Somethin' About That Boy Read online

  Text copyright ©2020 Lani Lynn Vale

  All Rights Reserved

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Dedication

  To Will, my high school sweetheart. Love you.

  Acknowledgments

  Golden Czermak - Photographer

  My Brother’s Editor & Ink It Out Editing- My editors

  Cover Me Darling - Cover Artist

  My mom - Thank you for reading this book eight million two hundred times.

  Kendra, Diane, Brandi, Jen, Kathy, Mindy, Barbara, Penney & Amanda—I don’t know what I would do without y’all. Thank you, my lovely betas, for loving my books as much as I do.

  Table of Contents

  Blurb

  Author’s Note

  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

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Epilogue

  Other titles by Lani Lynn Vale:

  The Freebirds

  Boomtown

  Highway Don’t Care

  Another One Bites the Dust

  Last Day of My Life

  Texas Tornado

  I Don’t Dance

  The Heroes of The Dixie Wardens MC

  Lights To My Siren

  Halligan To My Axe

  Kevlar To My Vest

  Keys To My Cuffs

  Life To My Flight

  Charge To My Line

  Counter To My Intelligence

  Right To My Wrong

  Code 11- KPD SWAT

  Center Mass

  Double Tap

  Bang Switch

  Execution Style

  Charlie Foxtrot

  Kill Shot

  Coup De Grace

  The Uncertain Saints

  Whiskey Neat

  Jack & Coke

  Vodka On The Rocks

  Bad Apple

  Dirty Mother

  Rusty Nail

  The Kilgore Fire Series

  Shock Advised

  Flash Point

  Oxygen Deprived

  Controlled Burn

  Put Out

  I Like Big Dragons Series

  I Like Big Dragons and I Cannot Lie

  Dragons Need Love, Too

  Oh, My Dragon

  The Dixie Warden Rejects

  Beard Mode

  Fear the Beard

  Son of a Beard

  I’m Only Here for the Beard

  The Beard Made Me Do It

  Beard Up

  For the Love of Beard

  Law & Beard

  There’s No Crying in Baseball

  Pitch Please

  Quit Your Pitchin’

  Listen, Pitch

  The Hail Raisers

  Hail No

  Go to Hail

  Burn in Hail

  What the Hail

  The Hail You Say

  Hail Mary

  The Simple Man Series

  Kinda Don’t Care

  Maybe Don’t Wanna

  Get You Some

  Ain’t Doin’ It

  Too Bad So Sad

  Bear Bottom Guardians MC

  Mess Me Up

  Talkin’ Trash

  How About No

  My Bad

  One Chance, Fancy

  It Happens

  Keep It Classy

  Snitches Get Stitches

  F-Bomb

  The Southern Gentleman Series

  Hissy Fit

  Lord Have Mercy

  KPD Motorcycle Patrol

  Hide Your Crazy

  It Wasn’t Me

  I’d Rather Not

  Make Me

  Sinners are Winners

  If You Say So

  SWAT 2.0

  Just Kidding

  Fries Before Guys

  Maybe Swearing Will Help

  Ask Me If I Care

  May Contain Wine

  Joke’s on You

  Join the Club

  Any Day Now

  Say it Ain’t So

  Officially Over It (10-13-20)

  Nobody Knows (11-3-20)

  Depends Who’s Asking (12-8-20)

  Valentine Boys

  Herd That

  Crazy Heifer

  Chute Yeah

  Get Bucked

  Souls Chapel Revenants MC

  Repeat Offender (Jan. 2021)

  Jailbait (Feb. 2021)

  Standalones

  Somethin’ About That Boy

  Blurb

  Banner Spurlock knew the moment that he walked into Kilgore High School and saw Perry Street that life was about to get interesting.

  Forced to move due to a problem at home, a problem in the form of his ex-best friend hating him for something that Banner’s father did, Banner doesn’t think very much could improve in his life.

  He left his status as king of Benton High School behind and moved to a new school where not only would he have to try out for a new football team and prove himself, but he’d also have to find a place for himself in the hierarchy.

  Only, the moment that he arrives, he knows that finding a place for himself won’t be too hard. Especially when his reputation follows him all the way to Kilgore, Texas.

  ***

  Perry Street hates school. She hates her peers—most of them anyway—and she hates her classes. All she wants to do is finish her senior year, graduate, and find a place that will give her a full scholarship so that she doesn’t have to be stuck here forever.

  That’s her goal, anyway.

  Then she walks into first period, on her first day of her senior year, and sits down. Seconds later, he walks in and changes every single plan she’s ever made.

  It isn’t long before Perry starts to fall for the bad boy who doesn’t care who he does and doesn’t impress. The boy makes her heart flutter. The boy makes her want things that she’s never wanted before. Not ever.

  The boy brings trouble with him that nearly kills her.

  Author’s Note

  Okay, so you might have a few questions with this timeline when it comes to Abilene, which you meet in Ask Me If I Care. (Book 4 of the SWAT 2.0 Series.)

  I’m going to answer these questions, but they’re going to be in Slone’s book, which will happen with him joining my new Longview Liners Football Series that I’ll be starting shortly. He will be the first book in that series, and will be an adult, unlike what he is in this particular book. He has some serious life lessons coming his way, and I need him to be a little more, erm, broken. Sorry! 3

  Happy reading!

  Chapter 1

  Cowboys are dangerous. You should never look at them from the belt down.

  -Rules to live by

  Banner

  “I’m not going,” I said stubbornly.

  My father looked at me with an aggravated expression.

  “Listen,” he said. “I’m tired of getting calls that you’re getting into fights with that little asshole. You’re going, and that’s that.”

  I ground my teeth together forcefully, trying to stop myself from saying what I really wanted to say.

  I knew that my dad would lose his shit if I lost my shit, and I wasn’t up to dealing with him right now.

  All I wanted to do was go lie down and pretend this day never happened.

  “Trance…” my mother said.

  “Viddy, don’t,” Dad ordered. “This is happening. If he doesn’t go to Ford’s, things are not going to go well. I know when things have escalated to the level that they have that they’re not going to get better. One of them needs to be removed from the situation.”

  Dad, sadly, was right.

  One of us needed to be removed, but it didn’t need to be me.

  It needed to be the motherfucker that was trying to make my senior year shit.

  Vance McInroy, a kid that used to be my friend, hated my fucking guts.

  Why did he hate my guts? Because my father shot his, and his father died.

  That’s why.

  Where Vance didn’t think his father did anything wrong, I knew better.

  My dad was a police officer.

  He didn’t just go around killing people.

  What he did do was his job, and his job wasn’t easy.

  It especially wasn’t easy for him to shoot his kid’s best friend’s father, either.

  But that was what happened when that man happened to have a gun to his wife’s head.

  My dad had to make a choice.

  My friend’s father, or his stepmother.

  Obviously, we knew which one my friend would’ve chosen.

  Which was why Vance had decided to make my life a living hell ever since.

  “It’s either Oakley or Ford,” Dad said suddenly. “You choose.”

  I knew without a doubt that either one of my siblings would allow me to stay.

  The thing was, both of them were in Kilgore, Texas. A couple hours away from where I was now.

  “So what the fuck do I tell Coach when he finds out that I’m not coming back this year?” I asked carefully.

  “You tell him that Vance is to blame, and if he wanted you to be there, he should’ve had your back a little better than he did,” my father snarled.

  I sighed, pinching the bridge of my nose.

  “This fucking blows. You know that, right?” I asked.

  My father sighed.

  “I don’t want to do this to you, Banner,” Dad said. “But I’d rather you be safe, happy, and healthy than fucking in jail, or beat up because Vance finally decided to take that last step into becoming a goddamn felon.”

  My dad had a point.

  Vance had gotten considerably worse until the point where I didn’t know what to do anymore.

  Staying away from him wasn’t working, and neither was ignoring him.

  Sooner or later, things would get to the point where Vance wouldn’t skirt around the issue at hand.

  Chapter 2

  Adulting is soup, and I’m a fork.

  -Banner’s secret thoughts

  Banner

  The first day of school in Kilgore, Texas proved to be a cold one.

  It was unusually cold for the end of August. To the point that when I rode my bike to school that morning, I’d actually been thankful for the leather jacket that usually made me sweat.

  Today was my first day of my last year of high school.

  At a new school.

  I was a senior.

  At. A. New. School.

  Goddamn Vance.

  Walking into first period—I’d found it easily thanks to a freshman that’d been looking at a map like a fish out of water.

  After taking it, I helped point him to where he needed to go, but only after I’d found where my own class was.

  Which led me to now.

  Statistics.

  Kill me now.

  “Ahh, you must be Banner Spurlock.” The teacher, a younger woman in her mid-thirties, smiled brightly.

  She looked like a ho.

  Seriously.

  She had a pair of tight black pants on that almost covered her high-heeled hooker shoes that were so tall that it would be nearly impossible for anyone else but a stripper to walk easily in them.

  Then there was her starched white button-down long-sleeved top that she had rolled up at her forearms. Oh, and let’s not forget the three buttons she had undone, just barely revealing the top bits of lace on her bra.

  “Yeah, that’s me,” I said, my eyes automatically sweeping the room for an open seat.

  I found it in the front row, at the opposite of the teacher, and the wall.

  I walked to that seat, ignoring the way the teacher continued to talk to me, and took my seat.

  Once there, I pulled my jacket off, getting a better look at the girl that was next to me.

  At first, I thought she was just a girl-next-door type. But then she glanced up, and I got a good look at her eyes.

  She most certainly wasn’t a girl-next-door type.

  She was a ‘I want your panties on my bedroom floor’ type.

  Jesus Christ.

  Her black sweatpants and black long-sleeved, tight as fuck, curve-hugging top were nothing special.

  Unless you looked below the surface. Saw the delicate curve of her hip. The beautiful swell of her breasts.

  The delicate slant of her neck that was covered in deliciously golden skin that I wanted to…

  She looked up at me, her gaze making contact with mine, and my breath hitched.

  Her eyes were fucking purple.

  Who the hell had purple eyes?

  “All right, ladies and gentlemen,” Mrs. Hooker—dear sweet baby Jesus, how the hell was I going to call her that? —ordered. “Now, who wants to start the introductions first?”

  “Mrs. Hooker,” someone called from behind me. “We’ve all gone to the same school for our whole entire lives. We’ve been with the same one hundred and fifty kids since we were all in kindergarten. We don’t need to do any introductions.”

  I knew what was going to happen the moment that the kid said that.

  “Oh?” Mrs. Hooker said. “What about Mr. Spurlock here? He’s new this year. None of y’all know him.”

  “We don’t need to know him,” someone muttered in the back.

  “Perry?” Mrs. Hooker said. “Why don’t you start?”

  Perry, the girl that was dressed from head to toe in black beside me, sighed.

  I grinned at her misfortune, but wiped it off my face the moment she turned her head to look in my direction.

  My eyes studied her as she stood up and turned around to face the class.

  “My name is Perry Street. I’m a senior this year. I work at the Stop and Go, I play volleyball, and I also run cross-country and track,” Perry drawled.

  “Ohhh, Mulan,” someone called from the back of the room. “How’s Mushu?”

  I could see the Mulan analogy.

  She could pass as the cartoon character’s double.

  Hell, she even had the long, flowing, thick hair.

  “How about you go f—” Perry started, but Mrs. Hooker cleared her throat, causing her to break off mid-sentence.

  I snorted.

  She said it so monotonously that she sounded like a computer. Like the fucking Alexa electronics that my mother loved so much.

  “Thank you, Perry,” Mrs. Hooker said. “Who’s next?”

  It went on like this until it came to be
my turn.

  I stood up and said my name, keeping my eyes on the girl next to me.

  Her long, black/brown hair was in a low ponytail at the back of her head, and the tail was coming over her left shoulder to curve around her breast.

  And her eyes were slanted slightly, hinting of Japanese descent.

  Maybe not full-blown Japanese, but she definitely had someone in her family that was.

  Her arms were crossed tightly over her chest, and she was staring ahead at the chalkboard—what the fuck kind of school still had chalkboards? —and doing her level best to ignore the hell out of me.

  “My name is Banner Spurlock. I’m a senior. I don’t work anywhere just yet because I just moved here. But I’ll probably be finding a bike shop or something to work at when I do. I play football and hockey,” I droned.

  Mrs. Stripper—I mean Hooker—clapped her hands.

  “Wonderful!” she cried. “Well, as I’m sure a lot of you know, my name is Genie Hooker. I graduated two years ago from SFA with my teaching degree…”

  I ignored her and instead focused on the girl that was next to me.

  Her long brownish-black hair was captivating.

  There were strands of it that had the subtlest shade of purple to it, and it almost made her hair look like a galaxy.

  And her skin was just fucking perfect.

  Her sweatpants and shirt did nothing to hide her figure, either.

  Underneath it all, I could tell that she had an amazing one.

  Big boobs, muscular legs, curvy hips.

  She really did kind of look like Mulan, too.

  Not that I’d be telling her that based solely on how she’d reacted when the little shit in the back of the class had.

  Crossing my arms over my chest, I leaned back in my seat and thought about my next class.

  I also thought about what I would need to do after school.

  I had a meeting with the coach about trying out for the team.

  I was so in my own head that Perry, the girl I was trying very hard not to study, poked me with a stack of papers.

  “Here,” she said.

  I took them from her, accidentally brushing my hand against hers.

  She jumped and pulled back before I had them fully in my grasp, causing the papers to flutter to the floor.

  They landed everywhere, and she cursed, getting out of her seat and rounding it to help me pick them up.