Page 2 of Soul Mates: Hercules Valentine and I
Paisley Grove
Mrs. Fontaine, my sixth-period teacher, looks at me, and I know it’s not going to be good.
“Before we say goodbye to your high school careers, let’s give a round of applause and a big congratulations to Paisley Grove for her well-deserved full scholarship to the Albrecht Institute of Technology,” she announces.
And now, she’s clapping like a dolphin. I stare at my doodles as if willing my spiral of circles to grow on its own. If I could hide inside my skin, I would. It takes a few seconds for my classmates to be lured into lazy applause. I’m not surprised by their reluctance to wish me well. My senior year of high school, which should have been the best of them all, has been the worst.
I’m an outsider. I arrived at Dorset Meacham Academy, a private school on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, a week after school started last year. My grandfather, the famous Charles Gregory Grove and my favorite person in the world, passed away three weeks before the start of the school year, and his second son—my father, Xander Clyde Grove—took over the role of chairman and CEO of Grove Investment Bank. That meant our family had to pack up and move from our perfect lake house in Agoura Hills, California. I now live in a building that consists of five townhouses made into one huge monstrosity of a house having fifteen bedrooms and fourteen bathrooms and a lot of other useless space. I find the high ceilings, drafty rooms, loads of crown molding, and coffered ceilings extremely unpleasant. The gaudy furniture looks like something a tourist would see during an unremarkable royal-mansions-of-Europe tour, and all of it is too uncomfortable to lounge on.
My grandparents used to live here. Well, mostly my grandfather. My grandmother, Leslie Swanson Grove, is a wildlife-conservation photographer, and ever since I was very young, she’s spent more of her days living out in the wilderness than inside their oversized home. After Grandfather died, Grandmother was ready to donate the place to charity, but my father insisted we move in instead.
But the worst part of the move was leaving lifelong friends behind, people I’ve known since first grade. I’m shy and nerdy, and just like I thought, it will take another eighteen years to build a network of friends like the ones I have in Agoura Hills. The way my classmates here treat me is very odd. No one’s outright mean to me, but they’re not friendly, either. I’ve been thinking maybe that’s because I’m a Grove. According to the last Forbes report, we’re the fourth richest family in the world, and we’re still climbing in rank.
The other students may also find my bodyguards off-putting. Jim, Dennis, and Mike are fairly new additions to my life. Last summer, my cousin Treasure reported she’d been kidnapped, but I know the truth. No malevolent forces had snatched her off the street and held her for ransom—she’d been off with a boy. Her lie was elaborate, though. It included two creepy notes asking for ten million dollars and then, two weeks later, an escape story after she showed up at her family home’s iron gates with self-inflicted bruises. Treasure said her lover wouldn’t dare lay a hand on her even if she begged him to. Still, she’s never revealed who the guy was, only that her parents—Uncle Leo and Aunt Londyn, my father’s brother and his wife—wouldn’t approve. Her lie has made it difficult for me, though. Each day, I struggle with breaking my vow of secrecy and blurting out the truth to my parents.
So now, Jim, Dennis, and Mike are always posted at the front and back of the school and outside of my classroom. Their presence could be another reason why I have no friends at this school.
Basically, when my classmates think of me, they don’t get a warm, fuzzy feeling. And that’s fine. I don’t take their detachment personally. Putting myself in their shoes, I’d avoid the rich girl with three burly men guarding her too. So their forced applause isn’t the reason why the back of my neck and cheeks are burning and my head feels like it’s floating to the ceiling. It’s Hercules Valentine, the most gorgeous and mysteriously interesting boy I’ve ever laid eyes on.
Is he looking at me? Is he clapping?
Without stealing a glance, I wonder if he’s aiming his probing eyes, kissable lips, and chiseled features in my direction. The breath I finally release trembles as I fight the urge to soothe my curiosity.
Not yet, Paisley. Don’t look yet.
In this class, Global Economics, we sit in the same row. Lyle Gant is the only body positioned between us. Sometimes, in my peripheral vision, I watch Hercules’s hands take notes or his fingers tap quietly but impatiently on the top of the desk. And sometimes, he transforms my heart into a swarm of butterflies fluttering their wings when he stares at me, seemingly unaware that he’s doing it.
“Go ahead and stand up, Paisley,” Mrs. Fontaine says.
Her words send something that feels like an electromagnetic pulse through me. For a moment, I think I’m going to pass out. Questions overwhelm me.Do I look extra fat in my skirt?The button popped on the band during second period, but no one can see the mishap under the hem of my shirt. But also…
Is he watching me or staring at his doodling or, even worse, gazing restlessly out the window, paying no attention to me at all?
I haven’t moved an inch, so Mrs. Fontaine wiggles her fingers upward. “Go on—stand up. The National Tech Excellence scholarship is the most prestigious scholarship in your field, and it’s not one you’re given—it’s one you earn.”
I think she added that last part. She doesn’t want my classmates thinking the scholarship was handed to me because of my last name. But I don’t care what they think about me. I’ve had to don emotional armor made of tungsten since my first day of school when I smiled at two girls in my first-period class and they pretended I didn’t exist. Bailey and Aniston are their names. They still behave as if I’m a stranger.
I don’t remember rising to my feet, but I’m standing. My legs tremble as the clapping dies down. And just before it all ends, I turn, looking past Lyle. Hercules’s lidded gaze holds me captive, refusing to let go. I’ve never been boy crazy, but I’ve been fantasizing about him since I first laid eyes on him. In my made-up world, we’re the perfect couple. He’s such a good kisser, and his fingers stimulating my body always inspire a panty change.
The bell rings, and he rips his eyes away from mine, thereby releasing me. I can’t feel my legs while the other students move around me, collecting their backpacks and whooping because we’re finally free from high school. I plop back down into my seat, talking myself off the love cliff. I don’t want to read more into the fact that he was looking at me that way yet again. The only reason he paid me any attention at all on the last day of school is because Mrs. Fontaine made me the center of attention.
And then my body goes stiff as fingers tap the top of my desk. First, I see his thighs, and then my eyes veer up to his gorgeous face. My mouth is caught open, and my breaths are craggy.
“Congratulations on AIT,” Hercules says.
I’m still staring at him stupidly.Say something, Paisley, damn it.
I start to say thank you, but he walks away before I can form the first of the two words. I want to drop my head on top of my desk and moan. I’m so embarrassed. Why couldn’t I say something?
And then, while beating myself up, I notice something. Everyone who remains in the classroom is watching me with surprise and shock. Oh, yes, there’s another reason why Hercules and I have never spoken to each other. His family and my family, for some unknown reason, are enemies.
Before I can make an escape,Mrs. Fontaine calls me to the front of the classroom to once again congratulate me on my scholarship. The cheers and jeers in the hallway are not as distracting as my wishing I could make it to my locker before Hercules has a chance to clean his out and then walk out of my life until tomorrow, which is graduation day. I want to say thank you to him for his well-wishes and even strike up a bigger conversation. Possibly, I could ask him what college he’ll be attending. That would be a great conversation starter.
My eyes keep darting away from Mrs. Fontaine’s moving lips and looking out the door. I wonder if she knows what university Hercules is going to. Maybe I should ask her. Or maybe not.
“One of those people is Benjamin Geoffrey, head of the Elite Programmer’s Society,” she says.
I can barely remember what she said before that. Something about her colleagues being excited about me starting at AIT this fall and that they’re well aware of my expert programming abilities. The entire school is aware of my programming skills. This January, I won the national CodeOrama competition. My initial project was one I named Killer Firewall. On one rare afternoon, when my mom was home, I demoed Killer Firewall for her.
