Chapter 1: The New Guy in the Leather Jacket
820 Words
It was 8:01 a.m., and Lena Carter was already panicking. She clutched her color-coded binder like it was a lifeline, her ponytail bobbing as she power-walked through the hallways of Westbrooke High. Her AP Chemistry homework was due in exactly eight minutes and thirty seconds, and if she didn’t hand it in early, Mr. Rowe would dock points. Again.
“Excuse me! Coming through! Honor student on a mission!” she chirped, narrowly avoiding a collision with a group of football players and a vending machine that had been out of order since the Reagan administration.
She skidded to a halt outside her locker, yanked it open, and—
BOOM.
A motorcycle engine growled in the parking lot outside, shaking the hallway windows. Every student within earshot froze. Conversations died. Even the vending machine gave a final, dramatic clunk.
Lena turned just in time to see him.
Leather jacket. Boots. Disheveled dark hair. A cigarette dangling from lips that smirked like he knew things—dangerous things. He walked through the double doors like he owned the school, backpack slung lazily over one shoulder. And as if the universe really wanted Lena’s day to get worse, the new guy made a beeline right for her locker.
Correction: the one next to her locker.
He stopped, glanced at her with eyes as dark as midnight, and gave a nod so subtle it bordered on lazy.
“Hey.”
Lena blinked. “Uh… hi?”
He yanked open his locker—without even spinning the combination lock.
“Did you just—? That’s… that’s not how lockers work.”
He shrugged, pulling out a battered notebook and slamming the door shut again. “Guess mine’s different.”
“I don’t think that’s how physics works, either.”
The corner of his mouth twitched. “You believe everything has rules, don’t you?”
Lena straightened her spine. “Rules are the backbone of civilized society.”
“Sounds exhausting.”
And with that, he walked away. Just… walked away, leaving Lena standing there like she’d been electrocuted.
“Who was that?” she whispered to no one.
From behind her, her best friend Maddy popped up like a cartoon ghost. “That, my dear Lena, is Jace Blackwood. Just transferred from Ridgeview. Expelled twice. Rumor has it he once set off the fire alarms just to avoid a history quiz.”
“That’s ridiculous. No one actually does that.”
“He also may or may not have a tattoo of a scorpion on his—”
“Okay! Too much!”
Maddy grinned. “You’re blushing.”
“I am not. I don’t blush.”
“You’re literally the color of a strawberry milkshake.”
Lena groaned and slammed her locker shut. “He’s just another troubled boy with a cool jacket. I’m not interested.”
“Sure. Keep telling yourself that.”
⸻
The day didn’t get any better. Lena spilled coffee on her chem notes, dropped her flash drive in the toilet (don’t ask), and got assigned a group project in English Lit—with Jace Blackwood.
“He doesn’t even read,” she hissed at Maddy during lunch. “He wrote his name on the top of the worksheet and turned it in blank!”
Maddy bit into her apple. “Hot.”
“You are no help.”
But when Lena showed up to their first group session after school in the library, she found Jace already there—feet propped on the table, flipping through Wuthering Heights with a bored expression.
“I thought you didn’t read,” she said, lowering her backpack.
He didn’t look up. “I don’t.”
“Then what’s with the book?”
“I like the fights.”
“…The fights?”
He finally met her eyes. “Heathcliff’s kind of a bastard. But the guy doesn’t quit. That’s commitment.”
Lena stared at him.
Jace smirked. “What? I’m not completely brain-dead.”
She snorted before she could stop herself. “Wow. That’s such high praise. You should put that on your college application.”
He leaned forward, his eyes narrowing with amusement. “Did you just make a joke?”
“No. I was being serious.”
“Could’ve fooled me.”
Lena opened her laptop, avoiding the heat creeping up her neck. She refused to be charmed. Absolutely refused.
“So,” she said, forcing professionalism into her voice, “we’re presenting next Friday. We need to split up the research—”
“Or,” Jace said, “we could just wing it.”
She stared at him like he’d proposed robbing a bank. “I don’t wing things.”
He leaned in closer, and this time his voice dropped just slightly—low, smooth, dangerous.
“Maybe that’s your problem.”
Lena’s heart tripped over itself.
This was going to be a very long project.
- Writer
