Kayla is a smart, focused, top-mark student in her last two senior years of high school in a private facility for rich kids in Florida. All she wants is to get accepted to Harvard and graduate with top marks to follow the career she has set for herself. Her entire life is about becoming an independent and successful vet. She has micro-managed it and planned it to the tiniest detail. Leaving no room for a social life or living her teen years like her peers.

This year has had its ups and downs, with her stepbrother of almost ten years coming to live under the same roof after being raised apart after their parents married. The chaos and drama his appearance has brought, since he despises not only his father but Kayla's mother too, has made home tense. He's a rude, defiant, and arrogant pain in her ass who is hellbent on causing trouble and listens to no one.  

Dane is the polar opposite in every way - Vain, oversexed, a playboy who takes nothing seriously except booze, girls, and his motorbike while he rebels in every way against his father for ripping apart his family. Looking like a teen idol, acting like someone who doesn't need to take accountability for anything in his life, Kayla honestly cannot stand him. She sees a loser who will live on daddy's money and drink away his youth while sleeping with every girl in the county.

At 17, they have known one another most of their lives and never had any kind of friendly relationship. They have always been classmates but never friends and definitely not siblings. - but all that is about to change. 

A series of events pulls them closer, a forbidden and unexpected accidental kiss, and they plummet into confusion as feelings grow that neither expected. Slowly the walls come down between them, and they have far more in common than they ever imagined.

TEEN DRAMA

　　Dane’s tone is forceful with a tint of exasperation, and I know we are going around in circles. This is not the first time we have had this argument in the past months, and it turns out the same every time. He walks off. Insults me, evades it, and leaves.


　　“You’re a loser who is so caught up in resentment that you’re ruining your own life.” It’s my last ditch attempt to wound him, and before I storm off, his laugh cuts into the growing tension as he turns towards me but continues to walk backward.


　　“What about you, Little Miss Perfect? Straight A’s, class president, leader of so many mind-numbing afterschool clubs, charity volunteer, and stray animal savior…. Never give your mom a reason to complain and do everything she tells you to, like a good little puppet. Ever ask yourself why you have to be so perfect?… Could it be because you’re afraid she’ll get tired of you like she did your dad and up and leave you?”


CHAPTER 8