Page 1 of Gather the Storm

Before

Daisy

The house party sucked, like I’d known it would. Rap music alternated with techno, blaring through the big house’s surround sound system while my classmates from Blackwell High danced, drank, made out, and gossiped about their crushes.

I envied them in a way. I’d always felt like an outsider at school, which was weird considering my great-great-great-grandfather on my mother’s side was one of the founders of Blackwell Falls.

But it was high school that felt all wrong. Like a dress that had shrunk in the wash. You knew it was supposed to fit — and it did, kind of — but it wasn’t quite right.

Exhibit A: the party. I’d had exactly one drink, two bland exchanges with guys from school, and four dances with my best friends Cassie and Sarai.

I was bored and ready to go home.

I scanned the room halfheartedly, then stopped cold when I spotted three guys staring at me from across the room.

And not just any guys but my brother Blake’s three best friends: Jace, Wolf, and Otis.

The unholy trinity of obnoxious hotness.

I could almost hear Cass and Sarai waxing poetic about the way Wolf leaned against the wall, casual and sexy even without the guitar he sometimes carried, Otis scanning the crowd, cataloging everything from a distance while Jace glared like he was plotting the world’s ruin.

It wasn’t like I didn’t see the appeal. We’d just started high school and there was no question that Blake and his friends ruled the roost, something that had less to do with the fact that they were all on the swim team and more to do with the fact that they were huge, muscly, and already covered in tattoos (mostly Wolf and Jace on the tattoos, although Otis seemed to have a couple).

They were dicks (my brother included) but no one — and I did mean no one — could deny that they were hot (my brother not included in my opinion because that would be gross).

It was weird seeing them out like this. I was used to seeing them at home, where they ignored me, and now at school, where they also ignored me.

Okay, they didn’t totally ignore me.

Well, Wolf kind of did, but it almost seemed intentional, like he had to work at it. Otis rarely looked at anyone, but every now and then I’d catch him staring before he could look away. Jace, on the other hand, stared at me all the time, something dark in his mossy green eyes that made my blood run hot.

So yeah, no one could deny that they were panty melting, not if you were into big broody guys who acted like they owned the world.

Across the room, Otis looked away when I caught his gaze. Jace’s stare hardened — I was pretty sure he hated me — and for once Wolf just kept on looking, his blue eyes like laserbeams through the haze of drunk bodies, the earring in his left ear glinting like an invitation while the chains around his neck shined like hazard lights.

And let’s be honest, if anyone needed hazard lights, my brother and his friends were it. A neon billboard reading ENTER AT YOUR OWN RISK wouldn’t hurt either.

They were seniors, on the swim team and built in a way even the football players weren’t, and they brought all kinds of forbidden thoughts to my virginal mind.

Like, get a grip, Daisy.

“Hey, girl!”

I blinked and saw that Sarai and Cassie were standing in front of me.

“What are you doing over here in the corner?” Sarai asked over the music, grabbing my hand. “Let’s dance!”

Her dark eyes were glassy under heavy eye makeup, a little lipstick smeared on the red plastic cup in her hand, but her glossy black hair was perfect as always.

Cassie grinned at me and rolled her green eyes, the silent message clear: Sarai was hammered.

“I think I’m going home,” I said.

I hated these things, but that didn’t stop Cassie and Sarai from dragging me to them whenever some douchebag football player threw one.

I couldn’t blame them: Blackwell Falls wasn’t exactly exciting. Not when you were in high school and couldn’t hang out at Screamin’ Syd’s or one of the other biker bars. Not when you were too young — and okay, too scared — to go to fight night at the Orpheum where the street gangs mixed with the bikers and a few adventurous kids from Aventine University.

Those were pretty much the only options unless you wanted to go to St. Andrew’s to have sex with strangers or watch otherpeople have sex with strangers, and I was a virgin with a capital V so I wasn’t exactly their target customer.

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