Love Won (Winning at Love book 1) Read online

  “Sure, Kam, we can get freaky if you want. You know why?” I start dancing moves I know I probably shouldn’t be making to the techno-infused beats as we charge onto the dance floor, but I couldn’t care less how silly I look if it makes Kami happy right now.

  “Nope. Don’t care. You just owe me,” she says, standing in the middle of the dancers, staring at me and laughing, surely regretting this decision as I jerk clumsily around her in all my asshole glory. Then, with perfect timing, I move in rhythm with Madonna’s voice right up into Kami’s face, and quote the best line I’ve ever heard in a song—“It’s ’cause…‘bitch, I’m Madonna’!”

  Soon all is forgiven and forgotten as we drink and dance the night away, on a school night, nonetheless.

  If I had known what would be waiting for me the next morning, I might have made a better choice.

  9

  Coincidence? Or Something Greater at Work?

  Braynk.

  Braynk.

  Braynk.

  The alarm goes off, and I realize I’d rather be dead than open my eyes.

  I am going to kill Kami.

  Reaching over to my bedside table, I snag and fumble, working overtime to get that godawful noise to stop.

  Braynk.

  Braynk.

  Bray—

  “Ha! That’ll teach you…” I drop my iPhone beside me and hide under my blankets. If it weren’t a mandatory day, I’d definitely be calling in comatose this morning.

  After another ten minutes of self-talk and silent motivational speaking, I realize I do need to actually get moving if I’m going to make it to the school on time. Standing on wobbly legs, my head pounding, my stomach churning, and last night’s underwear stuck to my thigh, the decision is clear: when I see Kami, I will be ending our lifelong friendship.

  Friends do not make friends feel like this.

  “It’s not like we have the kids tomorrow, right? And we never do this anymore. I’d do it for you!”

  “Asshole.” I growl, grabbing my towel and heading for the shower.

  *

  Pulling into the last available parking space, I’m pretty much frantic. Not only did I have to skip grabbing a coffee—the horror!—I got stuck in traffic, and now here I am: both hungover and late, the two things I hate most.

  Locking up my silver Prius, I literally run across the parking lot—See? Yoga pants can come in handy even for we awkward, non-sporty types—into the school, and down the hall to the centre of the building where I know the meeting with our new principal has been underway for over ten minutes. I could hear my phone going crazy in the car on the way here, but with my luck this morning, had I attempted to look at it I’d have ended up playing chicken with a police cruiser.

  Entering the library and hearing laughter, I take a deep breath and try to relax. But, turning the corner, my relief is short-lived when my eyes land on the man sitting at the front of the room.

  “You’ve gotta be shitting me,” I mutter—louder than I mean to—as I take in the scene before me.

  “Ah, Ms. Hatfield. Nice of you to join us this morning,” he says, his deep voice reverberating through my body.

  “What? You…nooo…”

  Clearly the English language has escaped me. My mouth feels like I’ve swallowed cotton balls. My legs are encased in cement; I’m no longer able to move one foot in front of the other. My pulse accelerates so fast I’m convinced that my heart’s going to jump out and escape, while my cheeks catch fire under the room’s attention, as all eyes are now on me.

  “Sorry,” is all I can muster as I look for the one remaining open seat. Luckily, it’s beside Kami, my ally. My eyes meet hers, trying in vain to send her out an SOS, but I see that it’s no use. She’s as shocked as I am.

  “Now that you’ve made your arrival known, Ms. Hatfield, please go take a seat,” McCoy Graves directs, his voice as commanding as ever.

  “Uh-hum,” I nod, still pretty much speechless, attempting to walk with my hungover head held high, not wanting him to know he’s got the upper hand. I will my feet to move at more than a turtle’s pace, wanting to keep as much distance as I possibly can between Coy and I. Keeping my eyes focused on Kami, my safety net, I am attempting to maintain my false bravado and squeeze past the other seated teachers when it happens.

  I trip.

  Whoosh.

  Down I go, like a sack of potatoes, the strap of someone’s purse tangled around my ankle.

  “Arrgh,” I garble as I stumble and land facedown, ass up. My derrière might as well be waving while it greets none other than my new flipping boss!

  You have got to be shitting me.

  The need to crawl into a hole and rot settles in as a wave of gasps and “oh no’s” and “is she okay’s?” are heard coming from my peers.

  “Jesus Christ, Sprinkles, are you all right?” McCoy whispers softly, suddenly down beside me, concern marring his beautiful features. For a moment I think we both forget where we are.

  “Er,” I respond, at a loss, my mind racing to regain my composure.

  “Tripping over me again, eh?” McCoy says, his voice still low, and it sets me off like a lit firework waiting to explode in his face. I don’t give in. Not here, not in front of my colleagues.

  Composure.

  Deep breaths in…and out.

  You are zen.

  You are good. You are good.

  Composure.

  Simply giving him an evil glare—rather than the colourful verbiage I’d zen-ed out from slipping past my lips—I dismiss his offer of assistance and peel myself off the floor.

  Straightening my posture and getting my bearings, I look into McCoy’s smirking face. His sapphire-coloured eyes are wide and amused, knowing I’m not hurt (other than my pride, of course). He’s enjoying this way too much, enjoying watching me struggle not to lose my cool, to not give in to my temper and tell him to shove his offer of help right up his ass. His cocky smirk and demeanour piss me off even more, my embarrassment quickly turning into a strong need for self-preservation. Lifting my chin, I meet the eyes of the same boy who unwittingly stole my heart all those years ago, and all I can do is grit through my clenched jaw, the zen now gone, “Do not call me that,” so only he can hear me. I push past him, bumping his shoulder as I awkwardly limp over to take my seat beside Kami.

  “You sure you’re all right?” Kami asks.

  “Yeah, peachy. Kind of feels like track and field tryouts all over again.” I give her an exasperated look.

  “Now that I’m positive you’re okay, I’ll tell you something,” she whispers.

  “Oh Lord, what now?” I ask, not sure I really want to hear this.

  “When you fell, it was like a classic Paige Ginn move in one of those epic falls videos of hers. Good one, East,” Kami says, laughing quietly, her shoulders shaking, while comparing me to the famed YouTuber.

  “I hate you.” I lean in so only she can hear me.

  “Sorry, but that landing!” she belly laughs, and I facepalm. I can hear a few of my colleagues murmuring their displeasure at my wasting our time as the Hatfield and Sutherland two-woman shit show continues, regardless of my trying to rein it in so we can carry on. I offer an apologetic smile to Mr. Muniz, whom I just caught shooting an eye roll our way.

  “This better just be one hell of a drunken nightmare,” I hiss before composing myself again, ready to finally get on with the morning.

  I hear McCoy expel a small chuckle before he resumes his talk at the front of the room. “Shall we continue now that the entertainment has arrived, performed, and found her seat? Again, thank you for gracing us with your presence, Ms. Hatfield.” His joke makes the room erupt in a string of laughter, along with a few groans of obvious annoyance, and all I can think about is how much I want to stab this man in the jugular. I mean, true, I was late, but still… “Now, if you’ll please take a look at page four of the handout, we can carry on and hopefully finish at a decent hour.”

  “I’ll give you fuck
ing ‘Sprinkles’, asshole,” I whisper, reaching for the hard copy of the supervision schedule he wants us to go over.

  “I didn’t hear him call you that,” Kami whispers back.

  “He’s a sneaky bastard. He said it so only I’d hear when he pretended to help me up.” I stare daggers at him as he moves through the schedule.

  “Would you kill me if I told you I’m kind of excited to see this play out?” my former best friend asks, and all I can do in response is kick her under the table.

  “Ouch,” she yelps, and I giggle, a glint of happiness surfacing as McCoy stops his lecture again, his evil glare reprimanding someone other than me.

  Sitting there for the next hour or so, all I can think about is McCoy calling me Sprinkles. I’ve always had a love/hate relationship with his stupid nickname for me. Once upon a time, I thought it meant I was different from the others. But if history serves me correctly, it was always just a way for him to get under my skin and torment me. Sitting here now, listening to the familiar lull of his voice, my mind wanders back to the first time he’d called me that.

  McCoy had been the guy that every girl noticed. He was the boy who sucked you in from the first look and kept you entwined in the intricate web of his blue eyes, dimpled smile, and unrelenting charisma which, combined, had most girls begging for him to cast his attention their way. It was a feeling I’d been all too familiar with myself over the years. I’d not only sat back and watched a whole school full of innocent girls fall face first for the guy, I had been one of them. Growing up, I’d have given anything to be on his radar and a few times I thought I’d actually been successful. He’d given me a nickname, apparently making me both the most envied and the most hated among his throngs of female fans at our high school. I was either the unicorn that affected the notorious McCoy Graves, or merely the butt of a joke according to the rumour mill. “Why her?” was the question asked by the many girl tribes at our high school, College Heights, during my stint in tenth grade. Rumours, whispers, and assumptions ran through the school like wildfire, especially because McCoy had never nicknamed any girl before. As a result, I quickly became a blip on everyone’s radar. Unfortunately, just not his.

  It had all stemmed from my mother, and her stupid affliction for celebrating every teeny-tiny moment of our lives with a damn cake. This particular one had been for Keaton; he was sixteen, and I was fifteen. He was in Grade Eleven and had decided to run for school Vice President, and won. My mom—being my mom—decided we needed to celebrate with a big family dinner and, of course, one of her famous cakes. She’d forgotten the bread to accompany the pasta and had run off to the store, leaving me in charge of frosting duties…

  I finished mixing the sprinkles into the frosting. I decided this would be my own spin on mom’s recipe. I was tired of the sprinkles (which, in my opinion, were the best part) always falling off the surface of the icing onto my plate. So, I planned on making them an integral part of the frosting, ensuring those sweet little morsels of heaven were treated as cake equals for a change. Yep, I was standing up for candy-coloured confections everywhere. No longer were they going to be a mere decoration—no, they would become the damn stars of the whole affair. I thought of it like Ross from Friends’ “Moist Maker” sandwich (turkey with a surprise hit of gravy-soaked bread as its middle layer), only with sprinkles. I named my frosting creation the “Whirlwind”, and was excited about my new invention. I stood in the kitchen—wooden spoon in one hand and a jar of sprinkles in the other. I’d been in the middle of taste testing and adding a few more, working to get the perfect balance of sweet and crunchy with every bite—when I felt him.

  McCoy.

  I didn’t hear him come in, but, oh boy, did I feel his presence. I always did, just like the first time we’d met.

  “What are you doing there, East? You do know the sprinkles go on top of the cake, right?”

  “Not anymore,” I said with confidence. My tongue worked the spoon, causing his eyes to flare with the motions of my tongue—or, at least, I like to think that’s what happened. “I’m taking a stand.” I waved the spoon in the air.

  “You’re taking a stand? For the sprinkles?” he asked, with a disbelieving smile.

  “Yep.” I sucked my finger into my mouth after shaking a titch more into the bowl and giving it a stir. “Ah, perfect!” I said, as I turned to face him. Which, in hindsight was a huge mistake.

  He and Keaton had just been golfing, and he looked hotter than hot, standing in front of me wearing perfect-fitting tan cargos and a pink polo shirt that brought out the colour of his eyes, and also showed off the beefy arms he’d developed since he and Keaton had joined a gym.

  “I’ll take your word for it,” he said, moving a step closer to where I was standing with the mixing bowl, “or better yet, I’ll have a taste myself.” He grinned, taking yet another step. Bypassing the wooden spoon I held out for him, his finger grazed my cheek where some frosting must have escaped my mouth. I watched with rapt attention while he ever so slowly proceeded to move his now frosting-covered fingertip to his mouth. I gasped from the intensity and the tension filling the air. With his eyes locked on my own, I watched, mouth ajar, as he wrapped those perfect lips of his around his finger and sucked off every single trace of frosting.

  Holy flipping cow!

  “I think you might be onto something there, Sprinkles,” he said, giving me a wink. One I felt all the way to my toes.

  From that day on, McCoy Graves called me Sprinkles. And from that day, a childish nickname still gave me giddy butterflies.

  McCoy’s deep timbre draws me back. “The rest of the afternoon is yours. I’ll be around until two-thirty if anyone needs me. Feel free to stay until three o’clock, but if you do decide to sneak out early, all I ask is that you not be seen at the mall. It’s my first day here as principal, and I don’t want to be seen as a pushover by any parents if I let you go too early. The last thing I need is an upset community; it’s still a working day.”

  “Let’s go,” Kami says. “I have a ton to clean up in my room before we can leave, and I definitely want to get out of here before three. Hell, my goal is one o’clock.”

  I agree, even as I’m shaking my head at the craziness that this is really happening, that McCoy Graves is not only back in Guelph—he’s our new boss. “Yeah let’s go, I want to get out of here as soon as possible.”

  We grab our stuff and leave the library together without a backwards glance in McCoy’s direction.

  Well, maybe one little glance…

  10

  Dutch Ovens and the Concussive Van Gogh

  “I can’t believe it,” I shout, storming towards my classroom and beginning to pace back and forth, finally able to let out the emotions I’d been stifling during the staff meeting. Talk about expecting the unexpected; I thought he’d gone back to Brockville? Never in a million billion years would I have thought there would be the slightest chance that McCoy would ever be my boss.

  “What the actual hell? How did…how does…who let…?” I can’t even finish my sentences, I’m so at a loss right now. “How is this going to work? Kami, tell me it’s all a bad joke.” I look to my friend, who can only shrug her shoulders. We both know it’s true; McCoy is indeed our new principal. “Tell me Keaton didn’t lie to me.”

  “I’m sorry, East. You know I was just kidding, what I said earlier in the library. It’s not going to be fun to watch, I don’t wish this for you at all. I wish I could tell you it wasn’t true…” she sucks in a deep breath, knowing I’m about to kill her “…even if I am still secretly curious to see how this will go.”

  “Kami, please, not now,” I tell her, too shocked to let her taunting get me riled up. I’m spent, and I know she realizes this is a horrible situation for me.

  “Okay, I’m done. I promise.” She raises three fingers of her right hand like a Girl Guide, and I nod before she continues. “I almost died when I walked into the library and saw him there this morning. When he introduced hims
elf as our new principal, I was calling and texting you, but he gave me a ‘Get off your phone, now!’ look. He said he’d give us enough breaks so he’d prefer we not use our personal devices while he reviewed the new ground rules for the way he likes to run his staff meetings. He said he had a lot to go over and wanted our full attention this morning, then carried on about being respectful and some shit.”

  “He’s insane.” I shake my head. “What if someone had an emergency? Whatever, I guess he has a point. But this better not be the start of some tyrannical bullshit he thinks he can come here and inflict on us,” I fume, picking up speed as I continue to pace. “I can’t believe Keaton and my parents never told me. There’s no way they didn’t know that the prodigal son and brother-from-another-mother was moving back here!” I slam my classroom door shut behind me as we enter, not wanting anyone to hear us. Then Keaton’s words from brunch the other day come to mind, when he said that I’d be “getting mine”. That little snake. He’ll be getting an earful at dinner tonight.

  “Okay, so what are we going to do about it?” Kami asks, breaking into my thoughts.

  “No clue. But first, I’m going to kill Keaton. So you might want to pay him a visit at Inkredible after work, because it’ll be the last time you see your boyfriend alive,” I say, giving her my best evil grin.

  “He’s not my boyfriend, but let’s agree not to hurt him just yet. He’s such nice eye candy to run with, I’ll give him that,” she grins, “and I’m sure there’s a reasonable explanation for why he kept the news from you.” I roll my eyes. Of course she’ll give him the benefit of the doubt, even when I’m sure Keaton most definitely knew about this.