THE EDENSVILLE HIGH SERIES
by J&M Irwin
Adam
High School doesn’t last forever, but the choices that we make can.
Custom Cover Design by Jackie Irwin
Cover Photography by Irwin Hills Photography
Editing by Brendan Martel
[email protected] https://edensvillehighseries.wix.com/edensvillehighseries
Copyright February 2015
Published by Irwin Hills Publishing
This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favorite eBook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, place and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons living or dead, is entirely coincidental. All rights reserved. No part of this publication can be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without permission in writing from the author or publisher.
COMING SOON TO
The Edensville High Series
by J&M Irwin
Eve
Miriam
David/Goliath & Samson/Delilah
Joseph
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Chapter One- Adam’s Freedom
Chapter Two- The Kings of Edensville
Chapter Three- A Day of Regret
Chapter Four- House Party of the Year
Chapter Five- Truth of the Consequences
Chapter Six- Adam & Eve
Chapter Seven- To Forgive Thine Own Self is True
Epilogue
From Us to You
About the Authors
Acknowledgements
Chapter One
Adam’s Freedom
EDENSVILLE HIGH SCHOOL
The chanting came from the carload of football players in Joseph Coatsman’s new car as they pulled out of the school's parking lot hailing the end of the week mantra.
“Eagles! Eagles! Eagles!”
They usually did it at pep rallies to psych themselves up for the weekly Friday night football game, but this week Adam wasn’t sure if they were more excited about the game or getting to ride in the quarterback’s new Mustang with the custom designed paint job that changed colors with heat. Seems all of them were taking advantage of the heat signature and covering it with their handprints, footprints or whatever else they could find that had heat.
Adam shrugged off the athletes and made his way to his vehicle, his red Honda scooter with custom made saddlebags that hung over each side. He was still grateful to his older brother Joshua for making his dad buy the saddlebags instead of the dorky wire basket that hung off the front, but his father had made it perfectly clear on more than one occasion that the only reason he had even gotten him the scooter was so that he could run quick errands for the hardware store after school. Adam had had the scooter since freshman year so he had built up quite a thick skin to all the teasing, taunts and jokes of his peers. Taking it all in stride, he guessed that he should at least be thankful that his dad had gotten him the scooter in the first place. However, it wasn’t his dad driving around on a little red Honda scooter, nor his older brother Joshua, Adam’s mind tossed in. Who, by the way, was given their dad’s old F250 when he went off to college after their dad bought himself a new one, a brand new F450 to be exact. Adam had taken a little comfort in knowing that the old truck his brother got had already broken down several times and was in the shop in need of constant repair. Yeah, he knew it was petty to think that way, but his brother wasn’t the one getting laughed at either, he was.
Adam pulled his helmet out and fidgeted with straightening the straps for a moment before putting it on. The thought of his parents leaving for the airport this afternoon to fly up to West Point crossed his mind again, and he rolled his eyes. It was always about Joshua and his needs. The couple had decided to go so far as to rent a car and follow his brother home from school just to make sure that he didn’t get stuck on the side of the road broke down somewhere. Their dad and Joshua had agreed to just bring it home so that the two could spend time together and work on it during his brother’s fall break.
Whatever, Adam didn’t mind. In fact, he was actually looking forward to it. Maybe with Joshua home his dad would stay off of him a little. The silver lining in Adam’s book was the fact that his parents had finally consented in letting him stay home alone over the weekend for the very first time. When they had gone away over night for something before Joshua, the older more responsible child had been there to act in the place of dad. So needless to say Adam was pretty stoked in being home alone this weekend, even with all of the restrictions that his parents had placed on him.
“Hey B.R.!” Adam hadn’t heard David walk up. He glanced over at his best friend who was making his way toward his own Honda scooter, the very one that his dad had gotten the idea from when it came time to buy Adam a vehicle.
“You coming to the game tonight?” David asked as he threw his leg over his own light blue scooter as if he were straddling a Softail Heritage Classic Harley.
Freshman year the pair had started calling themselves The Highwaymen. Their very own biker club moniker detailed with jackets and biker names to fit. Adam was Big Red. B.R. for short because he was tall and….well, rode a red scooter. David was Drumstix due to the fact that he carried drumsticks around with him wherever he went because he had started taking drum lessons. Later he shortened it down to just Stix. Yeah, it was corny looking back at it now, but back then when they had gotten their scooters they were so excited to have their new found freedom that the names sounded cool, hip and fantastic. Now? Ummm, not so much. Adam cringed every time David used the names and silently prayed that no one at school ever heard him. He no longer used the terms himself, but that didn’t stop David from it. Adam, in himself, felt like he had grown a lot since then, two years in fact and now the whole biker club thing sounded a little more like a couple of sad, lonely and pathetic wannabes trying to be cool.
“I’m not sure just yet. My parents are leaving around five, and I'm sure dad will lay down the law again one more time for good measure like he has every night this week. So I guess it depends on what kind of mood they’re in.”
David nodded. “Bummer. Well okay, text me when you know something.”
The pair had started meeting up at games in ninth grade at the same spot every week. It was kind of their thing like an unwritten rule somewhere. Their parents would dropped them off. They would make their way to the front gate to pay to get in, and then they'd wander for a little bit before making their way to the top of the bleachers to people watch. Well, David people watched. Adam watched the cheerleaders, more specifically Eve St. Clair on the cheerleading squad. Whatever the reason, having someone to hang out with at these school events helped to get them through freshman year until now since both were a little on the socially awkward side of things.
With a toot of his horn, David took off out of the parking lot leaving Adam to cinch up his helmet and head toward home to face his parents and their lectures once again. He hoped they had moved on with the guilt of what a privilege it was to get to stay home alone over the weekend and just gave him the
411 on the rules and regulations once more.
Adam reached the JROTC crossing guard just as the queen bee of the Populars at Edensville High, Eve St. Clair came out of the front doors and headed across the parking lot. The Populars crowd consisted of the typical upper crust as with any high school, clichéd jocks, cheerleaders and rich kids. If you weren't a Popular then you were nothing more than what they walked on, to them at least. Therefore that put you in the crowd known as the Walk-Ons. Adam hated the clique system, and he certainly didn't care for the fact that, according to the Populars, he was a Walk-On and considered not popular enough to be in Eve’s social network. So what, he was a Walk-On? He liked Eve St. Clair. Simple as that. When he got the chance to tell her she would acknowledge him as more than the kid who sniffed crayons in kindergarten, and then he’d have a shot. Besides sniffing the crayons wasn’t anything weird. They were meant to be sniffed. They were the ones that had the special scents like licorice, banana, lime, cotton candy and Granny Smith Apple. I mean come on everyone was sniffing them! Tamar Davidson had brought them in and was passing them around for everyone to smell. Just so happens the teacher caught Adam and called him out in front of the class. So he’d been labeled as the kid who sniffs crayons ever since. Kids were cruel and just didn’t let some things go.
Adam probably knew more about Eve than anyone else at the school did, like her favorite scented crayon in kindergarten was the cotton candy one. He had had a crush on her ever since she leaned over holding it and whispered to him this one’s my favorite. That’s when he got caught smelling the cotton candy. Yum! But from that day forward he noticed that when he got around her she even smelled like cotton candy, like she had bathed in it. Sweet, heavenly, deliciously scented cotton candy. Her mom must have went to the Scent Shack and gone crazy buying her the whole works of perfume, body spray and shampoo. It turned into her signature scent and whenever she walked past him in the halls he could smell it. Now even a trip to the mall, or when the carnival came to town made him think of her as he walked by the cotton candy maker.
So armed with all the guts and knowledge that he had of her, Adam was determined that this was going to be the year that he finally made it out of Walk-On status and asked her out. His crush had been a secret for a long time, well David knew of course. David knew everything about him, but so would the rest of the school when she finally acknowledged him and walked down the halls of Edensville High on his arm. They’d know then that he was Popular material. He wouldn’t forget David either, after all he was his best friend. There would definitely be a place for him in the Popular crowd next to him and Eve. He'd make sure of that.