HIDDEN CREEK THEN: a hidden creek high novel Read online

  HIDDEN CREEK THEN

  a hidden creek high novel

  Jaxson Kidman

  Contents

  Welcome to

  HIDDEN CREEK THEN

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

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  Welcome to

  This was real.

  I never felt anything like it before in my life.

  Her name was Julia, and I was going to marry her someday.

  * * *

  Written by Jaxson Kidman

  HIDDEN CREEK THEN

  THAT WAS THEN

  He was my first love.

  My true love.

  My only love.

  Nothing was supposed to tear us apart.

  Except everything did.

  *

  She was my first love.

  The one who calmed me.

  The one who saved me.

  I was supposed to take care of her for forever.

  Except I didn't.

  Chapter 1

  THEN

  Jett

  (prologue)

  “Do you really think it can last forever?”

  Forever.

  Man, I hated that stupid word.

  When you lived the way I lived, there was no such thing as forever. There was… for now… or some other cliché bullshit thing you’d say to yourself in the mirror before a day you’d either hate or regret.

  I sucked on my cigarette, making the biggest drag the last drag.

  I dropped the cigarette to the ground and stomped on it.

  To my right, Scotty sat on the hood of my car, a whiskey bottle in his hand, too drunk to actually have a decent conversation with.

  That wasn’t the worst thing in the world.

  He only really got serious about life when he was drunk. And no matter what we talked about, by morning he would forget about it and life would move on.

  I looked down at my right hand. My first two knuckles were smashed up enough that I probably needed medical attention. At the very least, I should have the wounds cleaned and patched up to prevent any kind of infection. When I flexed my hand, I expected the pearly white color of my bones to be sticking out.

  But that was probably just shit they showed in the movies.

  “Man, you really took that guy out, huh?” Scotty asked.

  “Rent’s due in a week, brother,” I said.

  Scotty laughed and snorted. “I told you so many times to just crash with me.”

  “You live in a garage.”

  “A nice fucking garage though. You can take the loft part. Think about that shit, man.” Scotty sat up. “You take your girl up there. You’re all rough and tough. This rugged, mountain man kind of guy…” Scotty started to laugh.

  “Yeah, right,” I said.

  I turned and looked at the ocean.

  The wad of cash in my back pocket wasn’t enough to survive on. Barely enough to get by on. And that was with a paycheck coming in from Pop’s garage too.

  This fucking town wasn’t supposed to be my home.

  I wasn’t meant to be here.

  These people were in a different class and a different tax bracket.

  Stumbling through like some asshole, now my feet were glued to the ground.

  All because of one person…

  “Hey, man, I think your phone is ringing,” Scotty said.

  I walked back to my car and smiled when I saw the name on the screen.

  “Hey,” I said.

  “Please tell me you’re sober and alone.”

  “Yes and no.”

  “Shit.”

  “I’m with Scotty.”

  “Oh.”

  I laughed. “Having trouble sleeping?”

  “You can’t imagine, Jett. I’m so sorry to keep doing this to you.”

  “No worries.”

  “It’s not your problem.”

  “Of course it’s not my problem,” I said. “But that’s what makes me so fucking cool, right?”

  “Yeah, Jett. You’re the fucking coolest. Just get over here before I lose my mind for good.”

  I ended the call and got into my car.

  It was once a piece of shit that I picked up at an auction for cheap with Pop. He told me I could restore it at the back of his garage. Now it was worth more than anything I had ever owned in my life. I had people offering tons of cash for the car and Pop told me if I sold it, he’d kick my ass and fire me.

  The car looked straight out of an eighties hair metal music video.

  That worked for me.

  I beeped the horn and Scotty jumped right off the hood and fell to the ground.

  I busted out laughing, clapping my hands, watching as he scrambled to get into the car.

  “What the hell, man?” he yelled at me.

  “I told you not to sit on the hood of the car.”

  “You do it.”

  “It’s my fucking car.”

  “You could have just said something.”

  “I did. Just now. Tell me where to take you.”

  “Ah… so it was that kind of phone call, huh?” Scotty asked with a grin.

  “Something like that,” I said.

  “Oh, come on, man,” Scotty said. “Not again. You’re not his father…”

  I made a fist and put it to Scotty’s jaw. “Don’t ever talk like that again.”

  “Blame the whiskey,” Scotty said.

  “Yeah. Right.”

  I fired up the growling engine and took off, leaving Scotty hanging out the window, screaming at the top of his lungs.

  If it was full of speed and danger (and pretty girls) Scotty was into it.

  I had been like that once.

  Well, I still was.

  But that part of me was sort of quiet for the moment.

  All because of one person.

  * * *

  “Good luck,” she said to me. She grabbed my arm. “I’m sorry.”

  “You know, someday you’re going to tell me why you won’t let Pop help you,” I said. “You owe that to me.”

  “Someday, Jett.”

  “Go get some sleep, Carolyn,” I said.

  She nodded and walked down the hall.

  I opened the bedroom door just as little Wes did a front flip off his bed to the floor.

  There were a stack of pillows to break his fall, which was a good thing.

  He popped up to his feet and his eyes went wide. “Jett!”

  “Hey,” I said. “Your mother is trying to sleep. What the hell are you doing, kid?”

  “She wants me to go to sleep.”

  “It’s midnight.”

  “So?”

  “So you think you’re an adult, huh?”

  “I don’t know,” Wes said. “Want to see my backflip next?”

  “No,” I said. “Come outside with me. I brought the car.”

  “No way,” Wes said. “Is she still really fast?”

  “Super fast, kid,” I said.

  “Sweet,” Wes said.

&
nbsp; He ran toward the door and I put my arm out. I grabbed Wes and lifted him up and threw him over my shoulder.

  He laughed as I ran through the house to go outside.

  The entire situation with him, his mother, and his old man was a giant mess.

  I wanted to knock his father - West - into next year. But being Pop’s son, I always walked that line carefully. Even though Pop already gave me the green light many times to do so. But maybe it was more about Carolyn’s heart. Wes’s mother was a good woman but she had a weakness for West. And it wasn’t my job to step in on that. She’d forever tell me I was too young to understand how love and relationships worked.

  Outside, I put Wes down on his bare feet.

  He bolted toward my car.

  “Where’s the two wheeled monster?” he asked as though he were an adult shooting the shit at the garage.

  I laughed. “No motorcycle tonight, Wes.”

  “Ah, man,” Wes said.

  “Hey, this car is fast,” I said. “Really fast. I built this by hand.”

  “This is the one?”

  “Yeah, it is,” I said.

  “Can you take me for a ride in it?” Wes asked.

  “Not tonight. It’s late. One of these days we’ll go to an empty lot and I’ll drive fast.”

  “My mom will get pissed at you.”

  “Hey. Don’t say that.”

  “What?”

  “Pissed,” I said.

  “It’s not a curse.”

  “To me it is.”

  Wes turned and put his back to the driver’s side door and folded his arms. He looked like a little bad ass. Almost like a mini version of myself. West hated that Wes took to me. But it was pretty logical. I was the young, cool, rebel bad ass that Wes wanted to be someday. Not to mention West was never the fuck around anyway. I was the closest thing Wes had to a father and that wasn’t saying much at all.

  “What are you doing awake, kid?” I asked. “You know your mother is tired, right?”

  “Yeah. But I’m not tired.”

  I moved toward Wes and picked him up.

  I sat him on the hood of the car.

  “I’ve seen wrestling matches like this,” Wes said. “Where they power slam someone through a car window. It’s so cool, Jett.”

  “I’m sure it is,” I said.

  I jumped up on the hood and sat next to Wes.

  We put our backs to the windshield.

  I shouldn’t have been on the car like that.

  But whatever.

  I wasn’t going to sell the fucking thing.

  I put my hands behind my head.

  Wes watched me and then did the same thing.

  “Check out the stars, kid,” I said. “And just relax a little. Your mother works her ass off for you. I know you don’t want to hear that. It adds pressure, I get it.”

  “Hey, Jett. Did you have a father?”

  I turned my head. “Yeah. Of course I did. Everyone has parents. In one way or another.”

  “What was your father like?”

  “He was a piece of shit,” I said. “Like yours. Is that what has you awake?”

  Wes swallowed hard. “I heard Ma crying. She cries when she thinks I’m asleep.”

  “So if you stay awake, she won’t cry.”

  “Yeah,” Wes said.

  I sucked in a breath. “That’s a good goddamn reason not to sleep. And you were bouncing off the walls because you know you’re tired.”

  “Yeah,” Wes said again.

  “Come here, kid,” I said.

  Wes inched closer to me. I put my arm around him.

  “Sometimes people need to cry,” I said. “It’s not always sad. Or a bad thing. Now I know your Ma crying is sad but she needs to do that. It’s… it’s, uh, a way of getting things out. You get those feelings off your chest. Because if you hold it in… I don’t know, Wes. It’s okay to cry sometimes. Even for you, kid. If you ever need to cry…”

  I looked down and Wes was out cold.

  I stayed right there with him, looking at the stars.

  My phone vibrated and I moved quietly to take the call and not wake Wes.

  “Hey,” I said in a tone that I only saved for her.

  “It’s late.”

  “I still answered. Like I always said I would.”

  “I’m sorry it’s so late.”

  “I’m just getting the kid to sleep here.”

  “So that means…”

  “Yeah. I’ll meet you.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “The day I’m not sure about you is the day I stop living, sweetheart.”

  I heard her laugh through the phone.

  “See you in a bit, Jett.”

  The call went dead.

  I carried Wes to his room and tucked him in.

  I peeked in on Carolyn to make sure she was sleeping too.

  I set up the coffeemaker for the morning and put out a bowl and Wes’s favorite cereal box for him.

  Then I was out of there.

  Because something fucking crazy had happened.

  I had fallen madly in love with someone.

  Wildly and madly in love… and not the kind of bullshit crap called young love that everyone tried to shovel at me.

  This was real.

  I never felt anything like it before in my life.

  Her name was Julia, and I was going to marry her someday.

  Chapter 2

  THEN

  Julia

  (prologue)

  Aunt Bea slept with the TV on way too loud, but she could hear a hair fall from my head and hit the carpet. Don’t ask how, I never figured it out. And she always fell asleep in Uncle Clint’s chair as a way to stay close to him.

  As much as I loved Aunt Bea and all she did for me, there was no stopping me to get out of that little house when it came time to see Jett.

  Jett.

  Oh. My. God.

  What. A. Name.

  What. A. Guy.

  I hated when people called him a boy because he was not that at all.

  He was so much more than a boy.

  I could have floated out of the house when I knew I was going to see him.

  As I slithered toward the kitchen I heard a bell ding! on the TV and someone said something and a bunch of people laughed.

  That gave me the chance to run on my toes to get to the door.

  I mastered the ability to open and close any door without making a sound.

  When I was outside, I opened my arms and put my head back, like someone was watching me.

  I dropped my shoes to the grass and stepped into them.

  I lit up a cigarette and walked up the street to the corner and turned left.

  It probably wasn’t the best look for me, considering it was well after midnight.

  But whatever.

  I knew what I wanted.

  I waited until I heard the rumble of the car engine and saw Jett flick his lights.

  I tossed my cigarette to the sidewalk and ran toward him.

  He got out of the car that he worked so hard on rebuilding and he ran toward me.

  We always acted as though we hadn’t seen each other in like ten years.

  I leapt off my feet and Jett caught me, spinning around, leaving me giggling, my heart racing, and every thought possible scrambling through my mind.

  When he put me down I jumped at him again.

  This time for his lips.

  I couldn’t wait a second longer to kiss him.

  He gently touched my face and we kissed… whoa…

  I wasn’t sure how he did it but Jett had the ability to make every kiss feel like a first kiss.

  He broke the kiss and walked me back to his car.

  He opened the passenger door and nodded. “Your ride, sweetheart.”

  I laughed and then gasped when I saw what he had done.

  There were flowers on the seat.

  And a candle lit on the dashboard.

  Which seemed stupid and
dangerous.

  But that was Jett.

  His version of romance was…

  “Late night date,” he whispered to me.

  “Perfect,” I said.

  I got into the car and Jett walked around to get into the driver’s seat.

  He then put the windows down and turned the car off.

  I blew out the candle.

  “What are you doing?” he asked.

  “Making sure we don’t catch on fire,” I said.

  “You worry too much,” he said. “It’s adorable.”

  “Jett, there is nothing adorable about me.”

  “Fuck that,” he said. He turned and faced me. “Those green eyes…”

  “Dennis Harpern called them booger eyes,” I said.

  “Yeah? Well that guy’s a fucking tool. Tell me where he lives and I’ll set his eyes straight.”

  I laughed. “Jett, that was in third grade.”

  “So what?”

  “Stop.”

  “No,” he said. “And your cute nose ring.”

  “I thought you hated it.”

  “I never said I hated it once. Ever. It’s you. It fits you. It goes along with the black streaks in your hair.”

  “My skunk hair?” I asked. “That’s what Aunt Bea calls it.”

  “She says it out of love,” Jett said. “Just like I do… so much out of love, sweetheart. Everything about you. You drive me goddamn crazy.”

  “Oh yeah?” I asked. “How crazy, Jett?”

  “Don’t tempt me,” he warned.

  He reached for my face and my eyes caught a glimpse of his right hand.

  I gasped and pulled back, grabbing his hand, tossing our flirty and sweet moment out the window.