Page 2 of Oops, I Fell For The Town Bad Boy!

“Hey!” Kane objected. “That was my second-to-last one!”

“Good. I want you to quit. You’re going to kill yourself by the time you’re thirty at the rate you’re going.”

“You know, you’re turning into a real?—”

“Watch it,” Taylor said suddenly. “Valencia.”

Kane didn’t give a damn about cursing in front of Vice-Principal Valencia, but Taylor had broken his stride. He scowled and raked his hair out of his eyes again as the vice-principal stopped by their table and leaned on it with one hand. “How are my favorite seniors?” she asked.

Bradley laughed. “We aren’t your favorite seniors.”

That was true. Her favorite seniors were the ones Kane thought of as the senior suck-ups, the clique that included the prom queen and the quarterback, the ones who had started a volunteer group in sophomore year and always made the honor roll, who didn’t party and didn’t smoke pot and didn’t, as far as Kane could tell, do anything fun at all.

But Valencia did like their group. At least, she liked most of them. She was a good vice-principal, and she had some affection for all of her students. Kane knew she was proud of Maddie’s prestigious college acceptance, and she had always shown up to the school plays to watch Bradley, who tended to land leading roles in them. A couple of members of their group played on various sports teams. Jonathan had put together an a-cappella group last year, and they played gigs all over town now. And nobody could help but like Taylor, who was like a ray of damn sunshine everywhere she went. And even though they got into trouble from time to time, Kane knew Valencia was fond of them.

At least, she was fond of the others.

He didn’t think she had much interest in him at all. The only time the two of them had spoken was at the end of last month, when she had called him into her office to make a whole production out of the fact that he didn’t have any college acceptances.

“I’m not going to college,” he’d told her, because there was no point in getting into a whole thing about it. “Can I go?”

“Kane, I want you to let me help you,” she’d said quietly. “I know nobody has ever pushed you. I know you think you can’t do this. I’m here to tell you that you can if you try, but you do have to try. If you and I put in a lot of effort between now and the end of the year, we can get you a college acceptance. What do you say — will you do that?”

Something about the way she’d said it had made Kane feel as if he was standing on the edge of a cliff. He’d stood up and shoved his chair away gruffly, cursed, and left her office.

Since then, Valencia hadn’t spoken to him directly.

She glanced at him now, as if she knew that he had been trying to put together a party that she wouldn’t have approved of. As if she knew that he was putting his energy into partying instead of trying to get into college. And for a moment, Kane wondered whether she was going to say something — call him to her office, try again to get him to commit to the idea of college.

And he thought, Maybe if she does, I’ll even go. Maybe I’ll let her talk to me about it. I mean, what could be the harm?

For a moment, he found himself genuinely considering it. College might be fun. High school parties were winding down, it was true, and his friend group would be going their separate ways, but maybe that didn’t have to mean an end to the fun of his life. Maybe he could go on to something bigger and better. People partied in college. A big part of what was bothering him these days was the knowledge that Bradley and the others would be having fun without him. That wasn’t a pleasant thing to have to think about. Maybe he’d made a mistake.

He was half out of his chair, ready to accept the invite he was sure Valencia was about to give him to come and talk to her — but her gaze skipped right over him as if he wasn’t even there.

“You all behave yourselves,” she said evenly. “None of you better give me a reason to contact your colleges before the semester ends.” She said it with a smile. It didn’t sound like a threat. It sounded almost affectionate, like she was proud of them for having gotten into colleges in the first place.

And of course, that was a sentiment that didn’t include Kane. If he got into trouble, what was she going to do? She couldn’t jeopardize his future. He was staying here. There wasn’t anything anyone could do to him now.

He was determined, suddenly, that there would be one last party on his family’s land before everyone scattered to the four winds. College be damned. They hadn’t left yet, and he was going to make the most of that fact. He was going to enjoy this last little bit of his time with his friends while he could.

“Party at my house,” he said firmly. “Saturday night, and everyone had better be there. You don’t want to miss this one, I promise you.”

He got up from his seat, taking his lunch tray with him and refusing to look back. He was the leader of his group of friends. They might be about to leave, but right now, that was still true. And they would show up when and where he told them to. He could still count on that.

At least, he hoped he could.

CHAPTER 2

TAYLOR

Taylor Levine would have given a great deal to get rid of the way she felt when Kane looked at her. He was a very inconvenient person to have a crush on.

She wasn’t sure that Kane even knew she existed. Or rather, he did, of course — they ran in the same circles and they’d had conversations in which he had addressed her by name. But he probably never thought about her when she wasn’t right in front of him. They were only friends because Maddie and Bradley were dating, had been dating for as long as they had known one another.

Unfortunately, that didn’t change the way she felt about him.

She could feel Maddie’s eyes on her as she got up from the lunch table to dump her tray, trying to act as if her leaving right after Kane was nothing more than a coincidence. She suspected that Maddie probably knew how she felt — they were best friends, after all — but if Maddie did know, she had always been gracious enough not to say anything about it, which Taylor appreciated.

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