“Hey Siri, play Dirty Little Secret.”

There were a few rules that came with your position in the city and school. The biggest one was to NEVER date one of those trailer park dirtbag slums. Truly, you couldn’t afford that ding to your reputation. Perfect family (you were the mayor’s daughter, of course), perfect grades, friends, looks, with all the money in the world. Perfectly ironed shirts, perfect hair, makeup with not a shade out of place. You truly belonged on the front of a magazine. Golden girl of Ashport, the shittiest, smallest town to ever exist.

Zander Steele? Oh God. The guy was a dirtbag. Not that he was dick (which he was), but because of the shit he got into. Juvie, girls, parties, cops, fights, arguments, illegal things, drag races, smoking, drugs. Fathers pointed to him when describing who not to date to their daughters. The only thing that made up for his awful hobbies was his looks: cold, brown eyes, thick brown hair, sculpted muscles, pretty face. The smell of cologne, leather, and cigarettes clung around him so strongly you could smell him even after he left the room.

Yet girls only loved him more for it. Girls wanted to be with him, guys wanted to be friends with him … you thought it was bullshit. So did your friends. The city was split in half. People like you, and people like Zander. The sides were so separate that even classrooms split in half some days. They all were idiots in your opinion. Especially Zander. He was an idiot who got himself in trouble.

And you loved that idiot.

It started harmless. Getting drunk at a party and making out with him in the dim lights of a basement. While you tried to move on, he didn’t. He took a liking to fucking with you instead. That messing around and poking at you turned into a crush, which turned into a relationship. Secret, of course. God forbid if anyone found out. Your father would send you to boarding school so fast you wouldn’t be able to say goodbye.

So you two got good at sneaking around.

It was a Saturday night, a calm evening which wasn’t unusual. You were sitting on your bed, painting your toenails this shade of off-white when you heard the familiar hitting of pebbles against your window. Your head snapped up to the time: 10:32. Late enough that your parents were fast asleep, but early enough that you weren’t tired out of your mind. Reaching over, you unlocked the window and slid it open slightly.

Zander got the hint, just like he always did and climbed up the tree beside your window, then inside. “Holy shit it reeks of nail polish,” he said, dropping down carefully on your floor to not wake anyone up. “Open a window or something, my god.” He made a show of leaving the window wide open as he pulled off his shoes and jacket (you’d get pissed if he didn’t), before flopping down on your bed. His head came to rest on your assortment of pillows as he lazily looked over at you.