Binding 13: Part One

His first, last and only true love has always been rugby. Until now. She's damaged. He's determined. Fate brought them together. Love binds them. Johnny Kavanagh has everything going for him. On the rugby pitch, he's a force to be reckoned with. Primed for stardom, he's heading straight for the top. Nothing can possibly get in his way, right? Not even the shy new girl at Tommen College. The one that distracts him like no one ever has. Two teenagers from opposite sides of the tracks collide in the second audio instalment of Binding 13.

Hailee Raine only has to survive one more year. One year of life in her football obsessed town. One year of nauseating school spirit. Just one more year of her cruel step-brother Jason; and his cocky, arrogant, football-playing friends. She hates them. Especially, Cameron Chase, the guy she thought was different. Cameron Chase has the world at his feet. He has it all; good looks, talent, and the charm to go with it. He has colleges lined up at the door, all wanting a piece of Rixon Raiders star wide receiver.

"Girls like you aren't exactly welcomed at a place like this, so keep your head down and look the other way." Those were the exact words of my social worker when she dropped me in my newest hellhole, a place for "troubled teens". I didn't listen, and now I'm on their radar. Too bad for them, I don't follow rules. Too bad for me, they're determined to make sure I do. Inconceivably attractive and treated like kings...these are the boys of Brayshaw High.

I have loved Channing Monroe all my life. In first grade, he asked for my Trapper Keeper. I hit him in the head with it. Third grade, we were best friends. We kissed in seventh grade. In eighth grade, he turned into a bad boy and the rest was a tumultuous storm. Growing up, the problem was never love for us. Bad times. Good times. There were times when I felt our love in every inch of my body, vibrating, making me feel like it could bring me back to life. The problem was us. The problem is that we're living in two different worlds now. Fallen Crest and its millionaires for me. 

Teagan: I wanted to go home. Moving to America wouldn't have been so bad if it weren't for the family next door, but because of my so-called guardian - and I used that term lightly - we were the latest family to take up residency in Thirteenth Street, and I was the sole target of the bitch over the fence. But, for me, life was a lot to get a lot worse. Noah: I was going to lose my shit over the girl-next-door. God, three months of having her live next door to me and I still felt like slamming my head into the garden wall - now worse than ever since she had challenged me.

It was the summer of my life. I’d met the guy of my dreams. Unfortunately, he was the son of my uppity employer - and very much off-limits. But Gavin was a rebel. He knew his mother would disown him if she found out about us; in his eyes, we just had to be careful. He never treated me as his mother did - like hired help. Instead, Gavin put me on a pedestal and loved me harder than I’d ever been loved in my life. 

To survive where I live, you have two options. You can be a Normal - a cheerleader, jock, member of the debate team, or on the yearbook committee. You pretend everything is normal. Or you can be crew. You insult us? We hurt you. You hurt us? We really hurt you. And if you f--k with us, we will end you. My name is Bren. I'm the only female in the Wolf Crew - the best, fiercest, and most dangerous crew there is - and we have a rule: There's no falling in love. Well...too late.

I wanted to fall for a boy. Not a man. Not a legend...The month I wrote my first piece of code, Jax Jamieson launched his third platinum album. The week I drank my first beer, he spent in jail. The day I got under his skin, I wound up on his tour...And the night he gave me his hoodie...I fell in love forever.

Everyone says opposites attract. And they must be right, because there’s no logical reason why I’m so drawn to Colin Fitzgerald. I don’t usually go for tattoo-covered, video-gaming, hockey-playing nerd-jocks who think I’m flighty and superficial. His narrow view of me is the first strike against him. It doesn’t help that he’s buddy-buddy with my brother. And that his best friend has a crush on me. And that I just moved in with them. Oh, did I not mention we’re roommates?

Tristan Lopez is loyal to his brothers. He doesn't really have a choice, born into a gang that has a choke hold on every kid who roams its streets. He gave his life to them willingly, knowing if he did, then one day, this kingdom, led by boys drunk with power and ruled by fear, would all be his. Riley Rojas took up space on his streets, her loud mouth fearless in the face of the gang leaders who terrified everyone else. She pushed Tristan around on the hard court, and she balled better than his friends - better than him sometimes. She challenged him. She needed him. He liked it. 

It was one night together. I wasn't supposed to see him again. I never thought I would. And then the six-foot-three cement graffiti wall of badass strode back into my life, and did it with full force. He's protecting me from his past, and I'm protecting myself against the heated chaos he erupts in my body. It doesn't help that he can do playful and sweet when he's not doing bossy. But the overly confident playboy Deaglan Kane is danger, has no boundaries, and is totally off-limits. And I know behind his walls there's a man with a dark and damaged past. 

They rule my new town, my school, and with more money than God, there’s very little out of their reach. Four gorgeous, perfect, scary boys. There used to be five, but one of them died, leaving a fifth position that I now fill. I didn't ask for this. I didn't want to be part of this billionaire-boys-club. But no one cares about what I want. Sebastian Beckett is the worst of them. Their leader. He draws me in, and strips me of every defense I have. He calls me Butterfly, but it's not a pet name, it's a threat.

I asked for his criteria for bed buddies - that's the PG version. He swore at me and said he didn’t do groupies. And just like that, our friendship was off to a great start. Reese Forster was the starting point guard for the Seattle Thunder. Gorgeous. Cocky. Loved by the nation. He’s also attending preseason basketball training camp where I used to work.   

And the new heavyweight champion of the world is.... Those are the words that Zeus Kincaid has been waiting to hear since he first put on a pair of boxing gloves. He just didn’t think they would come with a tragedy that would change how he viewed the sport forever. Cameron Reed was in her second year at Juilliard when her childhood sweetheart, Zeus Kincaid, walked away from her. A few months later, Cam realized that she would never fulfill her dream of dancing for the New York City Ballet.

Seventeen-year-old Isis Blake hasn't fallen in love in three years, nine weeks, and five days, and after what happened last time, she intends to keep it that way. Since then she's lost 85 pounds, gotten four streaks of purple in her hair, and moved to Buttcrack-of-Nowhere, Ohio, to help her mom escape a bad relationship. All the girls in her new school want one thing - Jack Hunter, the Ice Prince of East Summit High. Hot as an Armani ad, smart enough to get into Yale, and colder than the Arctic, Jack has never gone out with anyone.