Crush on Mr. Bad Boy

by Lilly Purdon

  “I don’t have time for this, nor am I interested,” I interrupted him before trying to walk away, but he grabbed my arm.

  “Please, I’m sorry, at least hear me out.”

  “You shouldn't be apologizing to me.” I yanked my arm away from him. “You should be apologizing to your best friend.” I said before walking away.

  “What if she's not the one I want?” he called after me, making me freeze on my tracks. “What if you're the one I want?”

  I turned around so that I was facing him. The people around us were chatting away, not paying attention to us at all. “Then it sucks to be you, Jaxon.” I replied before flipping him the bird and slipping away from him.

  As I slipped through bodies of people, a hand grabbed my arm. I spun around quickly and kicked the person's leg in a swift move. “Let me go-”

  “It's just me!” Trent threw both his hands into the air. I sighed in relief, glad it wasn't Jaxon. His icy blue eyes very oddly reminded me of Rose's eyes. “Who did you think I was?” he questioned, leaning closer to me.

  I took a step away from him. “No one,” I lied, but he easily knew I was lying.

  “You can't lie to me, I'm the master of lying!” he threw both his hands in the air dramatically. “Therefore, I know exactly when someone's lying to me.”

  I tilted my head to side. I liked the way he exaggerated things. “That's cute.”

  His pale face didn't blush, but his ears definitely turned bright red. “I-Is that a compliment?”

  ~*~

  ---Rose's P.O.V---

  Axel's grades donkey butt, but he wasn't stupid at all.

  He was in fact incredibly clever and knew how to push people's buttons. Just like the way he pushed the guy who was working behind the stage's buttons. “Can't find a proper job, huh?” Axel challenged the guy who was about to show an anniversary video.

  “Get out of here before I call security, kid.” The bald man threatened.

  “You better call someone to fix that damn hairline before anything,” Axel shot back.

  The man reached for his walkie-talkie, but before he could reach it, he was knocked out cold. It was a bit mean, but to be fair, the guy looked pretty mean. “Moments like this, I'm glad I work out!” he said, staring at his clean fist.

  “Is he dead?” I asked, poking the unconscious guy with my foot.

  Axel just chuckled at my question.

  He hooked his laptop up to the cords which lead to the giant screen. After a few minutes of him waiting for his laptop to finish connecting, something appeared on the screen.

  “Password?! What password?!” he growled in frustration.

  He randomly typed something in quickly, but 'Incorrect Password' flashed on the screen. “Let's try this,” he bit his lip, before typing in something else in. He ran his hand through his hair in frustration. “That's the password he uses on everything...” he said to himself, he clicked another button, “password hint… what the…”

  I just bit my lip, not knowing what to do. The lights on the other side of the curtain faded and clapping was heard.

  “Thank you for coming to our 10th wedding anniversary.”

  Tenth? Axel never told me they've been married for 10 years...

  “First we would like to show all of you some slideshows and a little clip from our wedding,” Axel's stepfather said on the microphone.

  “No, no, no!” Axel hissed in frustration as he randomly typed in another password and got it wrong.

  Murmurs were heard from the other side of the curtain. The shadow of the giant screen lowered down and the images started to project on the screen.

  “What's the password hint?” I asked, crouching down next to him to look at the laptop screen.

  v / c = (1 - t) / t = (2 - t) / (1 - t)

  I almost laughed at the simple math equation before me. I reached over and typed in the answer which was '2.41421'. How could he not solve something as simple as that? I pressed enter, and sure enough it let me in.

  His mouth fell open in shock, “maybe I should start doing my math homework.”

  I gasped, “you don’t do your homework?!”

  “I've got that bad boy image I've got to keep, Princess.” He flipped his hair before turning back to his laptop.

  After a few more moments of him frantically clicking stuff on the computer, he got up and pumped his fist in the air.

  Suddenly, the sound of music on the other side of the curtain was replaced by the sounds of moans. We both turned to each other with wide eyes. “Did we just put porn on display?” I chuckled nervously.

  Gasps and yelling was heard on the other side of the curtain.

  “You have no idea how great that feels,” Axel breathed out, his emerald green eyes were glowing with something mysterious. “Their dirty secret is out.”

  People on the other side of the curtain were freaking out.

  “Is that-”

  “MRS. WINNEFRED!”

  “To think she has articles on shaping the perfect family!”

  “I can’t believe I read her book!”

  “Before anything, we've got to go up to the balcony, we were supposed to be up there 10 minutes ago, and we’re running late!” I grabbed his hand, attempting to pull him up the stairs which were near the stage exit.

  “Rosaline Arlene Winnefred!” a high pitched woman's voice yelled.

  Both our heads snapped in Cleo's direction. Her eyes were narrow, and I swear I could see steam coming out of her ears. Her dark brown hair was pulled up in a professional bun and she was wearing a fancy black dress. If looks could kill, I'd be twelve feet under.

  Axel didn't seem affected by my stepmother though, he just smirked at her. “Mad that everyone now knows your dirty little secret?”

  “I helped you, Mr. Spencer!”

  “You tried to get me shipped off to Military school, you spiteful bitch.” Axel’s arm tensed.

  “I-I-I can explain!” Axel’s stepdad said on the microphone on the other side of the curtain.

  “Stay out of this, Axel!” she growled at him, before turning back to me. “All I never did was treat you kindly. I saw you as my own daughter because your mother had left you!” she said angrily. “And you repay me this way?!”

  “I never asked you to leave your own daughter for me,” I shot back. “All you did to my life was cage who I truly was. You wanted full control of everything I said and did. You wanted me to be your perfect daughter, you wanted me to be your lab rat that you could treat however you wanted. You treated me like your fucking puppet!

  You left your own daughter hanging on her birthday! You knew it was her, didn't you? Every single time I told you about what happened, you would always press me into telling you who that perfect little girl at school bullying me was. My favorite color is blue, not pink. I asked for my room to be blue, not fucking pink!” I screamed at her.

  “What kind of mother leaves her own daughter for someone else's daughter? Yes, my mother left, but all you did was the same thing my own mother did. You left your own daughter for a stranger's daughter!” I yelled.

  “I helped you through hard times! And all I get is this for helping you?!” she asked incredulously.

  “You call squeezing every detail about my terrible day helping?! You put me in the worst situations. You kept my in the dark my entire life, and refused to let me grow up. Maybe without you I would've been more confident on my own, maybe without you I would've learned to make better friends and learned to deal with things on my own! Maybe without you, I would've made my own choices in life instead of you making them for me!” I yelled, noticing everything was quiet around us.

  The curtains were open and every single person was staring at us with their mouths wide open. I turned around, staring at all the attention we were getting. Axel was next to the curtain controls, smirking proudly.

  “I-I-” Cleo stuttered, trying to find the right words. “But I love you.”

  “You don’t know what love is,” I said,
everyone around us stayed quiet. “The boy you accused of having issues knows what love is better than you do.”

  “Ladies and gentlemen,” Axel announced to the crowd staring at us, “introducing you to the truth.” He gestured around him before bowing sarcastically.

  Suddenly, water poured down on everyone not on the stage. I looked up at the balcony and saw Layla saying something to the twins and Trent. The water balloons hanging on the ceiling fell on random people, ruining their expensive gowns and suits. Balloons fell left and right, like it was raining water balloons.

  Axel grabbed my hand and dragged me off the stage with him. Cleo followed us off stage with hatred filled in her chocolate brown eyes. Both Axel and I squeezed through people who were soaking wet and got hit by a few water balloons ourselves, but we didn't stop until we were halfway through the huge room.

  “Rose?” someone called out. I turned around and found myself face to face with my dad. I barely recognized his face anymore. He had changed too much in the past few months. His icy blue eyes were crystallized. I felt a pang of hurt in my chest seeing my own father looking so heartbroken. “I-I'm sorry honey, I had no idea-”

  “Dad…” He looked like a stranger to me.

  “Sorry, no time for emotional moments, dad.” Axel patted my father on the back. “Mind if I call you dad? You can call me soon-to-be-son-in-law or son,” Axel said, giving my hand a little tug. “And sorry for touching your daughter, most dads would've probably shot me by now, but thanks for giving me a chance bro.” With that, he pulled me away from my teary-eyed-dad.

  We had no time to register anything. All I knew was something thick and powdery fell on us. When I opened my eyes, I started coughing. The whole room was literally white. Every single person was covered in flour.

  “Looks like a cocaine factory,” Axel snickered.

  I coughed while shaking my head so some of the flour would come out of my sticky wet hair. Our fingers stayed laced together as he dragged me to the exit. Before we could leave, he turned to me, his green eyes glowing mysteriously.

  “Okay, I'm going to make this as quickly as possible,” he said, taking in a sharp breath. “This is the most cliché moment ever since we're both wet- wait- that sounds so wrong- okay my bad- sorry- let me just-” he held his index finger in the air trying to sort himself out before he took in a deep breath. “I'm horrible at this kind of stuff but will you- oh god I'm messing up again- wait I've got this- can you- ah fuck that sounds too cheesy-”

  I placed my wet flour-covered finger on his lips. “Axel, will you be my boyfriend?” I asked, my voice sounding soft but confident.

  His eyes widened, “That's my job! Take that back!” he grabbed both my hands into his warm wet hands. “Rose, Rosie, Rosaline Arlene Winnefred, will you be my girlfriend?”

  “Yes!” I replied immediately.

  “Then my answer is yes for you too,” he replied. And with that, he pressed his lips against mine. Some people around us gasped at us, but I couldn't care less.

  I was now Axel Storm Spencer's girlfriend.

  Was I even awake?

  And that was our cliché moment...

  ~*~

  Chapter 42 ALL WE NEED

  I was floating in cloud nine for the next months, except for the fact that Kasay avoided me at all costs before she was finally thrown in jail. Since she turned 18, they charged her as an adult.

  Dustin was devastated when he heard about her, but with everyone's help, he eventually got over it.

  Axel's mother wised up and dumped her husband's sorry ass.

  Of course, Cleo and his stepdad hadn’t looked at each other since. They both blamed getting caught on each other. The truth was they were both to blame. My father filed for a divorce right after the incidents that night, and she didn't get anything from him. He made sure of it.

  Jaxon dropped off apology notes every single day. Each note was about different times we spent together. I made it seem like I never read them, but in all honestly, I read every single one of them. A few of them had dried tears on them, but I would never show them to anyone.

  School was a lot better.

  Everyone was making an effort and trying to be nice to me. Layla had changed my reputation instantly. She was trying extra hard to make it up to me. She even invited me and Axel to sit at her lunch table! But of course, we denied the offer. We didn't enjoy being watched by everyone while we ate.

  Every lunch, he would take me outside, or to the school roof. But since it had gotten cold, we sat next to a large window on the top floor of the school which out looked the school's property. Thankfully, no one had classes up there during 5th and 6th period which were the periods before and after lunch. So we basically had the whole area to ourselves with no working video cameras watching us.

  Jaxon had tried approaching us a few times, but Axel glared threateningly in his direction and Jaxon chickened out every time. I felt a bad inside sometimes. He had apologized countless times, but I wouldn't forgive him.

  I stared up at my ceiling thinking about how much my drastically my life had changed. We'd all be going off to college soon and Axel still hasn't picked his college yet. His simple reply every time I bugged him about college was: “I’ll go anywhere you go”.

  The day my applications were due, I grabbed my files and applied to a few universities in Florida, ones with high acceptance rates and higher chances of me getting scholarships. Ivy League wasn’t my dream, it was Cleo’s dream. And now that she was gone, there was no point. I applied to multiple undergraduate programs. I was still exploring my options. I didn’t plan on choosing till the summer when I’d be going.

  Now I was lying on my bed on a Sunday night staring up at my dull ceiling. It was winter break and Christmas was coming up in a few days. My phone started to ring beside me. A picture of me and Axel flashed on the screen with the caller ID ‘MY PRINCE’ in bold letters.

  I knew it was incredibly cheesy, but I couldn't help myself when I changed the contact name on my phone. I answered the phone quickly.

  “Why are you staring up at your ceiling like a possessed person?” Axel asked right when I answered.

  “Well hello to you too,” I rolled my eyes. “Should I start calling you Mr. Stalker now?”

  “Nah, I prefer Mr. Bad Boy,” he chuckled. “Or Mr. Sexy Bad Boy if you like. You should close your blinds though; anyone could be watching you right now.”

  I looked out my window onto the sidewalk below and sure enough, Axel stood there staring up at me.

  A blanket of snow covered the pavement and my driveway. Bare naked trees and snow coated on their branches. It looked like a scene from a movie. “Someone’s is watching me right now.” I mumbled in the phone.

  “Get dressed Princess, we're going out.”

  Every time he said something, a cloud of smoke came out of his mouth because of the cold.

  “Has it ever crossed your mind that I might have other plans?” I asked him.

  “Do you?” he replied to my question with another question.

  “No,” I replied.

  “Good, now get dressed so I can take you out!” he grinned up at me.

  “You didn't even say please,” I huffed.

  “Please?” His smile warmed me, even from far away.

  I rolled my eyes at him. “Fine,” I set my phone down on the bed, not bothering to end the call. I closed the blinds before changing into jeans and a long sleeve coat.