Page 5 of Safe (King’s Heart #1)

Landon

Right when I walk in the front doors, I’m whisked into the front office and deposited in one of the chairs in the waiting area.

The secretary, a nice older woman who called me sweetie and calmed my nerves a bit, busies herself printing out my schedule and calling up another student to show me around.

“I’m Declan.”

My head shoots up from studying how dirty and old my shoes look in this lighting to meet the face of—I don’t know how else to describe him—a really pretty guy, sitting in a desk to the right of the secretary’s.

He’s got short lilac colored hair that’s artfully swept back from his face. And his cheeks have a fine dusting of glitter, which makes him look like some creature from another world. It all really works for him in a way I’ve never seen before.

Snapping out of examining his face, I clear my throat and introduce myself. “Uh, hey. I’m Landon.”

I reach out to shake his hand, and after staring at it for a second, he reluctantly obliges. When he places his hand in mine, I can’t help but notice how soft his touch is. I’m surprised my skin can even grasp onto his.

He pulls his hand back and cocks his head at me, making all the glitter reflect at another angle.

“You must be new here, and you must have some kind of crazy talent they want. They don’t tend to let just anyone into this school as a senior.

” He pauses a moment, his eyes flitting down to my shoes. “And without a fat check.”

For anyone else, that might seem like an insult. But for whatever reason, I can tell there’s no malice behind that comment. More like he’s trying to tell me a fact.

I stretch my legs out in front of me, flexing my feet in my old, crinkled shoes, then smile at him. “That obvious, huh?”

He shrugs with a barely there smile on his face. “Yes. But depending on why they let you in, it might outweigh everything else.”

“Football,” I answer.

He lets out a snort of a laugh. “Oh, yeah. No one is going to give a fuck that you’re poor as long as you win them games.” He studies me again before looking down at the notebook on his desk. “Pity. You seemed like you were really nice.”

I raise my brow in surprise and feign offense. “ Seemed ? What’s wrong with me all of the sudden?”

He opens up his backpack, pulling out a pack of sharpies, and begins writing, his face concentrated completely on the paper in front of him. “You’re going to be with them,” he says absently.

“Who?”

“The football players.”

“What’s wrong with them?”

He looks up at me, pure confusion on his face that I can’t follow his train of thought. “They’re assholes.”

“Who’s an asshole?” another voice interrupts.

I look up and see a huge guy standing in front of us, a weird sneering smirk on his face.

Declan looks up at him too—his expression completely bored. “I think you know who’s an asshole.”

The guy looks at Declan a moment longer, then turns to me and holds his hand out. “Hey, man. You the new wide receiver? Landon, right?”

I stand out of my chair and take his hand. After shaking hands with Declan, this guy is the polar opposite. His hand is rough and calloused, so big that it almost engulfs mine, and for some reason, he’s gripping mine like he doesn’t like me.

“Yeah, that’s me,” I say, craning my neck slightly to look up at him.

He tosses his mop of black curls out of his eyes.

“Cool. I’m Javier Morales. But everyone calls me Javi.

Tight end. I’m here to show you around.” He pauses a moment, eyes darting over to Declan, who has continued his writing and completely tuned us out.

Javi turns his body toward him but continues talking to me.

“You weren’t talking to little Declan here, were you? ”

The air shifts around us, becoming charged with something bitter and angry. Declan doesn’t move his body, simply flicks his eyes up at Javi, who has his arms crossed and a scowl on his face.

I answer the question. “Um. Yeah I was. He was?—”

“Okay, so then you know how he’ll pretty much try to blow everyone at school?”

My eyes widen while I struggle to catch up with the sudden change of trajectory in this conversation. “Uh, we didn’t really talk about?—”

“Why don’t you fuck off, Javi?” Declan says as he straightens in his seat.

Javi smiles back. “Don’t be so fucking rude just because I won’t let you blow me.”

Declan leans in, his eyes staring intently into Javi’s. “I’d suck every single dick in this school before even considering yours, and even then, I’d just bite it off.”

Javi lunges forward, a snarl on his face while he grasps Declan by the jaw, his brown skin contrasted against Declan’s shimmering paleness. “I’d like to see you try, munequito .”

They continue to stare at each other while I shift from foot to foot. “Um.” I reach out and tap Javi’s shoulder. He startles when he looks at me, like he forgot I was even here.

“Shit, dude. My bad. Let’s go.” He pats Declan on the cheek and steps away without looking back at him. Declan scowls one last time before grabbing his sharpie and bending his head toward his paper again, shutting us out.

I look between them one more time, trying to wrap my brain around what I just saw. “Uh, I’m just waiting for my schedule from the secretary.”

“Oh, Mrs. Peters? She always gets sidetracked. Hold on. Mrs. Peters!” he shouts down the hall behind hers and Declan’s desks.

She pokes her head out of one of the rooms along the hallway, her face puzzling when she sees Javi standing there. “Javier, dear, what are you doing here?” Then her eyes land on me. “Oh! Sugar plums! I forgot about you. Lance, right?”

“Landon,” I say with a smile.

“Oh, that’s right.” She speedwalks to her desk, her flowing skirt swishing and eyeglass chain clinking with the rest of her necklaces.

“I’m so sorry, dear. One moment.” She clicks a few times on her computer, and then the printer starts whirring.

“I’ll have it printed right here for you.

Oh, and Javier, dear, I’ll get his keycard, and you can show him how it works. ”

Once it prints, she hands it and the keycard to Javi, and we exit the office while Declan stares daggers at Javi’s back.

Javi holds up the paper, his eyes scanning over the words. “Seriously, though. Don’t get involved with Declan.”

He looks over at me, that same hostility I felt when he shook my hand popping out over his smiling demeanor.

I clear my throat. “I wasn’t planning on it. I’m straight so…” I let my sentence trail off into nothing.

He flashes a megawatt smile at me, showing all his teeth. “Everyone is straight here at first, bro.”

He leaves it at that, immediately dropping the subject and starting down the hall while my brows draw together.

I don’t know what he means by that, but I’ve only ever been with girls.

And admittedly, not that many. I’ve always been too busy working and taking care of my family to pursue any romantic interests.

But still, I’ve never really looked at guys like that.

Never been attracted to them. Not sure what this school will change about that.

It’s the middle of first period, so the halls are barren as he walks me through my schedule, pointing out each of the rooms and explaining the best route to get everywhere on time.

“I mean, it’s not that important, though. The football team kind of gets free passes for a lot of things,” he explains as he veers down a small hallway lined with dark green lockers.

“What do you mean?” I ask, as we stop at mine. He waves the keycard in front of it, popping it open.

He shrugs and props himself against the lockers. “Football is pretty important here. They don’t fuck around with it. So, especially if you’re an important player, they kind of… look the other way if you break a few rules.”

“Only a few?”

He smirks. “It depends. I wouldn’t push your luck right away. Only Cap can really get away with anything .”

“Cap?”

“Yeah. Our captain. He’s the QB too, so you guys will have to get to know each other. Quarterback and wide receiver gotta be like this.” He crosses his fingers and holds them up in front of me, then moves on to explaining how the locker works.

But my mind is stuck on what he just said about our captain.

That he can get away with anything. It sends an uneasy feeling through my veins.

It honestly sounds like he might be an entitled prick—they might all be like that if they can do whatever they want here.

I shake my head and try to tune back in to what he’s saying.

I probably shouldn’t make assumptions about my new teammates before I even meet them.

We start walking away while he checks his watch. “It’s close to the end of first period, so we could probably catch him before he leaves the gym. And you can see the locker room too.”

“Who?”

“Cap. He’s a boarder here.” He looks over and sees my puzzled expression.

“Sorry. That means that he lives in the campus dorms. Not a lot of people do, but like I said, he gets whatever he wants. His uncle donates a lot of money to the school so, yeah. Anyway, he has gym first period, so he basically gets up at the ass crack of dawn and works out the whole time. Then still goes through our whole practice after school. He’s a beast.”

My mind snags on the word uncle . But, I mean, most people have uncles. It doesn’t mean it’s him.

I need to get it together.

He’s not here.

We reach the door to the locker room. “Okay,” he starts. “So you also use your keycard to get into the locker room. It’s programmed so not anyone can get in whenever they want. But for us”—he looks over and gives me that same huge smile from before—“we can get in whenever we want.”

He swipes the keycard and hands it back to me. We open the door and travel through a long hallway until it opens up into the actual locker room.

My first thought is how mind-numbingly luxurious this locker room is.

There are rows of sleek black lockers above a polished concrete floor.

The mirrors above the spotless white sinks are backlit, casting a warm glow over the entire space, and just past the lockers are individual shower stalls, each with a frosted-glass door for privacy.

I could cry, honestly. The locker room at my last school was old and fucking disgusting. Constantly dirty. Nothing worked. The showers were just one big room with a couple shower heads all with freezing cold water coming out of them.

The steam encircling the room tells me that I won’t have the same problems here.

“Jesus Christ,” I murmur in awe, my head still craning around to look at everything.

Javi lets out a chuckle and slaps me on the back, pulling my attention back to him. “Yeah, it’s pretty nice. What school did you come from again?”

“Jefferson High. Like thirty minutes from here.”

He grimaces. “Oh. All the way out in that part of town? Well then yeah. This must be really different. Come on, let’s go to Cap’s locker.”

I absently nod at him, following along while trying to look at every shiny new crevice of the room.

He stops me, and I put my attention on the guy standing at the lockers. He’s facing away from us, rummaging in his locker.

He must’ve just gotten out of the shower because my eyes can’t stop following the water droplets that skate down his pale back, each one taking a different route as his muscles ripple while he rifles through his things.

There’s a towel wrapped low on his hips, so low that it’s showing the very beginnings of his ass cheeks, round and firm poking out of the top of the towel.

Why the fuck am I even looking?

My body temperature rises to uncomfortable levels as shame washes over me. I pull my eyes away from his body and back up to a respectable sight, watching as he runs a hand over his buzzed dark head of hair.

“Caldwell,” Javi says.

My head snaps in Javi’s direction. “Caldwell?”

He either doesn’t hear or ignores me, because when the guy in front of us doesn’t turn around, he cups his hands around his mouth and yells, “Yo, Grant!”

My stomach dips.

Fuck.

He slowly turns toward us. I briefly look at his chest and abs, and they’re just as ripped as his back.

More heat rushes my body.

Oh my god, stop looking. What is wrong with me?

I look into his eyes—they’re the same bright green I remember. Something that burns into you. Not something you forget.

I try to mask my surprise, but I’m sure it’s plain on my face. Maybe he doesn’t even remember me. How long did we know each other? It’s been so long. Eight years. We’re probably both completely different people.

Those eyes flit over me, and a smile slowly creeps onto his face. “Hello, pet.”