The Bad Girl and the Good Boy

by Karla Luna

  But the truth was, I was just annoyed and tired – far, yet close, from being angry.

  “I can just ask Joss to leave if that’s what you…”

  “No, no, it’s fine. Go for it. I mean, the girl’s finally talking to you.” Plus, I was the one who decided to leave them alone after Zavier’s little panic attack. I shouldn't be annoyed, right? I'm helping out.

  He nodded, resting his right shoulder on the wall. “Yeah, it’s weird.”

  Chuckling and playfully rolling my eyes, I gave him a small smirk without thinking. “What’s so weird about it?”

  “She started talking to me way more after you came along. She even asked me once if… you and I…” He stopped to let me figure out the rest, as he blushed and shyly scratched the back of his neck while averting his gaze elsewhere.

  Oh… Oh, really?

  “Know what, I don’t think I’ll survive down there alone with her. I’ll just put a movie on or something. Just please, please come downstairs with us. I can’t take another self-inflicted beating.”

  Snorting a laugh, I agreed. “Zavier Coin, skipping school once again. What’s your mother going to say? But most of all, what are Jesse and Ethan going to say?” I asked in a teasing tone, pointing a guilty finger at him.

  He smiled lovingly, moving my hand away from his face. “I’ll just say you’ve already gotten to me and are teaching me your charming ways.”

  “I’ll teach you a lot more if you’d like,” I flirted, winking as he swallowed a lump in his throat. “Just ask, teddy bear.”

  We sat in the same long couch for hours, only watching awesome comedy and action movies.

  How Stormy could actually afford this many movies, I didn’t know, but she was just simply awesome for that. All my favorite movies were here, and we were skipping school. Life was pretty sweet right now.

  Throughout the movies, I kept glancing over at Zavier and Joss. Or should I say, teddy bear and Barbie doll (wink, wink). In truth, they just seemed so natural together. Like, seriously?! Joss was pretty close to him, at the far right corner of the couch, while Zavier stayed in the middle with his arms crossed. I wanted to laugh since he was frowning at the screen, as if it had a major malfunction he couldn’t quite figure out. But I stayed silent and mentally laughed instead.

  Ugh, I really had to get these two talking. I was sure Zavier had already seen every single movie stocked in this house. And Joss? She just had that vibe that she had seen this before already, too.

  Suddenly nudging Zavier’s knee – since he was sitting on my right – he turned to give me a sidelong glance while nodding his head. I nodded over to Joss’s hand placed really close to his leg, whispering ‘hold her hand,’ though when he looked down at it, he turned back to me and slowly shook his head.

  We kept having the mental talk, and I knew there was no way he was going to grab her hand and place it on his thigh to entwine their fingers together in that stupid, cheesy, cute way.

  Sighing, I gestured towards the half-empty bowl of popcorn sitting on the table. He furrowed his eyebrows together and grabbed the bowl, pushing it toward me. But I simply shook my head and mouthed Joss’s name.

  He took a deep breath and decided to just give in so that I could stop bothering him.

  He grabbed the bowl tight in his hand and then turned it over toward Joss’s direction. “Hey Joss, do you want some…” I had to cover my mouth from laughing so hard since Zavier had literally dumped the whole bowl on her. He was just trying to thrust the thing at her so that she could grab some, but accidents happen. “… popcorn?”

  She gasped and stood up, shaking all of the popcorn off her.

  Zavier stood up next, and then I did. Smirking to myself, I thought of a little devious plan.

  “Joss, I am so…”

  I cut Zavier off by pouring jelly beans behind his shirt. He rolled out the word ‘so’ as he shook the back of his shirt to shake the beans away.

  “What’d you do that for!?” Once he had craned his neck to look at me, water was dumped at his chest, making him turn back to look at Joss, who held an empty glass of water in her hand. “Seriously!?”

  Joss only smirked as she nodded at me.

  I read her mental note perfectly.

  Looks like we weren’t gonna watch those movies any longer.

  “I don’t even want to ask,” Stormy admitted as she came home, looking at the three of us. Zavier decided to fight back, so sticky food, popcorn, drinks, and candy basically covered us all.

  So overall, we did not look very pretty.

  Plus, the kitchen and the living room were a mess. So guess who had to clean it all up?

  Stormy was cool, but this time we got her pretty worked up. She didn’t yell, but it was a good thing we only got the counters and the floor dirty.

  After excitedly meeting Joss (since she was pretty much the only girl Zavier ever brought home, much to his wonderful embarrassment), Stormy even made her clean up, which she was ‘supposedly’ cool with. But really, who in their right minds would be cool with cleaning up? Well, I wasn’t sure if OCD people actually enjoyed cleaning things up, but whatever.

  It took us about three hours to finish, since we worked hard together. And when we were done, Stormy was out of the house again, making sure to give us a warning if we messed up the house again.

  A few minutes after Stormy left, Joss left with a huge grin on her face. Zavier just kept looking at her until her car was out of sight, as if she were the most angelic thing in the world.

  Just by looking at how he looked at her made me think. Had anyone, even Drake, ever really looked at me that way? With passion, happiness, and admiration?

  I guess I would never know the answer to that.

  “Well, that was…”

  “Fun? Crazy? Illegal?” I asked, pointing at Zavier with my two index fingers, while jumping once. He just smiled and dug his hands deep in his skinny khaki pants.

  “Fun? Yes. Crazy? Yes. Illegal?” He seemed to think about it, but just ended up chuckling. “Not at all.”

  “Then what’s the definition of illegal for you?”

  He pursed his lips and looked up into space, trying to think. Then, counting off with his fingers, he started, “Doing coke on school grounds, going way over the speed limit…”

  “Okay, those aren’t even bad things. I’ve done worse, little Mister Goody-two-shoes,” I said while poking him on his hard chest, making him chuckle as he touched his chest as if I had poked him way too hard. Then, I turned things a little more serious, because I honestly wanted to know how he was after the whole Davne thing. “How are you?” I asked Zavier, as he looked down and shrugged. The corners of his lips tilted up into a very weak smile. It was clear he wasn’t okay, but at least we had managed to get his mind off it for a good while.

  “Could be better. Thanks for the, uh…” he paused and blushed, “hug earlier. I really needed that.” Considering he was the one who had yanked me into his warm inviting arms, his gratitude made me smile. But what if he just did that with Joss while I was still at school, and didn’t mention it to me? The thought made my stomach churn disturbingly. Ugh, Joss seemed like the perfect girl for him. I needed to get those two clueless birds together.

  “Don’t mention it. If you ever need another one…” I grinned and opened my arms out wide, making him laugh while shaking his head. “Oh, come here. I need one, my teddy bear.” I blinked at him with puppy dog eyes, making my bottom lip pout. He caved in almost right away.

  I cheered and ran over to him, attacking him with my version of a big bear hug. He stumbled back a little in surprise, but still tightened his arms around my waist, as I placed mine around his neck. I knew he was nervous being this close to me since he seemed to be shaking. And his heart... well, his chest was pressed up against mine, so I felt his loud, rapid heartbeat.

  Slowly pulling away, we looked at each other. He swallowed hard and looked down at my lips as his adorable brown eyes gleamed. Oh, how I wished he wou
ld just lean in and kiss me. I would go in for it without any hesitation, but unfortunately, he was saving that up for his future wife, Jocey Rodriguez.

  Damn, but why was he suddenly getting closer? Then my phone rang.

  Pulling away, I reached for my phone on the kitchen counter and just answered without even looking at the screen. Zavier stood in the same spot, looking away while clenching his fists for some reason.

  “Hello?”

  “Evelyyyyyn!!!!” two masculine voices said in unison. I frowned. “Baby girl, how’s it going!?”

  That made a huge grin spread across my face. I was pretty much speechless and after a while, I guess they caught on to that.

  “Shit, did you dial the wrong number again!? I swear to God, I will cut your damn balls off if you…”

  “No, okay! This is the right number this time! I know it is!”

  “Better be, ‘cause I did not want to be lectured by an old lady again.”

  Laughing, I covered my mouth to suppress my laughter. “Ian!? Darrel!? ” God, I missed these idiots so much! If only I could hug them right through the damn phone, but sadly, they were miles away. Or were they? I mean, how did they get to call if everything was pretty much taken away and censored by the cops?

  “You know it!” Ian laughed. “We’ve missed you so much!”

  “It hasn’t even been a full week, guys,” I said.

  “I know, but we always saw each other, like, every day,” Darrel said, and I also heard the munching of an apple in the background.

  “Anyway, how’ve you been? How’s the whole therapy thing going?” Ian asked.

  “Um, it’s been pretty okay. There’s only been one session so far, so I’m guessing we’ll at least have a session once every week. She’s actually really cool though.” Forgetting for a slight second that Zavier was still in the room, I looked at him and smiled. He was sitting in the couch, pretending to be channel surfing. It was quite clear though, even to me, that he was very curious about who exactly I was talking to.

  “That’s great! How’s high school? It sucks major balls.”

  “I know!” I grinned, remembering how I told Zavier the exact same thing, but hey, these guys were like brothers to me so they knew me that well. “But it’s going well. My therapist has a son, actually…”

  “Oh, please don’t mention me to anyone,” Zavier mumbled, covering his face with a grey knitted pillow from the couch. I just giggled and left for the kitchen to give myself a bit more privacy.

  Somehow, I knew Zavier wouldn’t come and eavesdrop.

  “A son, eh?” Darrel asked, and even then I could tell he was wiggling his eyebrows at the other end of the line.

  “Yes, but you wouldn’t like him.” Even if I liked him myself.

  “Why’s that?” Ian asked.

  “Because he’s just one of those good boys. You know, never done one single bad thing in his entire life.” Damn, did that sound like an insult? Oh, but Zavier’s skipped, I guess that was a start for doing something bad, right? I hardly even remembered my very first bad act.

  “Oh, pfft, that sucks!”

  “But he’s just… I don’t know. He’s different.”

  “Oh, really?”

  Sighing, I bit my lip and pictured Zavier in my mind. He was a sweet gentleman. And he was so adorable, as I said plenty of times already. How could you not want to pinch those cheeks of his and kiss him and cuddle him?

  “Yeah. So how’s Drake?” I asked, wanting to change the subject now since what I felt for Zavier was a bit strange to me. I just met the guy and all, so my brain was just being weird. I didn’t usually go for guys like him. I guess it was because I was living with him and I was easily becoming attracted to him.

  Dammit, I had to find someone more like me. Pretty much like an anti-Zavier. I wouldn’t really want to change him.

  “Right here, babe.” Hearing Drake’s voice made my heart flutter in relief. I missed him the most. He was my savior and even though we weren’t together anymore, I knew he would never even think about leaving me. He always had my back and I his. “How are things? Doing good?”

  “I’m doing good, Drake. Thanks,” I replied with a smile playing at my lips. “You?”

  He chuckled. “Good, except it gets pretty boring without you here. I need you to make fun of these two idiots with me.”

  “Hey!” Ian and Darrel said in unison. But Drake just chose to ignore them, making me giggle.

  “But anyway, I’ve, uh, got something to tell you.” He seemed to stumble over his choice of words a bit. “I know it’s a little bit too soon. But I’ve met someone. And not one of those typical bad girls, like you. She’s pretty much the exact opposite of you, except you’re both great.”

  “Drake Lancaster… and a good girl?” So Jesse was right after all. But how did that happen? And so sudden like that? Because like I said, I’ve only been gone for a little while. Or did he already have her as a friend before? I knew Drake wouldn’t be douche enough to cheat on someone though. I would’ve seen the signs.

  Maybe he just felt weird about his feelings like I did with Zavier…

  “Oh, come on. It’s just… weird, yet it’s a good feeling. Enough about me. What about you? Any bad boys you’ve crossed paths with? Possibly some good boys?”

  I honestly didn’t know what to respond to that, and when I was about to stutter some unknown words, I heard Ian tell him about the good boy I was living with.

  “Huh…” Drake clicked his tongue in thought. “Well, if you both actually end up together in the end, I hope he knows what a great girl he’s got.”

  I suddenly blushed, feeling super weird about it because I, Evelyn Jo, did not ever blush. I thanked the heavens above for not having Zavier witness this.

  “So how did you guys call me? I thought you were on house arrest,” I joked, trying to lighten up the mood a bit (and yeah, change the subject, too).

  He cleared his throat then. “Oh, they let us call a few people but they’re still keeping their eyes on us. One of them is actually looking deep into my soul at the moment and it’s creeping me out, so I’m gonna have to hang up soon, love. We only get a few minutes per call so that’s why we were trying to be quick. We don’t know when we might get the chance to call you again. ”

  That made me sad as I leaned back against the wall. “Okay…” I gave a weak smile. “Take care, Drake. Tell Ian and Darrel the same.”

  “Of course. Love you.”

  “Love you, too.”

  As I hung up, I got this weird stirring feeling in the pit of my stomach.

  Taking a peek into the living room, I saw Zavier fixing a few fake flowers on a vase in the middle of the table.

  He seemed so relaxed and it made me wonder how it would really be like if we ever did end up together.

  No, that was crazy. Right? I kept telling myself that, but why did the thought keep crawling into my mind? Was it trying to tell me something?

  I guess I’d find out soon enough.

  11: Party Loud

  •Evelyn•

  As Saturday rolled around, I found myself to be very damn bored.

  Stormy found out about Zavier’s skipping this week and decided to give him a lecture until I came out and (sort of) lied about how it wasn’t exactly skipping, but that it was because of Zavier’s safety. I didn’t precisely mention Davne’s name. But when Zavier went and said the name himself, I was a bit surprised and definitely didn’t expect Stormy to go hug him with full force. I think she definitely knew about this Davne guy, but then again, I was sure Zavier always came home with tears and a black eye when he was little.

  Poor Zavier. I really wondered how he actually coped with all of that, because I certainly wouldn’t have. I couldn’t cope with all of the pain I always felt and got when I was younger. He truly was a strong fighter, even though he easily showed his fear.

  At this moment, I was lying down on my bed and it was currently noon. I usually slept in on weekends, so I’ve been on m
y bed for the past few hours, just thinking.

  Come on, Evelyn, it’s a damn Saturday! A week has passed since you’ve moved into a new state, a new home, and a new school. There must be something to do around here on a Saturday!

  I wasn’t the type to stay inside all day, every day. Sure, on a lazy day, but today, I was craving some big fun.

  That’s when I remembered something.

  Jesse had mentioned a big party that was supposed to be happening tonight, and it was basically a party that one of the popular kids randomly threw. And right then and there, I had one thing planned.

  I was taking Zavier to his very first high school party.

  Oh yeah, this was definitely going to be fun.

  “No,” Zavier simply said, as he cleaned up the big bookshelf in his room. He tried to ignore me a few times already, but I wasn’t gonna let him off so easily. I was going to persist, until he caved in. I mean, this was a high school party for fuck sakes – and they’ve always been pretty crazy. He needed to go out and have fun, if he really wanted to get over his fear. Barbie doll was probably going to be there, too! What did it hurt to go to one party in your life?

  “Come on, please?” I beamed, putting my palms on his shoulders and leaning in so close that my nose almost touched his soft cheek. I soon gave him my puppy-dog look, which always seemed to convince people to cave in to my desires (hey, this innocent face was a really great advantage for me).

  “No. Means. No.” He gave me a fake smile that went away rather quickly, and threw one of his books on the shelf. I was so sure I saw some pink color crawl up to his cheeks, probably from my closeness, but I chose to ignore it for now.

  “Please. Come on, Zavier! We’ll drive to the mall, we’ll get some amazing clothes…”

  “One,” he interrupted, holding one finger up as he turned to face me, “I am not getting into that devil contraption.” I would’ve laughed at the name he gave my motorcycle if it weren’t for how serious he looked right now. “Two, I’m not going to the stupid party. End of discussion.”