Page 5 of Oops, I Fell For The Town Bad Boy!

CHAPTER 3

KANE

Kane’s father was already at home when Kane arrived. He didn’t look up from the pile of bills on the table in front of him. “I see you’ve decided to grace us with your presence,” he said, speaking with his usual growl.

The us was either a habit or a verbal tic of some kind. There was no us, and there hadn’t been for four years, since Kane’s mother had died of sudden illness. It was only Kane and his father, and they increasingly couldn’t stand one another. Kane was constantly torn between feeling grateful for the fact that he was nearly old enough to leave his father’s house for good and feeling anxious at the question of where he was going to go and how he was going to pay for it. Jason McCormick had made it clear that the only option he was willing to subsidize was college, and since Kane wasn’t going there, his father wasn’t going to help him.

Which was fine. Kane didn’t want any help from his father. The old man was tough as nails and had been nothing but critical of Kane throughout his teen years. Kane wasn’t sure his father even liked him, and he didn’t care.

“I was at school,” he snapped back. “I suppose I need your permission to go there?”

“If I thought you were actually at school, maybe not, but you and I both know that you skip as many classes as you attend — if not more. I mean, Kane, your grades are disgraceful. I do get the weekly progress reports, you know, even if your teachers have stopped bothering to comment on them. Even if everyone at that school has gotten the message and given up on you. I see the reports, and I see how you’re not trying at all. You could have a future, you know, if you cared enough to put in even a scrap of work. You’re not a stupid boy. But you don’t want to try. That’s the problem with you. That’s always been the problem with you. You don’t even want to try.”

Kane wasn’t going to stick around and listen to his father talk about what a horrible disappointment he was. “I’m going out,” he said.

“Don’t you go out to the Chesterfield farm again. Jeff has asked me countless times to stop you from trespassing on his land. Says he keeps finding cigarette butts out there, and his wife has seen you hopping the fence. You’re lucky you haven’t been shot.”

Kane rolled his eyes. As if Jeff Chesterfield would ever shoot anybody. “Just going out for a walk,” he told his father. “Nothing to get all worked up about.”

Kane left his father in the kitchen, jogged down to his bedroom, and stripped off the shirt he had worn that day, exchanging it for one that was more worn-in and probably too messy to wear to school. He did care about his appearance in front of his peers. He’d be lying in the dirt for the next few hours, though, and he didn’t want to dirty up a good shirt that way. He patted his jeans pocket, making sure he had the fresh pack of cigarettes he had picked up on the way home, and was pleased to find that it was still there.

Once he had changed, he hopped through his bedroom window to avoid having to speak to his father again. He hit the ground at a jog. He was going to the Chesterfield farm, of course. It was the perfect place to get away from the prying eyes of adults. There wasn’t much chance that Jeff or Donna Chesterfield would be out there this late, so they’d never know he had been on their land. He would be fine.

He went to his usual spot behind one of the hay bales nearest the barn and leaned back against it to light up a cigarette. He could hear the sounds of the animals moving around restlessly in the barn behind him. I know how you feel, he thought sullenly. Trapped in there all the time, with no hope of a better life.

What his father had said to him today was true. His teachers had all given up on him, and he knew it. The only person who hadn’t given up on him was Taylor, and he doubted she had ever given up on anything in her life, so that barely counted.

He took a long drag on his cigarette.

Had Taylor meant what she’d said today? Did she really think the two of them could go to school together — that he could get into the school that had taken her? The idea seemed impossible. Kane remembered the day she had gotten her acceptance, and how excited everyone had been by it. How improbable it had seemed to them all that Taylor would be going to this school. And Taylor was a good student. Her grades were mostly As and Bs, and teachers liked her. If this was an impossible school for her to get into, how could it possibly be realistic for him?

But on the other hand… He frowned, thinking about it. She was right, it was a state school. Of course, there was nothing wrong or disgraceful in that, but it also wasn’t like she’d gotten into an Ivy, like Maddie. Maybe the reason it had seemed so out there to everyone was just that she had been first — that she’d been the one who had made them all think about the fact that they were going to college for real.

If she had meant it — if she really thought he was up to the task of getting into that school, and if she was willing to help him… would he do it?

It would be so much work.

But Kane couldn’t help thinking of his mother. Now that he was away from his father’s disapproving scowls, her face came into his mind, and he knew what she would want. She’d be disappointed with the fact that he had let things go this far, that he had thrown himself so far into partying and having a good time that it had jeopardized his future like this. She would want him to find a way to put things back on the right track. And even though he didn’t care what his father or his teachers thought of him, Kane hated the idea of disappointing his mother. He had never been able to bear that thought.

It felt so impossible, getting his life back on track. But he did think that if there was anyone who would be able to help him do it, Taylor Levine was probably that person. He had never seen her fail at anything she had set her mind to.

It would be so embarrassing to take her up on that offer and then to fail. It would be safer — maybe better — to not try at all.

Maybe. Maybe that would be better. Or maybe he would be throwing away his very last chance.

He tossed his cigarette away and got to his feet. Maybe this was the moment in which he would turn everything around. The fact that there was still one person left who believed in him — that had to be some kind of sign, didn’t it? That had to be an indicator of what he was supposed to do. And he would do it.

The idea was terrifying, but Taylor had thrown him a lifeline, and he could hear his mother’s voice in his ear whispering to him that he needed to take it.

Kane knew it was too late to call Taylor that night. He would have to wait and speak to her at school the next day. Besides, he wanted to sleep off a little of the alcohol he’d had to drink out at the farm before he tried to have this conversation. He wasn’t drunk, exactly, but he knew it would be better to be stone-cold sober before he tried to talk to Taylor about whatever help she might be willing to offer him. He crawled into bed, pulled the covers over his head, and fell asleep — for the first time in a very long time, with hopeful thoughts of the future in his head.

A few hours later, he was jerked from sleep by his father grabbing him by the shoulder and throwing him to the floor.

Kane scrambled to his feet. Things hadn’t been great between his father and himself for a long time, but there had never been any physical violence between the two of them. “What the hell?” he demanded.

“Fire,” his father said curtly. “At the Chesterfield farm.”

The guilt slammed into Kane before he understood exactly what the cause of it was — but then he knew. Of course. Of course this had been his fault. He had been out there smoking, and he had tossed that cigarette away so carelessly…

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