Playing Hard To Get

Chapter One.

The hallways of Madison Grove High smelled like floor wax, cheap perfume, and a thousand unspoken crushes. Lockers slammed like the beat of some chaotic teenage symphony, and earbuds blasted everything from country heartbreak to bass-heavy rap. Everyone had somewhere to be—somewhere cooler than wherever she was standing.

Harper Lane adjusted her glasses and tugged at the bottom of her hoodie. It wasn’t baggy enough to hide the slight curve of her hips, or the way her jeans clung just a little too tight when she moved. She hated that. Not her body—at least, not all the time. But the way people looked at her. Like she didn’t belong. Like her quiet love of fantasy books and spreadsheets made her invisible until someone needed help with their chemistry notes.

“Excuse me,” a voice said, brushing past her.

Except it wasn’t just anyone.

It was him.

Jaxon Brooks.

Senior. Quarterback. Six-foot-something of broad shoulders, too-white teeth, and that shaggy, golden-blond hair girls in this school lost their damn minds over. The kind of guy who always looked like he belonged on a N*****x show or a Hollister billboard. And he’d just... touched her arm. Briefly. Like it meant nothing.

But it felt like a firework had gone off beneath her skin.

Harper blinked as he disappeared down the hallway, his backpack hanging off one shoulder, that cocky strut unmistakable. Even from behind, he looked like every mistake a girl could make wrapped in varsity letters and ego.

She pressed her lips together and turned toward her locker.

He probably didn’t even realize it was her.

Except—he did.

Jaxon had seen her.

He always did.

He never said anything. Not out loud. Not in front of his crowd. But ever since seventh grade—when she showed up late to gym class with asthma and tripped face-first into the bleachers—he’d looked at her just a second longer than everyone else. She didn’t know why. Maybe it was pity. Maybe he liked knowing someone so opposite of him even existed.

Whatever it was, it had lingered.

And today, it felt like something shifted.

Because when Harper reached her locker and twisted the dial, she looked up to find Jaxon already watching her from across the hall. His head leaned against a locker, some freshman girl giggling beside him. But he wasn’t looking at the girl.

He was looking at Harper.

Dead in the eyes.

She blinked.

And he smirked.

Harper blinked as Jaxon disappeared down the hallway, his cocky strut unmistakable. Even from behind, he looked like every mistake a girl could make wrapped in varsity letters and ego.

But that wasn’t the whole truth.

Because this wasn’t the first time.

She could still feel it sometimes—the ghost of his fingertips brushing against her hand in passing, like an accident that happened too often to be coincidence. The hallway glances that lasted a fraction too long. The crooked smile he gave only her when no one else was watching. He always found her, even when she wasn’t looking for him.

It started before his senior year. Before he was the boy everyone drooled over. Back when he was still cocky, but not yet crowned king of the halls. And more importantly, he was still with Kenzie.

That was the catch, the thing that made every stolen glance, every fleeting touch more complicated.

She remembered the library.

Sophomore year, she’d claimed a quiet corner between the outdated encyclopedias and the literary classics no one ever checked out. He found her there. More than once.

At first, it was a game. Or so she thought. He’d walk by, brush her shoulder, and pretend to look for a book. She’d roll her eyes, pretend not to care, but then he’d circle back, stand too close, his breath warm on her neck.

Then the first kiss.

She was reaching for a book, her fingers grazing the spine when his hand covered hers. She turned, and there he was—close, watching her like he’d already decided something she hadn’t yet considered. And then his lips were on hers.

It wasn’t sweet. It was impulsive, messy, and fast. She didn’t even kiss back that first time, too shocked to process. When he pulled away, his eyes searched hers like he was waiting for her to slap him.

She didn’t. She couldn’t. She just stared, heart pounding.

He smirked and left. No apology. No explanation.

But it didn’t stop there.

It became a habit. A ritual she didn’t consent to but never protested. Every few weeks, sometimes months, she’d find herself tucked away between shelves, and he’d appear like a shadow. A smirk, a glance, and then his mouth was on hers again.

Some kisses were quick, stolen like secrets. Others lingered. His hands found her waist, her back, sometimes the back of her neck, pulling her close until the air between them vanished.

They never talked about it. Not once.

It wasn’t just the library either.

There was the empty classroom after study hall, when he slid into the seat beside her, his hand casually resting on her knee like he had every right. He didn’t speak, didn’t flirt—just sat there, warmth sinking through her skin until she couldn’t focus.

But the one that kept her awake at night—the one that played on a loop in her mind—was the time in the public library.

She hadn’t even seen him come in. She was reading in a secluded corner, oblivious to everything, when his hands grabbed her, firm and urgent, pulling her up without a word. Before she could register what was happening, he was leading her—no, dragging her—down a quiet aisle, then through a door she never noticed before: a small supply closet.

The door clicked shut, and then he was on her. Mouth crushing hers, hands everywhere—her back, her sides, gripping, pulling. She gasped into his mouth, her hands against his chest but not pushing him away.

"You shouldn’t be here," she whispered between kisses.

"Neither should you," he growled, his breath hot against her neck.

Then his hands were under her shirt, palms flat against her stomach, dragging the fabric up and over her head in one swift pull. His mouth was on her shoulder, teeth grazing, lips rough. She was dizzy, drunk on his touch.

She fumbled at his hoodie, desperate for air but wanting him closer. Clothes shifted, jackets pushed aside, her bra strap slipping down her arm. His hand slid up, cupping her breast through thin fabric, his mouth wet and hungry on her collarbone.

And then he mumbled it—barely audible, like it wasn’t meant to be heard.

"I love you."

She froze.

She wasn’t sure she’d heard right. But he didn’t stop. He kissed her harder, rougher, like he could erase what he’d just said.

Then footsteps, voices too close to the door. They both froze, his forehead pressed to hers, breathing ragged.

"We have to stop," she whispered.

He shook his head like he didn’t want to, but he let her go, stepping back, eyes wild, chest heaving.

They left separately, never speaking of it again.

But she heard him. She remembered. And it haunted her because he had Kenzie. And she wasn’t the kind of girl boys cheated for.

Then the note.

Crammed in her locker, unsigned, but the handwriting was his. "Bet you’d let me if I tried again."

He didn’t need to sign it. She knew.

Then came the message. That summer, late one night, her phone lit up.

"You still thinking about that? I am."

She drafted responses she never sent. Fingers hovering, erasing, retyping. But she always stopped herself. Because Kenzie was still his girlfriend. Because whatever this thing was between them, it was never supposed to exist in the daylight.

He never commented publicly. Never liked her posts where anyone could see. But the private messages, the quiet reactions to her stories—they came just often enough to remind her she wasn’t imagining things.

Now here he was, his senior year, acting like they were strangers.

Except he wasn’t pretending very well.

And she wasn’t sure she was either.

“Yo, Jax. Earth to quarterback god. You staring at the wall again or did Harper Lane finally make your dreams come true?” laughed Troy, his best friend and wide receiver, slapping his shoulder.

Jaxon shoved him half-heartedly and tore his eyes away from her. “Shut up.”

But his heart was still hammering a little too hard for just a hallway glance.

She always caught him off guard.

Not because she was loud or dramatic. She didn’t wear crop tops or fake lashes or post bikini pics like the girls blowing up his DMs. She was... different. Too smart. Too guarded. Too curvy for what most guys in their crowd would call "hot."

But damn if she didn’t have the kind of mouth that looked like she could ruin you with a single sarcastic comment. Or lips that looked way too soft for a girl who never smiled at him.

Ever.

He didn’t get why he noticed. But he always did.

Even back in middle school, before he had muscle or a reputation, she’d sit two rows over in class, biting her pencil when she was deep in thought. He remembered that. The way her brown eyes narrowed, her face scrunching in focus. He’d never seen anyone think that hard about fractions.

Now she looked at him like she had him all figured out—and maybe she did. Most people only saw the jersey. The swagger. The girls. The I*******m highlights. Not her. She saw through it. And that both irritated the hell out of him... and made him want her to look again.

To really look.

The bell rang for third period and Harper exhaled. She didn’t even realize she’d been holding her breath. The problem with Jaxon Brooks wasn’t just that he was hot and popular and completely wrong for her. It was that he could unravel her with one look.

And today, he’d done it twice.

That had to be a record.

She grabbed her books and pushed through the crowd, heels of her Converse squeaking on the linoleum as she headed toward AP English. Her safe zone.

But as she rounded the corner, a shadow stepped in front of her.

She nearly slammed into him.

"Whoa," Jaxon said, steadying her by the arm again. His grip was gentle but firm. Possessive. Like he knew exactly what he was doing.

“Careful,” he added, his voice lower now. “You almost bulldozed me.”

“I didn’t realize the hallway was your personal runway,” Harper snapped before she could stop herself.

He laughed. Actually laughed. “You always this feisty at 10 AM?”

She raised a brow. “You always this... obstructive?”

His grin widened, and that dimple appeared on the right side of his cheek like it had been carved just to drive girls crazy.

“Only when I’m trying to get someone’s attention.”

He stepped a little closer.

She could smell the faint citrus and something muskier, maybe his cologne or just him. Her heart flipped like a fish in a frying pan.

“You’ve had my attention since seventh grade,” he said, voice low.

And then he walked away.

Like he didn’t just drop a bomb and stroll off with that maddening smirk.

Harper stood frozen in the middle of the hallway as the crowd swallowed him whole again.

What the hell just happened?