ONE
AGE EIGHT
He was here again. The boy with the dark hair and the bright smile.
Weston Cavendish.
I sat back against the wall of the playroom, hugging my knees, the unfinished LEGO next to me forgotten. My older brother, Cassius, and Weston’s brother, Caiden, slumped down on the beanbags in front of the TV, ready to play a racing game.
Weston’s gaze travelled around the room and landed on me, and that smile appeared on his face. It gave me a funny fluttery feeling in my tummy, and I had to look away from him.
“What ya making?” He came to a stop in front of me, crouching down and staring at my unfinished piece with his head cocked.
“A-a house.” My voice came out all scratchy, and my cheeks felt hot as he turned from the LEGO to look at me with his colour-changing eyes. They were like magic. Kind of a deep blue, but with greys and greens swirled in. Like the sea that I saw from the windows of my house every single day.
“Cool. Can I play?” Not waiting for a reply, he took a spare board from the open box next to me and started laying out pieces. We built in silence for a while, just us two in our corner of the room, our brothers occupied by their game.
“What do you wanna be when you grow up?”
His voice made me jump, and the piece of LEGO I’d been holding fell from my hand. “What do you wanna be?” I asked him, while I tried to think of an answer that would impress him.
“I want to be like Tony Stark.”
I bit my lip. “Who’s that?”
He rolled his eyes and huffed. “Iron Man. He has all this cool computer stuff, and he invents robots and things like that. And he defeats villains like Galactus.”
My cheeks were getting redder as I looked at him, unsure. “Y-you want to be a superhero?”
“Kind of, yeah.” He puffed out his chest, grinning. “A computer superhero.”
“Me too.” The words slipped out before I could think about them.
His eyes widened. “You want to be a computer superhero?”
“Yep.” I nodded, trying to sound confident even though I felt sick with nerves. I didn’t even have a computer of my own. “I love computers.”
His whole face lit up, like I’d never seen before, and my breath caught in my throat as his eyes focused on mine. “Me too.” He repeated the words I’d just said, smiling shyly at me from under his lashes.
That was the moment I knew I’d do whatever it took to keep that boy smiling at me, the way he was right then.
That was the moment I knew I loved Weston Cavendish.
TWO
AGE EIGHTEEN - LAST YEAR
We hadn’t even been at the party long, and I was already bored out of my mind. My dad, Arlo Cavendish, and stepmother, Christine Clifford, had forced us all to attend. The primary objective was to keep up the charade that we were a happy family, now that my stepsister, Winter Huntington, had moved to the area and was attending Alstone College with us.
My brother, Caiden, and I barely got along with our dad, and with Christine on the scene, being around them was almost intolerable. There was no love lost between Winter and her mother, either. They’d been estranged until recently. Winter had grown up with her dad, John Huntington, who had passed away almost a year ago. Now, she was living here in Alstone.
So here we were—me, Caiden, and Winter, all of us uncomfortable and wishing we could be anywhere else but here in my dad’s mansion, surrounded by members of the Alstone elite and whoever else was currently trying to suck up to my dad and stepmother.
“Hello, beautiful.”
Turning from the bar, I watched James Granville, a guy that none of us particularly liked given that he was related to our business rivals (a rivalry that dated back years), greet Winter. She returned his greeting with genuine happiness, throwing her arms around him. Caiden’s eyes darkened, and his mouth set in a hard line. As one, we moved to stand on either side of Winter, reminding James of his place.
Although, I was certain that Caiden’s hostility towards James had little to do with our family rivalry, and everything to do with our new stepsister. I could pretty much guarantee how this would go down. Cade would get jealous, probably do something like flirt with, or worse, fuck Portia or Jessa or another one of the vapid girls who hung around us at these events, in an attempt to make himself forget, and then get wasted and hate himself.
Yeah, my brother was all kinds of fucked up right now.
“Granville,” Caiden growled, and James replied in the same tone, stepping forwards. Internally rolling my eyes, I ignored their dick-measuring contest, my gaze drifting to the girl he’d arrived with.
Lena Drummond. My best friend Cassius’ younger sister. All dressed in black, as usual, her long blonde hair loose and poker straight. Something flashed in her blue eyes as they met mine, but it was gone before I could read it, and her face defaulted to its usual unsmiling expression.
Wait. She’d turned up with James Granville. A weird sensation twisted my stomach, something I didn’t quite understand. The words came out before I had a chance to think about them. “Lena? What’re you doing with Granville?” She held my gaze for a moment, and it looked like she was trying to read something on my face. What, I had no fucking clue. When I remained standing there, waiting for her to explain, she breathed out heavily and rolled her eyes.
“He gave me a lift. Get over it. I’m here—that has to count for something.” Before I could say anything in reply, she turned on her heel and disappeared into the crowds.
“Who was that?” Winter asked me curiously.
“Lena Drummond. Cassius’ sister. She’s seventeen and…mad at the world? Or something? I don’t know. She’s moody.”
“Right.” She sighed. “Thanks for your insightful comments, West.”
I grinned at her, grabbing my drink from the bar and lifting it to my lips. “Pleasure.”
Downing my pint, I tuned out James and Caiden as I scanned the crowd. I caught a flash of blonde hair out of the corner of my eye, and my heart sped up.
What the fuck?
I was interrupted from my thoughts by Winter threading her arm through mine. She smiled up at me. “Shall we go and mingle?”
Yes. I stared in the direction of the blonde head, all the way over the other side of the room, but gave a groan. Couldn’t seem too eager. “We’d better. Come on.”
By the time we’d made it to the far side of the room, Lena had disappeared.
Hours later, the party was still going strong, but I’d escaped to the relative peace of the study with Cassius and our housemate, Zayde Lowry, who was also my brother’s best mate. Cass had dragged a girl in with him, and while I’d normally do the same, I wasn’t feeling it tonight for some reason.
“Wanna play?” I suggested to Zayde, already heading over to the dartboard and pulling down a handful of darts.
“Only if we make it interesting.”
“Play for money?”
Zayde nodded, and I stepped back from the board. “You go first.”
We’d been playing for a while, and it was a fucking miracle, but Zayde was off his game. I was in the lead. This shit needed to be documented, because I doubted it would happen again.