blond hair, though, and they definitely don’t hide the frown he’s sporting, either.

  “Watch what you’re doing, dipshit.”

  I freeze at his words. “Excuse me?”

  “You heard me.”

  I grab my suitcase and yank it back to me. I lean toward the open window. “It was an accident,” I snap.

  The guy behind the wheel lifts his sunglasses. A pair of blue eyes the color of the ocean stare back at me. I glare at him, trying not to think about how he might be the best-looking guy I’ve ever seen.

  His eyes do this lazy dance, traveling down the length of me, and I’m suddenly hyperaware of what I’m wearing. Jean shorts my mom is always telling me are two inches too short, an olive green tank top that is way too tight but that I love because it exa
ctly matches the color of my eyes. Sandals that add a couple of inches to my height and make my tanned legs look way longer than they actually are.

  “Who are you?” the guy finally asks.

  My face feels hot, as if his eyes are actual laser beams heating my skin. “No one you know.”

  A smile blossoms on his lips. “What if I want to know you?”

  Shit.

  He has dimples.

  I shake my head. This dude literally calls me a dipshit less than a minute earlier and is now sizing me up like a piece of meat and trying to flirt with me?

  Yeah, no.

  Not interested.

  Even if he’s the hottest guy this side of the equator.

  “I’d say you’re outta luck.” I smile sweetly. “Dipshit.”

  Chapter 2

  “You hungry?”

  I look up from my mostly empty suitcases.

  My mom is standing in the doorway of what is now my room. I’m trying not to think about how it’s a third of the size of the one I left back in New Zealand, or how the twin size mattress, sitting on nothing more than a thin metal bed frame, is so old and lumpy that springs poke my backside every time I sit down. I ignore the peeling wallpaper and the faint, musty odor, and the beige carpet that is so worn and threadbare in spots, I can almost see the wood floor hiding underneath. It’s a far cry from my old bedroom, with its walk-in closet and attached bathroom, its plush, thick carpet and crisp white walls.

  “Syd?”

  I blink. “Yeah?”

  My mom pushes her hair away from her face. “I asked if you were hungry.”

  I force a smile. “Not really.”

  I should be, but I’m not.

  The snacks we ate at the airport seem like days, not hours, ago, bags of chips and candy bars and two bottled waters that probably would have bought an entire bag of groceries, they were so overpriced at the little shop in the terminal.

  But food is the least of my worries. My stomach is in knots because I’m trying to figure out how the hell I’m going to adjust to this new life being forced on me.

  And I know…it’s being forced on Mom, too. She didn’t ask for any of this.

  But I didn’t, either.

  “Well, I am,” she announces. “Let’s go grab a pizza. I bet Donatelli’s still makes the best pizza in town.”

  “They make the only pizza in town,” I pointed out.

  Playa Del Mar isn’t exactly a booming city. Population three thousand, with a single high school, and a hospital that is housed here instead of Canyon Ridge, the neighboring town, because some rich dude deeded the land for it. Back in middle school, there was exactly one place to get pizza that wasn’t a chain restaurant. I have no reason to believe that has changed.

  “Stop being a grump.” My mom plants her hands on her hips. “This is an adventure, remember? A new start.”

  It might be a new start to her, but it pretty much feels like the end of my life to me.

  I wince as soon as I think this, remembering that someone’s life did, in fact, end. My grandpa’s.

  Not to mention the end of my mom’s life as a wife.

  I get to my feet, stealing a quick glance at my mom as I do so. She is wearing a smile, but I know her too well to think it’s a true reflection of how she feels. The worry lines never leave her forehead, and her eyes, a little greener than mine, are pools of sadness.

  A wave of guilt washes over me. “We can go get pizza,” I mumble.

  I try not to worry about how we’ll pay for it.

  Her smile grows. “Great. We can stop at the grocery store, too. Dinner and a shopping date. Perfect way to spend a Saturday night, right?”

  I make myself nod in agreement. A perfect Saturday would be spent with Jada and Lucy, hitting the mall or going to the movies, or hanging with some of the nicer guys on the rugby team.

  My eyes smart at the memory and I suck in a couple of quick breaths, as if doing so might somehow extinguish the memory.

  “Grab a sweatshirt,” Mom tells me as she pivots from my doorway.

  I frown at her retreating back. It’s August in southern California. Not exactly sweatshirt weather.

  But I grab one anyway, because I don’t want to fight with her.

  I’m looping my gray Backdoor sweatshirt over my arm and reaching for my purse when I hear my mom’s voice. She’s talking to someone.

  A guy.

  My heart freezes for just a minute.

  “…just wanted to say hi.”

  I hustle down the hallway and toward the front door.

  Ben is standing next to my mom. He looks over her—I didn’t know he was so tall!—and his eyes light up when he sees me.

  “Sydney!”

  I didn’t know how this reunion was going to go. And I was already feeling a little pissed because he didn’t text me once since we landed at LAX.

  But he’s here now, standing in the doorway of my grandpa’s house, his arms outstretched, a wide smile spreading across his freckled face.

  I drop my purse and my sweatshirt falls to the floor and I launch myself into his arms.

  “Oh my god, I can’t believe you’re actually here.” Ben’s mouth is on my hair and his arms are threatening to squeeze the life out of me.

  My eyes burn with tears and I bury my face against his shoulder. He is taller than I thought he would be—SnapChat and Instagram and WhatsApp don’t provide perspective, I guess—and thinner, too. He’s like a reed, long, slender limbs, and he smells like laundry soap and aftershave, even though there isn’t a speck of hair or stubble on his chin or cheeks.

  “Ben.” My mom sounds like she’s testing his name. “It’s good to see you again.”

  She doesn’t remember him, of course. Because Ben and I weren’t friends when I left for New Zealand. I remember the last day of school, when I was cleaning out my locker, and he asked if he could have my phone number. So we could text and keep in touch, he said. I almost laughed because even though we shared classes and recesses since we were in kindergarten, we never spoke more than a few dozen words to each other.

  “You’re going to New Zealand,” he said. His braces took over almost his whole mouth when he smiled. “You’re going to need a pen pal.”

  “Texting costs too much,” I told him. I didn’t know this for a fact—I was only in seventh grade and had just gotten my own cell phone a few weeks earlier—but I thought I remembered my dad saying that.

  But he asked again so I gave it to him.

  Because no one else had asked for it.

  We texted sporadically, and then we joined Instagram and SnapChat, and discovered WhatsApp, and pretty soon, Ben became a constant in my life. Even when I met Jada and Lucy and my other kiwi friends, there was still a place for Ben. He was the best friend I didn’t have, because even though my New Zealand friends welcomed me into the fold, I was still the newcomer. An American who had to learn slang and customs, a girl who struggled to understand kiwi grade levels, an outsider who hadn’t met them when we were all in diapers.

  Ben didn’t care about any of that.

  He lived vicariously through me, begging for stories about New Zealand. We never talked much about our personal lives, but movies and music and travel and books? Those were all fair game.

  My mom’s voice brings me back to the present, and I realize I’m still tangled up in Ben’s embrace.

  “…just going out to grab some pizza,” she is saying.

  I pull back, straightening my tank top and tugging on the hem of my shorts.

  Ben grins at me, the same goofy grin I’ve seen in countless pictures over the last four years.

  I smile back. It’s hard not to.

  “I don’t want to keep you,” he says. He runs a hand through his brown curls. “I just thought I’d swing by and say hi in person. Finally. I still can’t believe you’re here!”

  I can’t either.

  Ben is still looking at me, his smile warm and friendly, and any concerns I might have had about
our friendship transitioning from online to in real life begin to evaporate.

  He’s just Ben, the same Ben I would text or swap pictures with half a world away.

  We stand there for a minute, the silence both awkward and comforting. It’s like we’re standing ankle-deep in the ocean, acclimating to the water before we take the next step.

  My mom clears her throat. “You’re welcome to come with us, Ben. We’re heading to Donatelli’s for pizza.”

  His eyes widen and he immediately shakes his head. “No, that’s okay.”

  “You guys could catch up,” she tells him. “Have a proper reunion.”

  I don’t even know what a ‘proper reunion’ would be with Ben. I mean, we’ve been texting almost daily for the last four years.

  “I…I can’t.” Ben is still shaking his head. “I…um, I have plans and…and I’m lactose intolerant!”

  I give him a curious look. “You are?”

  He nods.

  “But…” I think back to pictures he’s sent me over the years, with bowls of ice cream and milkshakes from the local Frostie Freeze.

  “I just started having issues.” He rubs his stomach and makes a face. “It's kind of embarrassing. I don’t wanna risk having pizza.”