Stealing for Keeps (Frost Lake High Book 1)
Stealing for Keeps: Chapter 1

Don’t be afraid to sparkle.

My best friend, Lacey, holds up the poster board with that phrase written in big, blue bubble letters—all except the last word, which is covered in glitter—and waits for my reaction.

“It’s…sparkly,” I say from my spot on the grass outside the high school where we’ve set up for this activity, leaning back and soaking up the last of the summer sun.

“I know, right? It’s perfect.” She lets out a little squeal of excitement and places the poster on the ground with a dozen more, all with similar sayings.

We start back next week, and if Lacey has her way, the entire school will be wallpapered with uplifting signs. Best year ever. Be stronger than your excuses. Dreams don’t work unless you do.

I love her optimism. One of us needs it.

“Are you going to help or just lie there?” she asks in a tone that sounds less like a question and more like a judgment.

“You keep telling me mine are boring.”

Her mouth pulls into a wide smile, and her brown eyes light up with amusement. “Well, they’re not very colorful.”

“I used blue and white.” The school colors of Frost Lake High School and ninety percent of Lacey’s wardrobe. It doesn’t matter that it’s still officially summer; she’s always decked out in school spirit. Mine is buried somewhere underneath layers of contempt and disappointment.

My gaze drops from her Knights Cheer T-shirt to the posters scattered around us. I went with a more classic and straightforward approach to balance out Lacey’s cheery mantras. Welcome back, Knights. Now entering Knights territory. Knights pride.

I can’t be the only one who doesn’t want to walk into school on the first day and be assaulted with pep and optimism at every turn. Or maybe I am. My crankiness about summer ending is making it hard to see reason.

“You should at least add some sparkle,” she says, arching one dark brow.

“Not every sign has to be covered in glitter.”

“I disagree. Glitter makes everything better.”

“Agree to disagree.”

She sticks out her bottom lip, gives me big puppy dog eyes, and leans forward, letting her long hair fall over her shoulders. No one can refuse Lacey’s pleading expression. Especially me. Not even at my grumpiest.

I feel myself relenting even before she says, “Please? I’m finally captain. I’ve waited years for this, and I want it to be perfect.”

Nothing like setting your expectations at an unreasonable level. But I know how much it means to her. We’ve been best friends since middle school, and being cheer captain is everything she’s dreamed of.

“Fine. Fine. Hand over the glitter.” I sit up and hold out my hand. The girls’ soccer team is practicing behind us, and the faint shouts and whistles are background noise, along with the music playing from my phone.

“Actually, we’re out. Can you run in and grab the extra glitter bottles? They’re in my locker.”

“I don’t know about running, but sure, I can go get them.”

Her happy expression falls, grazing over my right foot for only a second. “I’m sorry. I completely forgot. I’ll go.”

“It’s fine. I was only teasing. I’m perfectly capable of walking.” Not well, but I am mobile.

“Right. I know.” She gives me a sad smile that makes my throat tighten.

I’ve gotten pretty good at getting up and down with the boot on my right foot. It is a very unstylish black plastic with Velcro, but it’s better than the hard cast and crutches I had earlier in the summer.

I’m standing when she speaks again, this time without pity in her tone. “Uh-oh. Here comes your ex.”

Without fully preparing myself, I turn in the direction she’s staring. The first sight of him makes my breath catch.

Vaughn Collins. Junior soccer star, most popular guy at Frost Lake High School, and my ex-boyfriend.

His blond hair is striking in the sunlight. He’s tall and broad, bigger than most of his teammates filing out behind him. They shoulder duffel bags and carry soccer balls. At FLH, soccer rules. They’ve won state the past two years, in large part thanks to Vaughn.

“Need me to run interference?” Lacey asks, voice tight and clipped. She’s the bubbliest person I know, but if you hurt someone she loves, watch out.

“No. It’s fine. I was bound to run into him eventually.” It’s been nearly two months since I talked to him. I have had a lot of time to wonder what this moment would be like. I imagined playing it cool or walking right by him and not even seeing him. Instead, anger rises up inside of me. Anger that I want to unleash on him.

“Stay strong,” my best friend says, voice so stern that it makes me laugh a little.

“I’m not getting back together with him.” No way.

“Good. You deserve better. He’s…” Her words trail off as I walk away.

I can only focus on one thing right now, and that’s the boy across the field who has just spotted me as well.

I cross toward him slowly, but his long legs eat the space faster, and I’m standing in front of him before I’ve figured out what to say. The anger I was clutching so tightly slips through my fingers, letting in some of the hurt and confusion I tried my best to bury.

Vaughn and I were together for two years. He moved to Frost Lake in the fifth grade, and we became instant friends. We had so many things in common. My parents had just divorced, and his had split up when he was younger. I was passionate about skating, and he never went anywhere without a soccer ball in hand. While our classmates were trying a variety of sports and activities, we already had a single focus.

Our parents both expected a lot of us too, and we struggled with wanting that pressure and despising it at the same time. We understood each other. Even before we were a couple, we shared a bond I never had with anyone else. I guess that’s why his decision to dump me right after I had already lost skating turned my world upside down.

“Hey,” he says casually. He takes me in with those dark blue eyes, stare trailing down slowly over my small black shorts and bare legs before flicking up. “What are you doing here?”

Why couldn’t he have gotten a regrettable haircut or suddenly become unattractive? It would make it easier to ignore the fluttering in my stomach.

I look away from him and back at Lacey, tipping my head and motioning toward our sign-decorating station. She’s glaring hard, but she still looks sweet and harmless. “I’m helping Lacey make signs to decorate the school for next week.”

“Right. I can’t believe summer is already over. We have our first team meeting today and a light practice.”

His dad, Coach Collins, appears outside with a coffee cup in one hand and a clipboard in the other. I want to chuckle at the thought of Coach C and light practice in the same sentence, but I hold it in.

Mostly I’m mad, but there’s this small part of me that wants to show Vaughn I’m fine and pretend that him breaking up with me while I was dealing with everything else didn’t hurt. And then there’s the fear that I might do something really embarrassing like start crying.

“So only three hours instead of five?” I ask, keeping my tone neutral.

One side of Vaughn’s mouth pulls up a fraction higher. “You know my dad. It doesn’t count as a workout until at least one person threatens to quit.”

The reminder that I know his dad so well because I spent so much time hanging out at their house is the final straw. I don’t want to do this with him, pretend like everything is cool and nothing has changed.

“Right. Well, I should—”

“It’s good to see you,” he says, cutting me off and stopping me before I go. “I’ve been meaning to text.…” His voice trails off, and he looks a tiny bit guilty. “You look good.”

Two months without so much as a hello and he wants me to believe he had any thoughts about texting me? He must read my disbelief.

He breaks eye contact briefly and looks to the ground. “Things were really busy. I did think about you though. How was your summer?”

The reminder of how “busy” he was further annoys me, and that anger I walked over here with resurfaces. His busy schedule is the whole reason he broke up with me. He was going to be gone all summer with his dad, attending and working at soccer camps around the country. Vaughn didn’t think it made sense to be in a relationship when we weren’t going to see each other. I think his exact words were, “I can’t commit to you and soccer.”

I was blindsided. We’d always supported each other, and as soon as I was no longer able to chase my dreams, he seemingly decided I was no longer capable of understanding his need to chase his.

“It was great.” I’m overselling it. The first three weeks, I sulked until Lacey forced me out of the house and reminded me we only had two more summer vacations together before graduation. But there’s no way I’m admitting to him that I wasted any of my vacation being sad about our breakup when he obviously didn’t shed any tears over me.

“Hi, Claire.” Coach Collins approaches with a smile that crinkles his eyes. He’s a hard-ass to his players, especially his son, but he’s always had a soft spot for me. And he has this posh British accent that makes everything he says sound a little more exciting.

“Hey, Coach C.” My tone is far happier as I greet him than it had been with his son. Just because Vaughn is a jerk doesn’t mean I have to hate his father.

“How’s the ankle?” He glances at the boot.

My smile dims slightly. He’s only being polite by asking, whereas everyone else has been tiptoeing around it, but an ache still forms in my chest at the reminder I’m still not fully healed and never will be. I’ll be able to resume normal activities, but my competitive figure skating days are gone forever. “It’s better. Thanks.”

“Good. I’m glad to hear it.” His gaze shifts to Vaughn. “Get the balls and cones out, and see if you can find the water coolers. If they aren’t in the storage shed, check the locker room.”

“Yes, sir.”

After another tip of his head and a smile aimed at me, Coach C leaves us alone.

Vaughn shifts in front of me. “I guess I should get to it before he gives me another lecture about stepping up this year now that I’m captain.”

“Yeah, me too. Lacey has, like, a hundred more posters to decorate.”

His lips curve in what could almost be considered a smile, but Vaughn is far too serious for it to feel anything but polite. “Are you going to Doyle’s camp tonight?”

Doyle’s camping cabin is where all the soccer guys hang out. It’s far enough out of the city limits that cops don’t drive by without reason, and most of the cabins are rentals for tourists or used only on weekends.

“I’m not sure.” Lacey mentioned it earlier, but it felt weird purposely going somewhere I knew I’d run into Vaughn. I guess now that we’ve got that out of the way, it doesn’t matter.

The rest of the soccer team is starting to take the field as the girls’ team finishes. Vaughn reaches forward with one hand, and his fingers brush mine. “You should go. We can catch up, and I want to talk to you about something.”

For a moment, I forget about the last two months, how much he hurt me, how he abandoned me when I needed him the most, and just enjoy the feel of his calloused fingers against mine. It would be so easy to get back with him, and no one would even bat an eye. Everyone else was as caught off guard by the breakup as I was. We were a couple that made sense to people. Claire and Vaughn. Vaughn and Claire.

I pull my hand away and clasp it in my other hand behind my back. “Oh yeah? What do you want to talk to me about?”

Vaughn isn’t usually cryptic or hard to read—another thing I’ve always liked about him. But I can’t think of a single thing we need to discuss.

His dad yells his name across the field and points at his watch.

Vaughn curses under his breath and starts moving away. “I gotta go, but I hope I’ll see you tonight.”

I head into the empty school, still reeling from the short interaction. It’s good we got it out of the way. We have a lot of the same friends, and school next week would have been that much more awkward with everyone watching our first conversation.

The air inside the school is humid, and it’s so quiet that the only sound is the echo of my uneven footsteps. I take my time, passing by the trophy case and inhaling the smell of fresh paint and bleach. Everything is clean and ready for students to arrive next week.

Lacey’s locker is easy to find. Among all the other plain blue ones, hers is the lone locker decorated. Her name is written on a cut-out megaphone. It’s covered in sparkles of course.

Inside, I spot the glitter bottles on the top shelf. I grab them while admiring the photos pinned up on the inside of her locker.

There are lots of the two of us from as far back as sixth grade. I wrinkle my nose at one particularly awful picture of me when I dyed my hair a red color that turned out more orange. I keep looking, smiling at all the memories she’s captured. There’s even one of me and Vaughn from last year’s soccer championship game. He’s holding the trophy in one hand, his other arm around me, and he’s smiling bigger than I’ve ever seen him smile. That was a good day and a fun night. Vaughn was on top of the world, and I always had a hard time resisting the carefree and fun version of him. I’m surprised she put this one up or didn’t at least mark an x over his face.

I’m about to close the locker when another photo at the very bottom catches my eye. My heart stops as I lean down and stare at myself. I’m skating in the middle of the ice, hands lifted to my sides, staring off into the distance, completely lost in the moment. Emotion clogs my throat. What I would give to be able to skate and lose myself like that again.

A door slams somewhere nearby. I swipe at the tears in my eyes and kick the locker shut with my injured foot. As I do, one of the glitter tubes drops from my grasp onto the floor, rolling into the middle of the hallway. I move to retrieve it at the same time as a blur of a boy comes around the corner and flashes in my peripheral. My heart races with adrenaline, matching the pace of his steps.

Light green eyes snap to mine. I should move or say something, but I’m frozen.

At the last second, I squint, bracing for impact, but somehow, he manages to stop inches from me. His arm wraps around my waist to steady himself. We spin around, him keeping me upright and me clutching the glitter to my chest.

“Shit. I didn’t see you.” Breathless and deep, his voice makes the hair rise on the back of my neck.

I blink away the weird, dazed reaction his presence seems to have on me, and the twinge of pain in my foot brings me back.

“Yeah, no kidding. You almost ran me over.” I remove myself from his hold, but my skin buzzes from his touch.

He’s tall, and his skin is a light bronze that makes his dark, windblown hair seem even starker. I thought I knew every student at Frost Lake, but I’ve never seen him before.

“Is that the way to the soccer field?” He nods his head behind me toward the back doors of the school.

Handsome, but rude.

“So much for an apology,” I mutter.

“I’m sorry. I’m lost, and if I don’t find the soccer field soon, I’m going to be late for my first practice with Jude Collins.”

It takes me a second to register his words. When I do, I allow myself to study him more closely. I was so focused on his face and not becoming roadkill that I didn’t notice the signs. Shorts, a faded T-shirt, sneakers, and a duffel bag over one shoulder. Right. A soccer player. Makes sense.

“Relax. You found it. The field is straight out back.” I refocus on my task of retrieving the glitter. I groan when I see the top of the tube popped off and glitter has spilled out onto the floor. A pretty good amount. I send a silent apology to the school custodians.

The guy in front of me is having some sort of moral dilemma. He stares down at me and then the back door before finally squatting down to help.

“Here, let me,” he says, trying to take the half-empty container.

“No, it’s fine,” I say a little gruffly. “I got it. You’re going to be late.”

“It’s the least I can do.”

“Seriously. I’ve got it.” I pull it back too hard, and a rainbow of colors bursts up into his face. It goes everywhere. His hair, his eyelashes, the bridge of his straight nose, and his shirt.

I start to laugh, and then think better of it when his mouth falls open and he glances down.

“You’ve gotta be kidding me,” he says more to himself than me, but then he hurriedly gets to his feet and rushes off, leaving a cloud of glitter as he goes.

The laughter I was holding in finally escapes, echoing in the empty halls.

He’s already pushing out the double doors that lead out to the field when I yell after him, “Don’t be afraid to sparkle!”