Chapter 1

Maddie

“Here’s to the start of an undefeated Redwood Hockey season!” my brother Oliver shouted over the rap music blasting in my parent’s living room. I ran a hand over my face and groaned through the phone at the noise… and at the scene unfolding in front of me. 

Oliver’s entitled manwhore best friend, Alec Wolfe, stood next to him on the coffee table, throwing back a shot of tequila while a group of half-naked hockey-groupies and teammates roared wildly around them.

I held my phone to my ear and glared at Alec fondling Sandra, his ex-girlfriend and one of the popular girls at Redwood who made my life a living hell. “God,” I growled, hand tightening around the stupid piece of metal in my hands. “I hate him so freaking much.”

“Why don’t you come over to my house?” Vera, my bestie, asked through the phone. “It’s quiet and doesn’t have smelly ass boys in it. They probably didn’t even shower after that game. I can smell their B.O. from here.”

Alec licked the last drop of tequila off his lips and hazily gazed in my direction with his dark, hooded eyes that I fucking loathed seeing everyday. And then, this dickhead had the audacity to smirk.

To smirk at me!

I wanted to kill him.

So many Redwood groupies had been graced with the infamous Wolfe smirk, but Alec had barely even looked in my direction since he and Oliver started hanging out five years ago. I didn’t know what this little smirk was all about tonight.

We hated each other. Well mostly, I hated him because he was a disgusting manwhore who couldn’t keep it in his pants, fine as hell, and couldn’t spare me a single moment out of the damn day. Ugh, whatever.

“Too distracted?” Vera hummed, a small giggle escaping through the phone.

“Yeah, sure,” I said sarcastically. “Distracted by Alec grinding up against three girls.” My hand tightened around the phone, and I glared harder at him so he’d look away but he didn’t. I gritted my teeth. “I’ll be over soon.”

This was exactly why I left the house anytime that Oliver threw a stupid party.

Alec hopped off the table, grabbed a red solo cup from one of his teammates, and stumbled in my direction, his gaze on me the entire time. Not even glancing back at a cheerleader who pulled off her top.

Wanting to distance myself from him, I swallowed hard and made a bee-line for the kitchen. “See you in a half hour, V.” I slammed my finger on the end call button and slipped into the other room, hoping that Alec somehow lost his way in my parent’s fucking mansion.

After grabbing a cup, I filled it with water from the fridge and chugged it. All I had to do was grab some overnight clothes from my bedroom and force my way through the crowd of smelly boys in the living room, then it’d just be me and Vera for the rest of the–

Someone seized my waist from behind and tugged me closer until I collided with a hard, taut chest. The scent of Alec’s cologne that I knew all too well drifted through my nose. Alec grazed his nose against my ear, the stench of alcohol coming off him in waves.

“Looking for me, Cupcake?” he murmured into my ear.

A wave of heat ran through my entire body. Fuck.

I twirled around and slammed my hands into his chest, my fingers brushing against the thick muscle that laid underneath his v-neck. I clenched my jaw and ignored the warmth building between my legs. “What the hell are you doing?” I whisper-yelled, not wanting anyone to see.

Alec Wolfe had never touched me like this, had never even looked twice in my direction… when he was sober. Now that he was hyped up on hard liquor, I bet he thought I was another one of his little groupies.

Probably couldn’t even see straight.

Stumbling back, he drunkenly grinned at me. “What does it look like? I want to dance with the sexiest girl at Redwood tonight.” He stepped closer to me, his large hands resting on my waist again. “Come here.”

I pushed Alec away and ignored those sultry eyes that he was giving me. He was drunk and mistaking me for someone else, because popular guys like him never liked nerdy, awkward girls like me. Except in Vera’s case with her skateboard loving bad boy fling.

“Why don’t you go back out to the living room with your girlfriend?” I huffed.

“Girlfriend?”

“Sandra?”

Alec stepped closer to me and laughed coldly. “Sandra isn’t my girlfriend.”

“Well, she’s telling everyone that you’re still together.”

Which might’ve-definitely been the real reason that I had been pissed off since the end of the game tonight. I could care less about Oliver throwing another party; I had gotten used to sleeping on Vera’s couch when he did.

Alec tucked a strand of hair behind my ear. “You think I would go back to her when I can have you?”

I scrunched my nose. “I don’t know how you get any girls with pick up lines like that.”

Though the thought of Alec actually meaning those things…

I shook my head. No. He was just drunk. He didn’t mean it.

“You don’t like my pick up lines?” he slurred, his cheeks reddening from the alcohol.

Because Alec Wolfe wasn’t blushing. Not because of me.

“No,” I scoffed and crossed my arms. “Do you even know who you’re talking to?”

“The only girl who I can’t get up the fucking courage to talk to while I’m sober.”

Warmth exploded through my chest. “What?”

He paused for a moment, then leaned against the counter, sipped his beer, and smirked at me again like he hadn’t just said anything, like he was talking to Sandra or Jenny or Nicole from the cheer squad.

I waited for him to explain what had just come out of his mouth.

But he continued to smirk.

“Go stumble back to the half-naked cheer team in the living room,” I said, clenching my jaw and turning away. Why’d he have to go and say that?! Now I wouldn’t be able to stop thinking about it. I hated the way I felt about him. “I’m sure you’ll have fun with them.”

“If I wanted to,” Alec started, “I would’ve slept with them already.”

“And here I thought you were actually a decent guy,” I snapped, anger boiling inside me.

Lie.

I thought he was the biggest player Redwood had ever known.

“And here I thought that you were smarter than to believe all those rumors Redwood Academy spoon-feeds everyone,” Alec fired back, stepping back into my vision and tilting his head down at me. He drew his tongue across his lower lip.

And all I could imagine was him drawing his tongue up my inner thighs, slipping it between me legs, and--

Stop it, Maddie.

Straightening myself out again, I sucked in a deep breath. “You being the school slut is not a rumor. I’ve seen it with my own eyes.”

Before I could stop him, Alec placed his hands on either side of my body and trapped me between him and the counter, his muscular frame towering over me. And those eyes, those freaking brown eyes, trapped me.

“Don’t look at me like that,” I said.

“How am I looking at you?”

“Like you want to…” My mouth dried. “Want to…”

Alec grasped my chin and forced me to look up at him. “Like I want to do what?”

Heat engulfed my entire body just from the mere touch. I inhaled sharply and pressed my thighs together. I hated how my body reacted to him. He was my brother’s best friend and had annoyed me since middle school.

“Hmm?” Alec asked, his breath fanning my mouth. “Speechless, Cupcake?”

“Can you stop calling me that?” I managed to get out.

“Alec!” someone shouted from our right. “There you are!”

Sandra, Alec’s ex-girlfriend or new fling or whatever the hell she was to him, walked into the room with her arms crossed and her gaze shifting from Alec to me. She narrowed her beady brown eyes.

“What are you doing here?” she asked him.

Alec stepped away and smirked. “Just teaching Oliver’s little sister a lesson.”

“Well, come on.” She tugged on his bicep. “The party’s out here. Not here with her.”

Sandra wrapped her arm around his, but he tugged himself away from her. After throwing me another heated glance, Alec grabbed another beer from the counter behind me and walked out of the kitchen and into the living room with her.

I balled my hands into fists and glared at her retreating figure. I hated her too.

Instead of grabbing another glass of water, I took a red solo cup from the kitchen and filled it with whatever kind of spiked punch my brother made today. Nobody here should’ve even been drinking. We were all underage, but…

“Come on, baby,” Sandra shouted in the other room. “Dance with me.”

Fuck it.

I downed the drink and stomped up to my bedroom.

I was not going to watch Alec’s ex-girlfriend rub herself all over him.

After slamming my bedroom door, I changed into a pair of shorts and a t-shirt to wear over Vera’s house, collapsed on my bed, and sighed. Alec hadn’t even looked like he had mistaken me for someone else tonight.

But he had to have, right? And I mean–

My bedroom door suddenly swung open, and Alec Wolfe walked in.