Path of Destruction (Broken Heartland, #2)(22)

Gravel flew, stirring up dust around them as they pulled into her driveway. She watched him park behind her dad’s car and get out of his jeep. He walked purposely toward the porch.

Holy hell, he was serious.

Ella Jane moved as quickly as she could, throwing herself onto his back just as he reached the front door.

“What the—”

“Wait. Hang on, Hayden. Just wait. Please.”

He stilled as she detached herself from his back and slid down to standing.

“I’ll tell them. About everything. Just…just not right now.”

He snorted. “You think I’m an idiot, don’t you?”

“No,” she lied. She didn’t exactly think that, she just hoped maybe he could be persuaded. Things were crazy enough at her house as it was without him adding her suicide mission to it. Her mom was a zombie, her dad was a dictator, she was mostly mute at home, and Kyle haunted all three of them. “I just… I need to talk to my mom alone. I don’t want my dad to stay here any longer out of guilt.”

“I can’t have a heart attack every time the train runs or because you’re absent or late to school. And after that? After seeing…that, I need to know that someone else knows how you’re feeling so that I don’t lose my damn mind.”

He was pleading with her, begging really. He was cute when he was concerned. She didn’t know what to say to that, so she did the one thing she knew she shouldn’t.

She kissed him.

Hayden didn’t respond at first, due to the shock maybe, but when his lips moved against hers, his kiss served to breathe the life back into her just as it had in the hallway at school. She let loose this time, raking her hands into his hair, pulling him closer while pushing her body against him.

“I know what you’re doing,” he mumbled against her lips. “But this is serious. You can’t distract me from—”

She interrupted him by plunging her tongue deep into his mouth, tasting him the way he’d done to her all summer. The familiar way he wrapped his arms around her made her knees even weaker than they already were. Hayden’s hands dropped lower, gripping the underneath of her thighs and lifting her onto his waist. He walked them over to the porch swing and sat, the old chains that held the swing clanging in protest.

Ella Jane moaned into his mouth when she felt his arousal beneath her. It felt just as it had before, being with him this way. She felt loved and cherished and not at all like a thing on the side.

Maybe they could go back. Maybe it could be like it was. Maybe tomorrow she’d wake up and it would all have been a dream. Maybe it was still the night before the party and there wasn’t a storm at all.

“Ella Jane Mason, get inside this house right now.”

Her dad’s voice effectively sliced between them, clearing the lust-filled fog she’d fallen into. Her entire body flushed as she wondered how she could’ve been so stupid. It wasn’t last summer, a kiss couldn’t turn back time.

Hayden set her gently beside him on the swing and stood slowly. “Mr. Mason, I swear that wasn’t what it—”

“What it looked like?” her dad sneered. “Well it sure as hell couldn’t have been homework, now could it? Guess that means I’ll be making that call we discussed after all.”

“What call?” Ella Jane felt like they were speaking a secret language she couldn’t understand.

“Say goodnight, Ella Jane,” her dad demanded without taking his eyes off Hayden.

“You don’t get to just waltz back in here and start giving orders.” She stood, ready for Hayden to leave so she could put her humiliating slip behind her but not ready for it to be on her dad’s terms.

“I should go anyway,” Hayden said, giving her a small smile. “I’ll call you, okay?”

She bit her lip and shook her head. In a way, he’d saved her life. But it was still too hard. He was still so much a part of something that hurt so bad, and he always would be.

“Just go,” she said softly, not looking him in the eye.

“Ella Jane,” her dad barked. “House. Now.” He held the door open as he waited for her to fall in line. She sighed and glanced back at Hayden.

“You can talk to Cami if you want,” Hayden told her before he walked down off the porch. “She can explain everything. We weren’t together this summer, I promise.”

Cami.

Ella Jane had nearly forgotten her. She had some questions for her all right. They just had nothing to do with Hayden.





She hadn’t touched her cell phone since Friday. She knew how rare and strange this was. Considering she was a seventeen-year-old girl, this was almost unheard of, but since she’d dialed Kyle’s number and his sister had answered it, she couldn’t bring herself to touch the thing.

Ella Jane had called back as soon as Cami had hung up and left a pretty intense voicemail demanding answers as to why the Summit Bluffs’ princess was calling her dead brother’s phone.

“What do you want? How did you know my brother? We need to talk. Call me back.”

Cami noted the desperation in Ella Jane’s voice—a familiar cadence she’d noticed in her own voice as of late. She considered calling her back and telling her everything, but the idea of finally vocalizing the feelings of her broken heart or letting anyone into the perfect, yet all too short, summer she and Kyle had shared together sent her right back to a place she was trying to avoid. She’d switched the phone to silent and left it on her dresser all weekend, avoiding it like the plague.