Ford

Pulling into my driveway, I kill the engine and exhale.

I read her file today.

After she left my office this morning, I contacted the school guidance counselor and asked her to send me anything and everything she had on Halston Kessler.

By the time lunch was through, I had a thick file on my desk with “Confidential” stamped over each and every page.

I’m not exactly sure what I was looking for, but whatever it was, I found it.

And then some.

Bree’s silver Prius pulls into the Abbotts’ driveway, parking outside the third stall of their garage, and I watch from my car as a passenger climbs out the other side. The girl has wild blonde hair, and she flings a bag over one shoulder as she heads inside, not waiting for Bree.

Bree yells something.

The girl turns back.

It’s her. Halston.

I’d have never paired the two of them as friends—they couldn’t possibly be more different, but high school’s a trying time and stranger things have happened.

Halston comes back to the car, retrieving something from the back seat. Bree spots me, waving, and Halston glances in my direction. I’ve no choice but to get out and say hello. Sitting in the car, staring, would be inappropriate at this point.

Exiting my car, I walk toward them, doing my best to be a friendly principal and not a man who spent the entire school day obsessing over a woman he has no business so much as thinking about.

“Hi,” I say, hands resting on my hips. Halston keeps back, staring. Bree smiles, acting like nothing happened.

We’re all just fucking acting like nothing happened.

“How was your first day, Principal?” Bree asks.

Glancing toward Halston, because I can’t help myself, I nod. “It went well, thank you.”

Halston smirks, taking a sip of her iced coffee, her red lips wrapped around a green Starbucks straw.

“I didn’t know you lived here.” Halston moves my way.

Bree watches us. “How could you not know? He moved in two months ago.”

Well shit. Halston must be Abbott’s niece.

Halston shrugs, electric jade eyes trained on me. “Guess I was a little too … preoccupied to notice.”

“We should probably head in,” Bree says, still observing.

“You go ahead.” Halston takes another sip. “I’ll be in in a sec.”

She loiters for a moment before disappearing inside, though I fully expect her to watch us from behind a pulled curtain.

“We couldn’t really talk earlier,” I say, closing the space between us. “I just want to make sure you’re okay.”

Halston rolls her eyes. “Good god. You must think I’m weak or something.”

“That’s not true.” I look at her, but all I can think about is her file.

Everything she’s been through.

Everything she’s overcome.

“The good news is, guys like you are a dime a dozen,” she says, shrugging.

“Guys like me?” I smirk. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You know, the ones who’re afraid to commit, afraid to limit their options.”

“It was never about limiting my options.” I exhale, pinching the bridge of my nose. Every person I’ve ever loved has left me in some capacity or another. Over the years, I’ve found it easier to separate emotions from sex, to swear off commitment altogether. The only time I ever found myself second-guessing that decision was the last time I spoke to “Absinthe” on the phone.

But she hung up before I had a chance to say it.

“Anyway,” she says, wrapping her lips around the straw and smiling. “I don’t know about you, but I find this entire situation to be fucking hilarious.”

“I don’t.”

“You’re worried.” Halston adjusts the slipping bag on her shoulder. “And you shouldn’t be.”

My gaze holds hers, and I wonder what it must have been like for her to grow up in a meth house. To miss years upon years of school. To know what it was like to go to bed hungry, to not have heat in the wintertime.

But there was one case note, specifically, that broke my heart in fucking two.

At thirteen, her father pimped her out to one of his friends in exchange for drugs. She lost her virginity, her innocence. And it wasn’t just once. It went on, according to the notes from the social worker, for the better part of a year.

How she can stand here with her head held high and a resilient gleam in her eye is beyond me.

“Okay, if we’re just going to stand here staring at each other …” Halston lifts her brows.

“Sorry.” My brows meet. “I was just thinking.”

“Thinking what?”

About how beautiful she is inside and out, how genuine and unapologetic she is, and how fucking much I’m going to miss talking to her, knowing her in an intimate way that goes beyond the physical.

“Have a good night, Halston.” I say her name, a reminder that my bittersweet, addictive Absinthe is real.

And then I watch her walk away.