I smiled. “And it feels good, baby.”
“It does!” he said, and then let out a very loud sound as he pulled out of me since he obviously satisfied himself.
I turned over and laid on my back as he got out of the bed to throw away the condom. He got back in bed with me and put his arm around me as I laid my head on his chest. “Brad?”
“What’s up, baby?”
“Even though you talked to John and attempted to talk to Lisa, I just don’t think they’re gonna be nice to me.”
He grinned. “Don’t worry about them, Vanessa. I expect them to be upset for a long time. Like I said, I’ll be damned if John is completely over the fact that the two of us are together — I just think that he wanted all of my friends to see that he wasn’t mad about me being with you. Even though he clearly said no hard feelings, trust me, Vanessa, I think there are some.”
I nodded with a grin. “You think? Well, I know there are some! And I know that Lisa has a lot of hard feelings because she seems to be really pissed off and she has every right to be. How can I be sure that she’s not gonna try and get you back?”
“She’s not gonna get me back. She knows that our relationship was on the rocks for a while and what we did on Friday was for the best. She’s just gonna have to get over it — it may take her some time, but I know she will. I doubt, though, that she’ll have another boyfriend this year.”
“Doesn’t seem like it,” I said. “I’m sorry that I keep bringing those two up, but it just doesn’t seem like it’s gonna be an end to them hating on us.”
“I don’t see an end anytime soon, but eventually, there will be one,” he said.
We sat in silence for a few seconds.
“Brad, I need to tell you something.”
He looked at me. “What is it?”
I took a deep breath. I felt that since I was officially his girlfriend, I didn’t wanna have any secrets from him anymore about things that happened while we were seeing each other in secret. “Remember that second night at the club when you brought Lisa?”
“Clearly. What about it?”
“Well, about what happened to her, you know, with her being pushed off the stage?”
“Yeah,” he said as he stared at me.
I took another deep breath as I stared at the TV. “I’m the one who did it,” I confessed.
“I know you did.”
I looked at him; he was grinning to no end! “You do?! How did you know? Did Lisa tell you?”
“No, she didn’t tell me,” he said as he continued to grin at me.
“Then how did you know?!”
“I saw you up on the stage, Vanessa. I stood up and looked around to see where you were at, and I saw you and Ava a few feet behind Lisa. I guess that’s the advantage I have with being so tall; I can see over just about anyone. No one else had any reason to do that to her but you. You were mad at me for bringing her and I can tell that she was making you jealous on purpose. Lisa was really good at that; she used to do that around other girls as well, so I’m surprised nothing like that had happened to her sooner. Maybe my mom is right; maybe she was with me for the some of the wrong reasons rather than for the right ones.”
“Oh, my God, Brad! I’m really surprised that you saw me up there! I looked around and saw you talking to Marc, John, and Ken; I didn’t think you saw me at all. I told Lisa the night you two broke up that I was the one who did it, and she forgave me and said that she was trying to make me jealous on purpose.”
“Told you she was really good at that.”
“Well, I’m sorry I withheld the truth from you for so long.”
He smiled. “No big deal. I knew you would tell me eventually when you felt that you were ready to.”
“I just said that I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t tell you soon.”
“No problem at all,” he said, and then leaned over and kissed me on the lips. “So, another secret you had kept — at least from me — has been lifted off of you, huh?”
I breathed a sigh of relief. “Most definitely! Even though you knew it was me, I didn’t know that you knew that it was me, so it was a secret that I was keeping from you.”
We kissed again, and then held hands.
I knew that there was another secret that I was holding from him — the one that happened the night before when John showed up at my house after I came home from the club and forced me to have sex with him — but I just didn’t wanna tell him about that one. As much as I felt that I should’ve told him, I just couldn’t because I felt that since he wasn’t my boyfriend at the time, he really didn’t need to know.
“So, what led to you and Lisa talking minutes after we broke up?”
“She actually called me over to her when I was about to go back inside the shop.”
He looked at me like he couldn’t believe it. “She did?! I’m shocked, I have to admit.”
“Yeah, so was I. I was scared to go over to her at first because I didn’t know if she was gonna kick my ass or not.”
He grinned. “Well, it’s obvious that she didn’t because it would’ve sent me and my friends, as well as everyone else that was in the shop, running outside to break it up.”
“You’re right about that!”
We laughed.
He continued to stare at me. “What did the two of you talk about?”
“Well, we talked about when you two were together, and she said that she felt like she had so much power when she was your girlfriend, but felt powerless against someone that you always had an interest in, which is me. I was surprised that she told me as much as she did, but I was really surprised when she said that you would probably ask me to be your girlfriend the next day. She said she didn’t care if I said yes, but it’s obvious she cares a little. I mean, what was I supposed to say? No? What girl in their right fuckin’ mind would say no if you asked her to be your girlfriend?”
He chuckled. “Well, when I ask a girl to be mine it’s because I see something in her that I don’t see in most of the others. I saw that in you and Lisa freshman year, but you were with someone else at the time so I just started talking to Lisa, and then we got serious; more serious than I ever thought we would get.”
“Yeah, me and that other guy didn’t even last for more than three months, but by that time, you and Lisa were officially a couple.”
“Yeah, we were.”
“Oh, and another thing, she gave me something that I was not expecting for her to give me.”
“And what was that?”
“A lipgloss.”
He looked confused. “A lipgloss? For what? Was it a gift for you for being the one that finally stole me from her?”
“Brad!” I said as I hit him.
He laughed. “Just kidding, baby. Why did she give you a lipgloss? Seriously.”
“Because it was mine,” I informed him.
He stared at me. “Okay, now I’m a little confused. She gave you back a lipgloss that she found that she knew was yours?”
“Well, I think she didn’t know for sure that it was mine at first, but she confirmed it to me that it was.”
“And how did she do that?”
“Through DNA.”
“What?!” he said. He stared at me in shock. “She had your lipgloss DNA tested?! No she fuckin’ didn’t, Vanessa!”
“She did, Brad. And you won’t believe where she found it at.”
“Where?”
“Underneath your desk . . . in your office at school.”
He put both of his hands on his head as he sighed. “Damn! So she knew you were underneath the desk that whole time that day. It was obvious that she went back in there and snooped around since she had her own key, and I say had because I got the lock changed over the weekend.”
I grinned. “I understand. Yeah, since I didn’t know that my lipgloss fell out of my pocket while I was hiding underneath your desk, she said that she did go back into your office the next day before classes started to see what she
could find, and did she ever find something! I’m really sorry, Brad, that I didn’t know that it fell out of my pocket and on to your floor; I didn’t even feel it.”
He smiled. “It’s okay, baby, for real. I mean, I could’ve checked underneath my desk to see if you’d left something behind, but I didn’t even bother doing it because it never crossed my mind to do it. I can’t believe she had that lipgloss tested for DNA! But I believe that she wouldn’t have even thought about having that done if it wasn’t for DNA Day.”
“That’s what I said, but I didn’t say it to her. She showed me the paper and everything saying that it was in fact my DNA on the lipgloss that was tested. I mean, I can understand about trying to find out whose item it is if it’s something that you know is not yours that you find at your boyfriend’s house or in his office or car, but to have it tested for DNA is going to the extremes!”
He laughed. “Yeah, it is! And personal DNA tests are very expensive. Did she tell you how she paid for the test?”
“From money that you’d given her that she said she’d saved.”
He grinned. “Yeah, should’ve known. I gave her a lot of money over the years. Well, she doesn’t have to worry about getting anything of yours DNA-tested anymore. It’s none of her business anymore what you leave here, in my car, at my office at school — anywhere!”
I laughed. “Very true!”
We held each other as we watched TV for a few minutes.
“Brad?”
“What’s up?”
“You don’t regret that you broke up with Lisa that night and then asked me to be your girlfriend the next day, do you?”
“Vanessa, I wouldn’t have asked you to be my girl if I had any regrets about Lisa and I ending our relationship that night.”
I nodded with a smile. “My only regret is that you didn’t break things off with her sooner. When I talked to John today, I even told him that I’d thought about ending the secret relationship with you because I just wasn’t sure whether or not you were gonna end things with her.”
“And what did he say?”
“He just said that I’m damn lucky that you did and that you asked me to be your girlfriend as fast as you did . . . and I have to agree with him — I am lucky.”
He smiled as he nodded. “Well, it wasn’t luck, Vanessa. I was gonna ask you eventually, but I felt that it was no use in wasting time since the secret of us being together was all out in the open that night since Lisa put us both on blast. Sorry it took longer than I wanted it for things to end between us because I still had a lot of feelings for her, but I knew that my feelings for you were just getting stronger as the days and weeks went on. So, of course, when Lisa and I mutually decided to call it quits that night, I really didn’t feel that bad about it. I kind of felt it coming when she showed me the video of us dancing at Sparkle, and then the one of us kissing out in the school parking lot. I just said to myself as she bitched at me that I’d better end things now with her. I have to admit, though, that I was surprised that she suggested it first about ending things.”
“Yeah, that surprised me, too, as well as everyone else.”
“Yeah, everyone was surprised. I was actually gonna ask you that night if you wanted to be my girl, but I decided to just wait until the next day. When I want something, I don’t like to wait.”
“Obviously,” I said with a grin. “I honestly didn’t think you would ask me at all, at least not for a long time. You didn’t even say bye to me that night, and that really upset me.”
He touched my cheek. “I’m really sorry about that. I just had a lot on my mind. I did feel bad later on when I realized that I did that and was gonna call you, but I decided to talk to you the next day since I knew I was gonna ask you to be my girl. That diamond earrings and necklace set that I gave you, I bought weeks ago for you while I was still trying to figure out how I was gonna end things with Lisa.”
“Really?” I said with a smile as I touched the earrings, and then looked down at the necklace.
“Yeah,” he said as he smiled back at me. He got up and got out of bed. “My parents will be home soon, so I think now is a good time for us to get dressed.”
I got up as I laughed. “I think so, too! Don’t wanna get caught!”
He laughed. “I’ve had a lot of close calls, but it hasn’t happened yet!”
“And we don’t want it to!”
We laughed as we put back on our clothes.
Several minutes later, he looked out his window. “My parents are home. C’mon, they wanna meet you.”
“Okay,” I said nervously. I didn’t know why, but I was nervous about meeting them. I quickly refreshed my makeup and made sure my hair was in place, and then walked downstairs with him.
We walked into the kitchen area where they both were.
They both turned around and smiled big when they saw me. I knew immediately how nice they were, and not only nice, but they were both gorgeous. Brad looked like a younger version of his dad, who was a total silver fox, and his mom just looked stunning for her age.
“Mom, Dad, this is my new girlfriend, Vanessa Ellis,” Brad said with a smile.
His mom came over to me and kissed me on my cheek! “Nice to meet you, Vanessa dear. You are so beautiful,” she said with a smile.
I was stunned by this! “Thank you, Mrs. Johnston. It’s very nice to meet you, too,” I said as I couldn’t even hide how flattered I was. Already, Brad had the nicest mom I’d ever met.
“Hello, dear. It’s very nice to meet you,” Mr. Johnston said as he smiled at me and shook my hand.
“It’s nice to meet you, too, Mr. Johnston,” I said as I smiled big.
“Brad, you did good, son. She is beautiful just like you said,” Mr. Johnston said.
“She really is,” Mrs. Johnston said with a smile.
I couldn’t hide my blushing. “Thank you, both,” I said with a big smile. I could definitely see why Brad had it all — it definitely started at home, as they say. His parents were some of the nicest and most attractive people I’d ever seen and met.
“I didn’t care for Lisa that much; I always thought she was using my baby, you know, wanting to be with him for all the wrong reasons rather than for the right ones,” Mrs. Johnston said.
“Gigi!” Mr. Johnston said as he chuckled.
“Mom!” Brad said as he grinned.
“Well, it’s true. I can tell just by looking at you, Vanessa, that Brad should’ve been with you all along,” she said with a smile.
I smiled back. “Thank you, Mrs. Johnston.” I really didn’t wanna personally comment on what she’d said about Lisa because Brad had his reasons as to why he was with her for all of those years, and his mom had her reasons for not really liking her that much.
Hours later, I was back at home as I did my homework. I still couldn’t believe that I was officially Brad’s girlfriend. I stared at the picture that I had of him on my desk as I knew that he was mine now. It was no secret anymore that we were together, and I definitely considered myself to be a very lucky girl. But I didn’t feel lucky in the fact that I had to deal with an ex-girlfriend now because I just didn’t think that Lisa was sincere in her acceptance of us being together now. I also had a ex-secret lover that I still had a secret with, and even though he told Brad that there were no hard feelings in the fact that we were officially a couple, I knew that he had a lot of hard feelings because he had yet to tell me that there weren’t any, but then again, I wasn’t expecting for him to. I also had a secret person who was constantly texting me and putting roses in my car, and until I found out who it was, I felt that I could never be at peace with it. I checked my phone to see if there were any texts from this person . . . there were none . . . for now.
CHAPTER 19
A few weeks had gone by without any incidents, and people seemed to have gotten used to seeing Brad and me together instead of seeing him and Lisa. I still hadn’t spoken to Lisa or to John, and I wasn’t expecting to for a while. I also ha
dn’t been receiving any of those secret texts as well or any roses, and I concluded that the person who was sending them to me probably just got tired of stalking me. I walked down the hall with Ava to our lockers as I thought about this. I saw Natalie waiting for us. Since her locker was right next to Marie’s, which was right next to Ava’s, it didn’t surprise me that she was standing here — but it was obvious today that she was waiting for us. “Hey, Natalie. What’s up?”
“Hi, Vanessa. Hi, Ava,” Natalie replied with a slight smile.
“Hi,” Ava said, and then turned her attention to opening up her locker.
“Vanessa, I need to tell you something about Lisa,” Natalie said.
Ava looked up at her.
I stared at her since she was one of Lisa’s good friends, and since she was and I was the one who was with Brad now, I knew what she had to tell me wasn’t gonna be anything good. “Okay, what about her?”
“Vanessa, first of all, please don’t tell anyone that I told you this — you too, Ava,” Natalie said.
We looked at her as if she was about to confess something to us.
“Okay, I promise, Natalie,” I said.
“Yeah, I promise, too,” Ava said.
Natalie looked around again, and then came closer to Ava and me. “Vanessa, Lisa is the one who tried to run you down in the mall parking lot that night,” she informed me.
Ava and I looked at each other as we shrieked!
“Natalie, are you serious?! Did she tell you that she did this?” I asked.
“Yes, Vanessa. And she told only me, not even Marie, because she said that she was afraid that Marie would tell you since you have two classes with her and, of course, her locker is here with ours,” Natalie said.
I sighed as I shook my head. “Wow. I wasn’t sure who it was since the can that she obviously threw out at me didn’t have any DNA on it, and I did have it tested to see if I could find out who did it that way.”
“You did?! Wow! I didn’t know that!” Natalie said.
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