Notable (Smith High)

“Cute.”

“Always.”

“You can save the effort. That might have worked in high school, but it’s not going to help you here. Especially since I already know the way you operate.”

I did a pointed once-over, not exactly an easy task considering that I was squashed between Houston and some stranger who was snoring heavily and taking up more than his share of the armrest.

“I’ve known you for all of fifteen minutes. So I seriously doubt you know anything about the way I operate.”

“I know that your dad asked me to find a program for you because he couldn’t have you around right now.”

I didn’t flinch even though this latest parental betrayal stung like hell. Any sign of weakness is a fatal mistake when you’re playing poker with a shark.

“You?”
I said skeptically. “My
dad
confided in
you?
Again, I doubt it.”

“He said you needed to get out of Portland so you wouldn’t trash your life.”

More by Marni Bates

 

 

 

 

Published by Kensington Publishing Corp.

NOTABLE

KENSINGTON PUBLISHING CORP.

All copyrighted material within is Attributor Protected.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgment pages are hard.

Seriously. Everyone wants to have a particularly clever way of thanking people that goes beyond “I couldn’t have done it without you.”

But the truth is that I absolutely could not have written this book without . . .

 

Alicia Condon: my editor, aka the Patron Saint of Panic-stricken Author Emails. This book is immeasurably better because you worked with me on it. Thank you so much!

Laurie McLean: my rock star agent, who encourages me onward. I love being on this journey with you!

Marina Adair: my critique partner/best friend/savior of my sanity. I can’t begin to express how much your friendship means to me. Your talent, persistence, kindness, and sparkling sense of humor inspires and humbles me. Thank you for insisting I remove the Navy SEALs.

Lisa Lin: Whether we are counting imaginary cows or plotting world domination, you never fail to brighten my day! Thank you for telling me to keep the Navy SEALs.

Suzanne Brockmann: Okay, maybe it’s a little strange to thank someone I’ve never actually met. Regardless, your Navy SEAL romance novel
Prince Joe
began my love of the genre. Your staunch support of the LGBTQ community has inspired me for years. Thank you for all that you do!

Shoshana Werblow: I’m still giggling over your response to my plans for Chelsea. “You know what they say: ‘Write what you know, Marni.’ ” I’ll have to keep that in mind for next time.

Mom: Thank you for loving me no matter what.

Lewis & Clark College: I am honored to have you as my alma mater. Thank you for emphasizing more than test scores and for putting up with my personal brand of crazy for four years.

And the most Notable of them all: my
incredibly
awesome readers!

Thank you for making all of this possible!

I
t never should have happened. Oh sure, in the movies, the geeky girl gets the guy, but let’s all get real for a second: High school doesn’t actually work like that. No way. The absurdly sweet (yet popular) guy might continue being tutored by the geek, but he also keeps making out with his beautiful ex-girlfriend until they decide to give their relationship another shot.

That’s how it
should
have worked, but apparently my good luck had run out a long time ago.

Because even as I gazed into the gray eyes of my perfect hockey-captain ex-boyfriend, Logan Beckett, and put it all on the line: told him point-blank that I missed him and wanted to get back together—I knew it was too little, too late. Instead of kissing me back when I leaned in and pressed my lips against his, he took a step away.

His eyes were full of pity. “I’m sorry, Chelsea. I just . . . don’t feel the same way about you anymore.”

Then he glanced over at his best friend Spencer’s house and everything sort of clicked into place. He wasn’t throwing away everything good that was still between us because he hadn’t forgiven me for my middle-school mistake. Oh no, he was firmly rejecting me, Chelsea Halloway, because he was more interested in dating the most awkward girl at our high school. Actually, thanks to an embarrassing You Tube video, Mackenzie Wellesley had accidentally raised her profile beyond the hallways of Smith High School until she became best known as America’s Most Awkward Girl.

Yet he was still choosing
her
over
me
.

It didn’t make the slightest difference that I’d been in the midst of pouring out my freaking heart to him when he shot me down. That I was willing to grovel for ever breaking up with him and explain that, regardless of the rumors circulating in the wake of our breakup (mainly that I was ecstatic to have traded Logan in for a more popular high school boy), I’d been a wreck over our split.

But instead of hearing me out and then sweeping me off my feet in a passionate kiss . . . he just shook his head.

“Sorry, Chels. Take care of yourself, okay? I’ve got to—”

Go.

He had to scurry off to locate the girl who was so much smarter and sweeter and
better
than me in nearly every way. Leaving me, quite literally, out in the cold. No amount of pain from our first breakup had prepared me for
this
level of hurt. Nothing compared to smiling until my cheeks ached while I watched Logan leading a stumbling Mackenzie to his car with a transparent affection he never once showed me.

And I couldn’t even cry without becoming fodder for another round of rumors.

“Hey, did you hear that Chelsea had a total meltdown at Spencer’s party? Girl has some
serious
issues, if you ask me.”

That was what I would have to pretend not to hear following me down hallways . . . into classrooms . . . even into the dressing room of Mrs. P’s School of Ballet.

So I did exactly what everyone expected of me.

I tossed my long, shiny, blond hair over my shoulder, sauntered over to the nearest, hottest available guy, and began flirting like I didn’t have a care in the world. As if my heart hadn’t just been trampled over with a Logan-shaped footprint. But I forced myself to keep my voice even and my eyes dry because even the slightest crack in appearances could be enough to de-throne me as the Queen of the Notables. Which is why, instead of bawling my eyes out, I batted my baby blues at some guy whose name I didn’t bother to learn before making my getaway.

My mom always instructed me that it was best to leave them wanting more.

Of course, she had said that in the context of my dance recitals, but it applied to flirting too. In both cases, it takes a lot of practice to hide sweat, nerves, and performance anxiety, but if you let any of it show, it kills the magic. And I had spent enough time faking happiness that I could flirt while replaying exactly how it felt to have Logan’s lips against mine one last time—soaring hope and an overwhelming sense of rightness as my body recognized that this was exactly where I belonged.

But apparently Logan hadn’t felt any of it.

I maintained that stupid fake smile even after a stranger splashed beer on my shoes as I headed toward the door. It was only when I was driving home that I began ranting to myself about the cosmic unfairness of realizing that I had never gotten over my first love only to find out that he had
definitely
gotten over me.

But it became pretty obvious when I pulled into my driveway that my night wasn’t about to get any better. Because waiting for me by the door was my dad’s suitcase. I had his teaching schedule memorized, and I knew for a fact that there were no upcoming academic conferences scribbled on the kitchen calendar for
months
. There was no logical reason for his luggage to be slumped against one of our enormous ceramic flowerpots.

Unless I was finally getting to see the closing night performance of the divorce walk of blame.

Not just a trial separation. Not a temporary experiment. Not something that would blow over eventually, like it always did. Nope, this time he was really leaving.

And you would think that losing both Logan and my father in one night would forever earn it the terrible distinction of being the very worst evening of my life. My personal all-time low. Rock freaking bottom.

But it wasn’t.

It’s funny how being hunted down by a group of certifiable bad guys in a third-world country can change a girl’s perspective on what constitutes a tragedy. Not
ha-ha
funny,
obviously
. It’s more of a
laughing is my only alternative to disintegrating into a million pieces
type of funny. When your every decision is a matter of life or death, even truly ridiculous amounts of personal drama fade into insignificance.

Hunt or be hunted.

Hide or
. . .
wind up with a gun aimed at your head.

I found that out the hard way.