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

　　“I’ve done plenty….. I’m not as pure as you think; I just don’t broadcast it to the world.” I lie, gritting my teeth and hating him for making me dishonest like this. I don’t even know why I care, and I catch his fork stop midway to his mouth for a second bite. He pauses, stays still, and is silent for a second before swallowing his first mouthful and looking up at me.


　　“Why are you lying right now?” there’s a seriousness in his tone that has me feeling weird, and I put my chin back down and shove my food in so I don’t need to answer


　　“Hmmm,” I try to sound flat and bored. Done with this topic and blanking him.


　　“Who was your first kiss, then?” He asks in a strained way, poised and waiting… “First proper date?”


　　“I told you it’s none of your business.” I scoff, choking on my half-swallowed and not well-chewed food, and cannot look him in the eye. I don’t even know why I am being this pathetic and immature.


CHAPTER 18