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

  “How is he?” I whisper.

  “He’s going to be okay,” she says. “He has an orbital fracture and a cracked rib. A possible concussion. The doctor wants to keep him overnight for observation.”

  I cover my mouth. “Oh my god.” My eyes fill with tears.

  “You did the right thing by bringing him in,” she tells me. “Thank you.”

  Ben’s good eye flutters open. I go to the side of his bed and search for his hand. It feels dry and warm, and my heart soars when he gives my hand a gentle squeeze.

  “He hasn’t talked much or given any real indication of what happened to him,” Mrs. Elliott says. “I’m hoping you can fill in some of the details.”

  Ben looks at me. He says nothing but I can tell what he’s trying to communicate. It’s written in his expression, the apprehension and the fear, that tells me what I need to know.

  He might have been ready to tell people at the party that he’s gay, but he doesn’t want me to tell his mom.

  “There was a fight,” I say, keeping my eyes locked on Ben. “At a party.”

  Mrs. Elliott sighs. “A party? A fight? Ben, this isn’t like you at all.”

  “It’s not his fault,” I tell her. “I…I wanted to go. I asked Ben to come with me.”

  He closes his eye.

  “And…there was a guy there who was harassing me. Ben asked him to stop but he didn’t. He wouldn’t.” I swallow. “Ben defended me. He got hurt because of me.

  The room is quiet for a minute, save for the occasional beep and hiss of the monitors.

  Mrs. Elliott approaches the other side of the bed. She strokes Ben’s curls, a tender, worried expression on her face. “So gallant,” she murmurs. “So brave.”

  I nod. “He really was.”

  She turns to smile at me. “He is going to be a great catch for some girl someday. Don’t you think?” She casts a loving glance at her son. “Some day, the right girl will come along and figure out what a great guy you really are.”

  I go still.

  Ben’s eyes are still closed but he manages a faint nod. His hand is still in mine and he gives me a small squeeze.

  A silent thank you.

  Chapter 49

  “Thank you.”

  It’s an hour later and Ben is in a new room on the third floor of the hospital. I waited around for him to be transferred up there and am now sitting next to him, offering him sips of apple juice through a straw. Visiting hours are long over but apparently when you know someone in the hospital they relax the rules for you.

  “Don’t thank me,” I tell him.

  He sucks down a mouthful of juice and falls back on the pillow. I adjust myself in the recliner positioned next to the hospital bed. The room is a little less sterile than the emergency room—there is a painting on the wall, a single, up-close image of an orchid, and a white board with his nurse’s name scrawled in bright blue marker with a hand-drawn smiley face next to it. Danielle. A television is mounted to the wall directly across from his bed but the screen is dark.

  I look at Ben. His good eye is open and he looks awake and alert. “How are you feeling?”

  “Sore,” he admits. “Hungry. And a little hung over.”

  I chuckle. “Well, you did knock back three beers in ten minutes,” I remind him.

  He manages a small smile. “Never again.” He pauses. “Although the alcohol is probably the sole reason I was able to do what I did. Maybe having all those beers wasn’t such a bad idea.”

  “No. It was.”

  He looks at the cup and I bring the straw to his lips again.

  “I just want to go home,” he says when he’s done drinking. “This place stinks.”

  “I want you to go home, too.”

  He leans back again. “My mom is going to have questions.”

  “Probably.” I nodded. “I would, too, if my son got the shit kicked out of him.”

  He makes a face, which is sort of hard to do considering how beat up he is. “Did I land anything at all on that asshole?”

  “A couple,” I tell him. “But he’s like the equivalent of two of you. He’s built like a truck.”

  “Still.” He sighs. “I really did get my ass kicked, didn’t I?”

  “We both did.”

  Ben’s expression darkens. “I can’t believe he attacked you. I wanted to kill him when I saw him grab you by the hair.”

  My scalp aches at the mention of it.

  “I also can’t believe who came to your rescue,” he adds softly.

  Hayden.

  I shake my head. I don’t want to talk about him.

  Hayden is part of my past.

  The friend laid up in the hospital bed in front of me is my present and my future. He’s the only one who stuck by me, and I’m determined to return the favor.

  And not because I have to.

  Because I want to.

  I turn the conversation back to his mom. “I’m sure your mom is just glad that you’re okay.”

  “For now,” he says. “She won’t think I’m okay if she finds out I’m gay.”

  “Maybe you’re wrong,” I say. “Maybe she’ll be okay with it.”

  His one-eyed glare is almost comical. “Please. You heard her back in the emergency room. She thinks the fight is going to score me a girlfriend.” The way he says the word makes it sound like it tastes bitter in his mouth. “And even if she’s fine with it—which she won’t be—my dad is going to freak.”

  “Why do you think that?”

  “Because I know him.” He plays with the corner of the hospital blanket draped over him. “The guy is full of enough testosterone for three guys. He’s already disappointed that I didn’t follow in his footsteps and play sports. He blames it on my mom, says I spent too much time around her as a kid.”

  I frown.

  “Can you imagine what he’ll think if he finds out I’m gay? Like she someone transferred, like, estrogen or something into me?”

  “I doubt he’ll think that.”

  He manages a small shrug. “I don’t know. All I know is that I’m not ready to tell them.”

  “So don’t.” I give him an encouraging smile. “This is your news, Ben. No one else’s. You’re the one who gets to decide when you’re ready.”

  He nods.

  “So you just tell me what you need me to say or do,” I tell him.

  He’s quiet for a minute. “Just tell me you forgive me,” he says. “For what I did.”

  “I forgive you.”

  He closes his eye and smiles. “Right now, that’s all that matters.”

  Chapter 50

  The sand feels good under my feet.

  I didn’t intend to end up on the beach but I knew the walk home would be faster that way, a straighter shot than navigating the roads from the hospital back to my grandpa’s house.

  The moon provides ample lighting, as do the streetlamps on the boardwalk. I know I could walk along the cement sidewalk but I want to feel the sand between my toes, to be as close to the water as possible.

  My pace is slow, as much from the lingering dull ache in my side as from my contemplative mood. I’m all wrapped up in thoughts about Ben and what the rest of the weekend and then Monday morning might look like for him. He can’t walk back what he said at the party, and I worry that even though he refuses to tell his mom about his sexuality, she’ll find out, anyway. I don’t want that for him, but I don’t know how to stop it.

  And I wonder what my Monday morning might look like. Just because the truth is now out there doesn’t mean that anything is really going to change. It feels too late for my so-called friends and I to make amends, and I don’t think Hayden wants to, either—not that I’m interested in that. He made it pretty clear that he was interested in me for one reason only: sex.

  I hear the person walking behind me before I see them. Suddenly on alert, I whirl around.

  “You shouldn’t be walking down here alone,” the guy says quietly.

  Hayden st
eps closer.

  I try to settle my racing pulse. “Why not? Worried someone is gonna attack me? Or maybe that’s what you’re here to do. You know, fuck me one more time.”

  He frowns. “No.”

  “What do you want?” I’m beyond exhausted and the last thing I want is a confrontation with him. “Why are you even here?”

  “I followed you to the hospital. I…I wanted to make sure you were okay.”

  I actually laugh. “Give me a break.”

  His frown deepens. “I did. You were in there forever.” He shifts his gaze up and down, as if he’s searching every inch of my body. “Are you okay?”

  “I wasn’t there for me. I took Ben.”

  He winces. “Is he okay?”

  “Why do you care?” I snap. He waits, and I sigh and say, “He has a broken eye socket. Some bruised ribs. Maybe a concussion. They’re keeping him overnight.”

  “Fucking asshole,” he says under his breath.

  Anger surges through me. “He did nothing wrong. Nothing!”

  “I’m not talking about him,” he growls. “Fucking Lucas. I wanted to kill him. Probably should have.”

  For some reason, this surprises me.

  But then I remember.

  Hayden was the one who pulled Lucas off of me.

  And then I remember something else, something that didn’t register before.

  He did it before Ben told the truth about us.

  I stare at him, not saying anything.

  He glances at me before shifting his gaze to the sand. I notice he’s barefoot, his flip-flops in his right hand. “Are you…alright?” he asks. “I tried to stop him sooner, the minute he went after you, but Blake got hold of my arm. I shoved him off me and Beckett and Xander held him so I could get Lucas off you.”

  “Why?”

  “Why what?”

  I swallow. “Why did you help me? Ben hadn’t said anything yet about…”

  Hayden’s blue eyes glint in the moonlight. “He was hurting you. There was no fucking way I was gonna just stand there and let that happen.”

  “Why not?” I ask. “How is him hurting me any different than what you did?”

  “Me?” He gives me a confused look. “What did I do?”

  I just shake my head. “Forget it.”

  I start to walk away but he grabs my arm. His touch is gentle but firm.

  “Don’t,” he says. He spins me to face him so that we are mere inches apart. He lets go of me and shoves his hands in his pockets. “Tell me what I did.”

  My eyes sting with tears. “You told everyone about us. That you slept with me. You let everyone think I’m just some whore who likes sleeping around, and that you just went out with me so you could fuck me.”

  “I never said that.”

  I throw up my hands. “What the hell? You literally told me that at lunch the other day. When you thought I was cheating on you with Ben!”

  “I never said that,” he repeats. “And I never told anyone about us. That we slept together.”

  “Unbelievable. You are seriously unbelievable. Your friends said I was bad in bed. Where the fuck would they get that idea?”

  “I never said a word about what we did, Sydney,” he said, his voice low. “Charity cornered me at school that morning with those pictures. She saw how pissed I was and made some comment about how it must hurt to see your new bed buddy hooking up with someone else. I didn’t correct her—hell, I didn’t say anything—so my guess is she spread that story. Just like she made sure people saw those pictures.”

  “But Xander and Beckett...they said those things about me and you didn’t stop them.”

  “I was pissed,” he admits. “Seeing those pictures…” His exhale is short and loud, like he’s trying to control his emotions. “They wrecked me.”

  “But they weren’t what they seemed. And you wouldn’t listen to me when I tried to tell you.”

  He nods. “I know. I’m not saying I was right. I’m just trying to tell you what was going through my head that day.”

  We stand there quietly for a minute. The rhythmic sound of the waves fills the silence.

  “I’m sorry, Sydney.” His voice is achingly gentle, and filled with remorse. His hand finds my arm again and his fingers brush my skin. “I’m sorry I didn’t listen. I’m sorry I jumped to conclusions. I saw those pictures and all I could think of was my mom. Leaving us.”

  Chapter 51

  “That’s how we found out.”

  Hayden and I are sitting on the beach, tucked back a ways from the water. We’re close, but not touching.

  He’s telling me about his mom.

  “I’d just gotten home from surfing,” he says. “I was twelve and was finally feeling pretty good out on the water, you know? Got inside my first legit barrel and I was super stoked. I grabbed the mail and brought it in and dumped it on the table. There was this manila envelope and it wasn’t sealed shut. Some of the mail slid onto the floor and these pictures fell out of that envelope.” He pauses. “They were pictures of my mom kissing some other guy.”

  “Oh, shit. I’m sorry.”

  He stares out at the water. “It sucked. She was away for some work thing—which was probably just code for her being able to get away with her boss—and I didn’t know what to do. Did I show them to my dad? Did I hide them away? Did I ask her about them?” He scoops up a handful of sand and lets it sift between his fingers. “I was twelve, man. I didn’t know what the hell I was supposed to do with it.”

  “What happened?”

  He sighs. “I shoved the pictures back in the envelope and sealed it. And then let my dad open it.” He makes a fist and ploughs it into the sand. “Which was a totally fucking coward thing to do.”

  “No, it wasn’t.” I reach for his hand and gently pull it from the sand. “You were angry and hurt, and you didn’t know what to do. You were just a kid. And I’m pretty sure you weren’t the one who was supposed to see those pictures.”

  “I know.” His voice cracks a little and he clears his throat. “But I did. And so when I saw the pictures of you and Ben…” His voice drifts off. “I just lost it. It was like a repeat of what I saw six years ago, you know? Someone I cared about who betrayed me.”

  I nod, my pulse quickening over his words.

  He notices something in my reaction because he cocks his head and says, “What?”

  For a second, I debate telling him. I could just shrug it aside and refocus on him and the story he’s telling.

  But I don’t want to hide things from him, even things that might make me feel vulnerable. Especially since he has just bared so much to me.

  “You care about me?”

  “Why is that so hard to believe?”

  “I don’t know.”

  His other hand covers mine. “Yeah, I care about you, Syd.”

  “Why?”

  “Because you’re smart and funny, and ballsy as hell,” he says. He smiles and his dimples send shivers down my spine. “And because you’re beautiful and you set me on fire. Remember, fuego?”

  The nickname makes my heart flutter.

  He reaches out and brushes a hand down my hair before his fingers gently cup my cheek. “You’re okay? Genuinely okay?”

  I nod. “I am now.”

  He smiles again and dips his head close. “I’ve wanted to do this all night, since the minute I saw you walk into that party. Even when I was still pissed at you.”

  “What’s that?”

  His lips touch mine, and the touch is so soft, so sweet, so achingly familiar that my heart threatens to pound right out of my chest.

  “This,” he murmurs against my mouth.

  He deepens the kiss and plunges his hands into my hair and I lose myself in his touch, his taste.

  An eternity passes before he finally lifts his lips from mine. His expression is stormy, his eyes dark with desire, but he doesn’t demand anything from me. Instead, he curves his arm around my shoulders and brings me close to him.


  I lean against Hayden and close my eyes.

  The relief I feel—about everything—is palpable.

  But it doesn’t overwhelm me and I know it won’t last.

  Because I know.

  Just because we’re back together doesn’t guarantee a happily ever after.

  Ben—and what might happen to him—looms large on my mind, as does Lucas and what he might do to get revenge on me or Hayden, or both of us.

  But the biggest threat of all in my eyes is Charity.

  Because she’s done everything she could to keep Hayden and I apart…and I have a feeling she’s only getting started.

  THE END

  Thanks so much for reading HOPELESS, the first book in the Playa Del Mar series. If you enjoyed the series, please consider leaving reviews for the books. Reviews really help!

  Keep your eyes out for the second book in the Playa Del Mar series, HEARTLESS!