The Bad Boy's Girl (The Bad Boy's Girl #1)(8)
Cole pulls me into his room, or what looks like the framework of one. White sheets cover the bed and the two-seater while boxes are lined up everywhere. A thin film of dust coats every visible surface, and I wrinkle my nose when I notice the pigsty that is his floor. Clothes are strewn all over it and I tiptoe carefully, hoping to avoid coming across his underwear.
Cole is digging into one of the boxes and produces a hoodie. “Catch, shortcake,” he says, but with my reflexes, the hoodie smacks me right in the face, nearly blinding me in the process.
“Thanks,” I say, my voice muffled by the fabric as I escape into the nearest bathroom to change out of my wet shirt. I turn the faucet on and splash some cold water on my face. I’m feeling a bit dazed, the twilight zone lingers in the periphery. Since when is Cole nice? Okay, so he’s being nice after turning me into a wet poodle, but I know what I saw in his interaction with Jay. It looked like he was standing up for me. But why?
Scratch that, I’m not analyzing his actions. He belongs in the one confined box in my head, the one for people I severely dislike.
When I come back, Cole is lying down on his bed staring at the ceiling, his hands clasped beneath his head. He smirks slightly as I enter, and props himself up on one elbow.
“This is the part where I say you look sexier in my clothes than I ever did, but the narcissist in me won’t let me do that.”
“I’d rather you not.”
“No, I’m serious, Tessie, you’ve really changed. And before you start calling me a shallow pig, what I mean is that you just stood up to me and I didn’t expect that.”
“So the water dumping was some kind of twisted experiment? To see how I would react? You do realize how wrong that sounds, don’t you?”
“Okay, so maybe I shouldn’t have done that—scratch that, it was a stupid move. Would you believe me if I said that I was nervous?”
He sounds serious, and for a moment I let myself believe that he means everything he says. I let myself believe that he might actually have a human side to him. I don’t often let myself make excuses for his actions, and before knowing that he would be coming back I had managed to forget about our history. But this moment feels different, he seems different.
“So, what? You want me to believe that I make you nervous?”
At first he seems at a loss for an answer but then he says, “So do math tests, so you shouldn’t really conflate that with me actually liking you.”
Then again, I’d rather just slap him than have him say nice or crude things to me.
“I would rather pull my teeth out with pliers than ever imagine being someone you liked in any sense, Stone.” I cross my arms in front of my chest to look intimidating.
“Oh, but you like me, don’t you? After all those years of verbal sparring and pranks, I think your heart may have warmed toward me at some point. I won’t blame you, though.”
I scoff at his arrogance and realize that I’m just killing brain cells by trying to reason with him, so I decide to make a run for it.
“Well, it’s been a pleasure having you back to ruin my life, but I need to go before I strangle you.”
“Kinky.” He winks at me and I throw my hands in the air, exasperated to a point where the instinct to just put an end to his life is uncannily strong.
“Good-bye, Cole.”
I turn on my heel and slam his door shut as he chuckles behind me. I have been in the house for no more than thirty minutes but it feels like I’ve been going at it with Cole for centuries. A dull ache is spreading through my skull as I realize that today’s only the first of many to come and that he’s back for good. Any peace and quiet that I had expected in my senior year evaporated the minute He-devil decided to return to our great town. I’d learned to deal with Nicole, albeit in the most cowardly way ever, but we were coexisting and it’s been okay. Apparently my carefully constructed habitat is about to be bulldozed by a certain blue-eyed miscreant.
There are no signs of Jay as I’m leaving. His lack of presence is morbidly depressing.
I’m on their driveway when the devil reappears. Cole calls my name as he sticks his head out of his bedroom window. That’s how he knew I was in the house when he tipped the bucket over me, sneaky bastard.
“What?” I shout as he grins at me with that devil-may-care smile.
“How about I give you a ride to school tomorrow? We can begin the beautiful journey that is our new, everlasting friendship.”
“What makes you think I’d even sit in a car with you, let alone go for a twenty-minute drive?”
“Hey, it was just an offer. I know we’ve got a long way to go but it was worth a shot, right? I figure if I begin trying early, you might warm up to the idea eventually.”
“You’re crazy!”
“No, Tessie, but I am fond of the ‘so crazy it just might work approach.’”
The entire conversation consists of us yelling sentences to each other, and it isn’t long before a woman with graying hair comes out of the adjacent house. She’s tugging her robe tighter around herself and yelling at us “filthy teenagers” to shut our traps. Cole disappears from my view and I like to think that the old lady scared him, but in a minute or two he’s downstairs and out the door, slightly breathless as though he ran. He walks toward me and I feel the need to disappear beneath his mammoth hoodie.