Highmore Manor

The lady sitting across the aisle from me smelled suspiciously like rotten milk, oranges and something else equally as disgusting, I felt like gagging the whole time we were preparing for takeoff. It only made the fact that the silence was very loud even worse. My foot tapped out the beat of a random song and I stared at the floor just beside Smelly Lady's foot.

I was sitting, sprawled out on the sofa like chair beside Chase and the Smelly Lady just a metre away was overpowering my senses, and to top it off my ears hurt from the pressure of taking off.

The flight was only a few hours long but it felt like the longest flight ever. It was just too quite. No one had said a word since take off. Chase had surely spotted Callie's bright red eyes and the tissue she kept sniffing into but he never mentioned it. He glanced at her once and then ignored her.

I wasn't allowed to say anything to Chase about anything. Those were Callie's rules.
Chase's father's private jet was extremely nice; although it was unfortunate we had to share it with some of Chase's father's work colleagues ie. Smelly Lady.

The interior was beautifully decorated with thick carpet, tan leather recliners, a drinks bar up the front and a flat screen TV.

A while after the plane took off I got bored of silence and jumped up to look around. I was just inspecting the drinks bar when Chase came up beside me.

"Want a drink?" he offered. "We have everything!" he exclaimed moving to pull out a bottle of beer for himself. "Want a beer?"

"I'm still only 16, Chase, so no just lemonade thanks," I said with a small smirk. Chase scoffed.

"Do you really think age restrictions apply when you're flying through the air over the English Channel, technically we're in the middle of nowhere so no rules apply," he said raising an eyebrow.

"Just because you're flying in a plane in the middle of nowhere wouldn't mean it's suddenly legal to kill a person," I pointed out.

"That's hardly the same thing," Chase shook his head in disagreement but he pulled out a bottle of lemonade, opened it and handed it to me anyway. We stood leaning on the bar and drinking for a few minutes. I watched Chase's eyes wander over to Callie.

"Just wondering, but what's up with Callie?" he asked about two minutes later.

"I'm not allowed to say," I said into my bottle.

"I just want an explanation for all the flirting. Normally I would be all for a girl jumping all over me but I'm really not that into Callie, and I wish she'd stop. Do you think you can ask her?" he asked glancing over at her quickly.

"No, you ask her," I replied.

"Do you think I haven't tried?" Chase asked with a pleading look in his eyes. I watched him for a few seconds and then bowed my head.

“I’m not making any promises,” I muttered.

“Thank you,” he said in such a relieved voice.

“Remember, no promises,” I reminded but he just nodded.

“I really wish she wasn’t going to be at my party,” he said a few minutes later.

“Chase!” I exclaimed glancing over at the back of her head. She was plugged into her iPod so I was really hoping she couldn’t hear anything. I glanced back at Chase. “You shouldn’t say that, she’s our friend,” I hissed at him.

“No Hayls, she’s your friend. She found out that I was inviting you to France with me and then she was practically forcing me to invite her, she was saying all this stuff about getting depressed if I didn’t invite her and that she’d hate her life. I had to invite her or she’d go all suicidal on me,” Chase said.

“She’s just a tad over dramatic sometimes,” I shrugged.

“There were too word in that sentence that should be replaced. Tad and sometimes, it should be more like very and always,” Chase said. I stared at him for a few minutes.

“You know that’s what I hate about you rich guys,” I said still staring at him.

“What?” he asked in a surprised tone.

“Back home if Payton and I start bitching Ricky tunes out but with you and Ryan, all you do is bitch, you’re like a bunch of stuck up girls with dicks and poncy accents!” I exclaimed.

“I do not have a poncy accent!” Chase reacted. Of all the insulting things he could’ve picked out of my sentence he choose that one, I groaned at him and shook my head.

"What?" he asked.

"Nothing," I said quickly. "But seriously, just give Cals break, she’s a girl. It’s tuned into our genes to be annoying sometimes,” I said putting my lemonade bottle down on the bar. We stood in silence for ages.

I thought flying on a million dollar jet would be fun but I wasn't having any that was for sure.

“Man I’m so bored,” I muttered and looked down at my hands.

"Yeah," Chase agreed. "It normally is on these flights."

When I looked up again Chase was staring at me with a weird look in his eyes.

"I have a plan," he declared and suddenly grabbed my hand and dragged me down the aisle. Smelly Lady glared at us, as we brushed past.

“Chase, where are you taking me?” I asked as he opened up a door beside the toilet door.
“Trust me, when I was young I used to explore these planes on all the business trips my father went on,” he said

“When all other normal kids were climbing trees you were exploring million dollar private jets, oh so this is how the other half lives, is it?” I muttered, Chase turned and grinned at me. He opened a hatch in the floor in the small storage room we came out in and climbed into it. I heard the metallic twang as he dropped. I lowered myself into the hole and dropped down beside him, ignoring Chase's remarks that he would catch me.

"Ahh I see you know how to drop through hatches," he remarked with a grin.

"Yeah I had a bit of practice back in New Zealand, maybe not in jet planes but you know," I laughed. I looked around and noticed that plane was awfully industrial looking, not all lavish like the cabin and I realized we in a pressurized cargo hold.

“Chase, do you really think we should be down here?” I asked.

"Yeah, why not?"

"Don't you think it's a little dangerous?" I replied. He shrugged his shoulders and started walking over to where the luggage was stacked. He started climbing over a few bags and boxes; he stopped when he got to the top of the pile and turned to look down at me.

"You coming?" he asked giving me a reassuring look.

"I just don't think we should be climbing around in a cargo hold," I said reluctant to go up there with him.

“Trust me, I've been down here before,” he said with a smile, holding out his hand for me. I sighed and started climbing halfheartedly, trembling slightly as the luggage moved slightly under my weight. He grabbed my arm and pulled me up when I got to him.

"See that wasn't so bad was it?" he asked, I shook my head a little numbly sort of frozen sitting there on top of the luggage. "You should wait till we hit some turbulence," he remarked with a cheeky grin.

"What?" I practically screamed, my throat drying up quickly. "That's it I'm getting down from here," I exclaimed moving to get down from the boxes. He started laughing and grabbed my hand.

"Hayley I was kidding, do you think I'd bring you down here if there was any real danger?" he asked pulling me back towards him. I glared at him momentarily and then tried to relax but my heart wouldn't stop beating, mostly because of the fact that Chase's hand was still in mine and it was doing crazy things with my feelings.

"I used to come up here all the time, especially when my father had "special guests" on the plane and he didn't want me around being annoying," Chase said after a few minutes. I looked up at him and searched his face.

"Did your father do that a lot?" I asked quietly.

"Yeah sometimes. My father didn't really care all that much about me. I'm sure you've heard this from Callie or Ryan or something, because a lot of our parents are all the same. They're too busy wrapped up in their lives and making money that they neglect everything else. Sometimes I think rich people don't deserve children, we all get sent off to private schools so our parents don't have to care for us," he said with a small frown, I squeezed his hand and smiled, he smiled back. "But anyway, that's enough about my sad life, I want to know more about you."

"Ok what do you want to know?" I asked.

"Well, why are you at Highmore to start with, no offense but you're nothing like the other girls at Highmore. There all pretty much stuck up rich snobs," Chase asked looking down at me curiously.

"It was my mum's smart idea to send me to a better school then the one I used to attend back in New Zealand. She just wanted me to get a better education," I said with a shrug.

"Ahh," he nodded. "I'm supposing you're a scholarship girl aren't you?" he asked and I nodded. "Ryan wouldn't have been too happy about that."

"At the start he was all 'I'm so much better because I don't need a scholarship' but he got over it, thankfully," I said. Chase screwed up his face slightly.

"What?" I asked.

"Nothing," he said quickly. I glared at him.

"It's Ryan isn't it? And Jesse and Alex, you don't like them, do you?" I asked slowly.

"Not really," he admitted.

"Why not?"

"Because."

"Because why?"

"Just because."

"Because is not an answer, you're deflecting my question," I pointed out, he stared at me then looked away.

"It’s complicated,” Chase said, I watched his face but he just sat staring ahead with a stony face. As much as I wanted to know, curiosity always got me into dangerous places, like Jesse’s bedroom so I let it rest.

I lay back on the box I was on and managed to get comfortable somehow. The ceiling or underside of the cabin was only about a metre away from me, considering as the space was only about three metres high anyway and it was a dull grey colour with scraps and chips carved out of it where bigger and heavier luggage had hit it.

I began to think about what France would be like, this was the first time I would have ever been there and I suddenly got all excited. I could just imagine the blue skies and sparkling seas that I had seen in pictures.

I was used to the freezing temperatures of England in winter, so even though it was winter in France as well the temperatures would be about as warm as the England in summer, Chase had said the hottest it would get in France at this time of the year would be about 18°C (64°F) when he had told me and Callie to pack warmer clothes.

One of Chase and my conversations had been all about France. His father, a wealthy and famous business man owned a mansion in the hills surrounding Monte Carlo, which was where we were headed after we had landed at Nice Airport and I couldn't wait to see it. I had Google searched Monaco before I had left and it looked beautiful.

And most of all I was excited to see this private boat that the Christmas party was to be hosted on. I'd never been on a private boat either.

A strange sound brought me out of my reverie all of a sudden. It sounded like the engines were failing and the plane was falling out of the sky.

“What was that?” I asked in a panicky voice.

“Uh, don’t get all scared on me but I think the plane might be getting ready to land,” Chase said looking down at me sheepishly.

“What?!” I exclaimed. “But we could get killed if were down here!”

“Yeah, but we’re not going to. We’ve just got to get up there before they put the wheels down,” Chase said, completely calmly shuffling down the boxes as he talked until he could stand and held his hand out to me. "Coming?"

"Yah!" I said in a 'duh' voice and leaped off the boxes, grabbing his hand as I went. I sprinted to the hatch while dragging Chase behind me and tried to reach the hatch, but like normal I was way too short.

"Hey, whoa, slow down, shorty" Chase laughed, reached up and pushed the hatch open easily. Damn him and his whole foot taller then me. I scowled at him and he just grinned. He helped me up through the opening and reached up and pulled himself up over the edge without any help from me.

“Show off,” I muttered getting to my feet once I’d seen he’d gotten through the hatch and had closed it behind him. I went to open the door when someone grabbed me from behind and pulled me backwards and started tickling my ribs.

“What did you call me?” Chase asked in my ear, a laugh playing on his voice. I screamed at him, through bursts of laughter, to stop but he wouldn’t. Somehow he ended up turning me around so my back was pressed against the wall, my hands on his chest trying to push him away, laughing my head off and yelling at him to stop. “Not until you apologize for calling me a show off,” Chase laughed.

“I’m…I’m…sorry!” I managed to gasp out in between laughs.

“That’s more like it!” he said with a grin and thankfully ceased the tickling, putting his hand on the wall just above my head instead. It was that moment I realized how close he was to me, my heart started thumping madly in my chest, which had nothing to do with the exertion of being tickled, and my brain went kind of fizzy.

I'm almost ashamed to admit that I, Hayley Everett, have never been kissed before and I turn 17 two weeks from now. So as you can imagine this was all rather new to me, but it obviously wasn't for Chase.

I let out the breath that I realized that I had been holding and looked up into his eyes.
He smiled slightly at my outtake of air and started leaning in.

His lips were just lightly brushing mine when the door leading through to cabin swung open with a sudden bang.