The Mean Girl and the Bad Boy #2: Echo and Artist

by Reighan Storm

  The Mean Girl and the Bad Boy

  Echo and Artist

  Reighan Storm

  Copyright © 2020 Reighan Storm

  All rights reserved

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  ISBN-13:

  ISBN-10:

  Printed in the United States of America

  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  1/Artist

  2/Echo

  3/Artist

  4/Echo

  5/Artist

  6/Echo

  Echo and Artist

  1/Artist

  “Why are you with my little brother?” She pulls Ben to her and looks him over. “What happened to your face, Benny?” Now she looks at me again, not giving anyone a chance to answer her one-million and one questions. “Did you have an accident? Did you make my brother fall off that deathtrap?”

  “No! I found him like that,” I finally get a word in. I probably should have had Ben clean himself up in the McDonald’s bathroom, but it just seemed like the last thing to worry about at the moment.

  “What do you mean, found him?” She’s still yelling out questions. She glances at Ben again. “Benjamin, tell me what happened now!”

  “If you could shut up for a second, I will!” Ben says. “I was playing on the basketball court while I was waiting for mom to pick me up. I tried to dunk and…” He glances at me, and his eyes dart to the ground because he knows I know he just told his sister a bald-faced lie.

  “Oh, Ben… Sweetheart,” Echo cradles his face in her hands. “You’re way to short to try to dunk anything besides a cookie or donut.”

  I clear my throat to mask a laugh that tried to burst through. It’s not that I was unsympathetic to the boy, but it caught me off guard of how Echo compared dunking a basketball with a cookie. She glares at me, and I recover immediately.

  “Ben, go inside, please. I’d like to have a word with Artie.” She glares at me as I cringe—every muscle in my body tenses.

  “He doesn’t like to be called that?” Ben returns the favor and takes up for me.

  “Oh, believe me,” Echo replies. “I know.” When Ben goes into the house, she slinks closer to me with her arms folded. “Tell me everything and tell me now!” She demands.

  I don’t look at her. I’m too busy gazing at the horizon of the sun starting to go down for the day. “You need to apologize to me,” I tell her. “I specifically told you never to call me that. You can call me an asshole or anything else you’d like, but not that.”

  “I’m not apologizing.”

  I start up my bike and throttle the engine. “I’m out of here.”

  “No, you’re not. We’re not done talking,” Echo yells so I could hear her over my muffler. “Turn that thing off, anyway. There’s a noise ordinance around here, you know. The HOA will be all over our asses.” She snatches the keys from my bike after killing the engine.

  “Give me my keys, Echo,” I say it nice and as calmly as I can.

  “No. Not until I get the answers I need.”

  “I’m not giving you shit until you apologize.” Now I’m about to lose my cool.

  “If I apologize, will you walk that thing out of here until you at least get off of my street?”

  “No problem.” I hold my hand out, waiting for her to drop my keys in them.

  “Fine. I apologize for calling you, Artie.” She has a smirk on her face, so she’s not sorry at all because she’s done it again, trying to be sly with it.

  I lay my bike on the ground because the kickstand is missing, and I walk over to her. She holds her chin high in the air or maybe her nose because she’s so stuck up like that. “My keys, Echo.” I hold my hand out again, and she holds them further away from me like I couldn’t make her give them to me. “I will not ask you again.” Her grin is wide and devious, and I think she’s going to prolong this game of hers until she frowns.

  “Here,” she says, dropping the keys in my hands. “Just go.”

  That was way too easy. I glance behind me, and a pickup truck pulls in.

  “No way, we were having too much fun,” I tease her. “Here, take them back, and let’s see if I can get them from you.” I hold my keys out to dangle in the air.

  “Stop being a shit and leave,” she snaps.

  “Games over because the boyfriend is here, huh?” I shake my head and get on my bike.

  “Walk it!” She demands with her finger in the air.

  I don’t think so, and I damn sure ain’t taking orders from her. I start my bike up, and it roars to life, and she’s mad as hell. I wink at her and pull off just as Jesse the Jock walks up.

  I finally make it home. Mom should be here if she’s not working over. But I know she’s not here when I don’t see her car in the drive. I lean my bike alongside the house and sit on the porch steps—no need to rush inside an empty house.

  I pull out my phone and text Penny. “Hey.” She replies almost instantly.

  “You have dinner yet?” she asks me.

  “No. Is that an invite?”

  “Could be. Wanna meet me at the park?”

  “Why not?”

  “Meet me in 20. I’ll bring food.” I lie back onto the porch and rest my phone on my chest, and it rings. It’s Penny. “I just realized I don’t know what you like. You want fast food or slow food?” I chuckle.

  “What the hell is slow food?”

  “Anything that’s not fast food,” she giggles.

  “Uh. I don’t care. I’m not picky.”

  “Hm, you’re no help, Matthews. Since it’s getting late, I guess we’ll go fast food.”

  “I’m fine with that.”

  When we hang up, I make my way to the park. I’m there before she is. It’s not many people here, probably because it’s a weekday and it’s the early part of the evening. A very old Honda Accord pulls up and parks alongside me in the other parking space.

  Penny leans over and opens the passenger door. “Get in.” I prop my bike the best I could on the side and stand by the car door as she cleans the passenger seat by throwing things like trash and old fast food cups to the back. “Sorry, I should have cleaned my car first.”

  “It’s cool.” I sit in the front seat as my feet crush more trash already on the floor. “You eat in your car a lot, huh?”

  “I guess I do, Matthews,” she giggles and hands me a bag of food. It’s definitely not from any fast-food chains I would have predicted. It’s a brown paper bag with grease stains all over it. That’s always a good sign in my book. “Dig in,” she says, and I don’t waste any time obliging. “It’s weird, isn’t it? How we have to work with the Wicked Bitch of the West.”

  I choke on my soda from laughing. “Come on now, you’re not giving her enough credit.” Penny frowns at me as her chewing slows. “She a Queen,” I say. “An Evil Ice Queen… but a Queen, no less.” Penny almost spits her food out from laughing.

  “We have to decide on a meeting spot,” she says as she tears into her burger. I like the fact that she’s comfortable being around me. That she could be herself without all the tension of being fake.

  “I know. No one wants to host. Wonder why? I mean, I know why I don’t.”

  “Why don’t you?” she questions me.

  “Just not comf
ortable with it,” I tell her, and then I go into detail, and I’m honest about my house situation. I feel like I can trust her with it and she’ll understand. “I mean, I don’t see why Echo just won’t do it. She lives in a fucking mansion! Did you know that? Maybe she’s just too embarrassed to have people like us around.”

  “People like us?” Penny asks.

  “Yeah, you know… people who aren’t dripping with cash.”

  “Right…”

  “No wonder she’s such a freaking brat. She’s never had to work for anything… not even respect from others. She expects everything to be handed to her.”

  “Because she’s rich?”

  “Exactly!” I turn to Penny. “See, you get it. Going by her house today, I could already tell I was not welcomed in that neighborhood.”

  “Why were you at her house, anyway?” The tone of Penny’s voice and the crinkles in her face let me know something was bothering her.

  “It’s a long story. I didn’t go in or anything.”

  “Huh…” She crumples her unfinished burger back into the wrapper, stuffs it back into the back, and tosses it in her backseat. “It’s late. I should really get going.”

  “Did I say something wrong?” I didn’t understand her total change in an instant like that.

  “Nope. I just need to go. So…” she glances out the passenger window.

  “Yeah, sure. Thanks for dinner—”

  “No problem.” She cuts me off, and I get out.

  She speeds off before I even have time to pick up my bike and get on it. What the hell did I do?

  2/Echo

  “Declined? What do you mean, declined? Do you not see what type of card this is!” I wave my credit card in front of the cashier’s face telling her to try it again, but she won’t because she says she’s already tried it multiple times. “You know me. I come here all the time, so you know it has to be that your machine is broken.”

  “Come on, Echo. Let’s just go to an ATM.” Nicole pulls on my arm.

  “To get cash?” I’m appalled when I look at her. “I don’t do cash; you know that! Do you not know how disgusting it is to handle actual currency? It’s disgusting! People put it in their boobs, or in their socks. Not to mention nose diggers and ass pickers who touch it.”

  “It’s fine,” Nicole says. “We’ll just reschedule.”

  “I don’t want to fucking reschedule when it’s not my fault! They are the ones making a mistake!” She forces me out into the main hallway of the mall, and my back hits a brick wall.

  “Watch it!” The wall says, and I turn around to see Artist.

  “You watch it!”

  “You ran into me.”

  “I was forced into you.”

  “Never mind. Just drop it because you won’t apologize, and I don’t care enough to try and make you.”

  He walks on, continuing the way he was going. I have no idea what crawled up his butt today. Then it hits me. “Hey?” I yell after him, but he doesn’t stop or slow down. “Weren’t you supposed to be at work today?” He doesn’t even acknowledge. Liar. He probably doesn’t even have a job. I glance over at Nicole, and she’s too busy swooning Artist’s back. “Oh my gosh! Let that go!”

  I find a nearby bench, so I can sulk and figure out what the hell is going on. Not too long after, Ashleigh walks up with her arms full of shopping bags. “How was the tans?” She all too chipper.

  “You’re joking, right?” I say to her. “Does it look like we’re tanned?” Ashleigh’s lips squish to the side, and she shrugs.

  “We weren’t able to do it because Echo’s card was declined,” Nicole tells Ashleigh, and I just want to kick her off the bench.

  “My card was not declined! Something was wrong with their machine.” I say to Ashleigh, and she nods.

  “Clearly,” Ashleigh says. “You should have just called me. I’d have paid for it.”

  “What are you two bitches not understanding,” I say to both of them. “Ash, if my card didn’t work in their broken machine, neither would yours.”

  “Oh, right,” Ashleigh shrugs.

  “Ash? Could you and Nicole go buy Lattes, please?”

  “What if I don’t want a Latte,” Nicole says, still sitting on the bench.

  “I don’t give a fuck what you get, Nicole! Just get the hell away from me right now.” I stretch my foot out onto the bench and nudge her off of it.

  Now that I was actually alone, I dial my father’s number. “Daddy, I think my card is broken,” I tell him in a low tone so no one can overhear.

  “If it is,” he says. “You broke it.”

  “I didn’t break it. I’m always careful, and it stays in my wallet—”

  “That’s not what I mean, Echo. If you overspend, that means you’re broke. I wasn’t kidding around when I told you and your mother I was putting you both on a budget.” I gasp from hearing that word.

  “What do you mean b… b… bu… that word? I had an appointment to go tanning today, and I couldn’t even do that!”

  “That means you have to pick and choose—”

  “Choose?! I don’t like choosing daddy. You know, decisions give me anxiety and panic.” If I see a pair of shoes I like, I get them in every color because I can’t decide. “Why are you punishing me? This thing… whatever it is between you and mom… that’s you guy’s problem. Don’t make me suffer because of it.”

  “I’m not punishing you, Echo. I’m trying to teach you and make sure you don’t ruin your future—”

  I hang up on him.

  Nonsense.

  Complete and utter bullshit is what it is!

  Fuck! My eyes are starting to do that watering thing, and I have to get away from here before the girls come back. I need to find a bathroom I can hide away in so I can pull myself together.

  I’m running out of time because now my eyes are all blurry, and it’s hard to see exactly where the bathroom is. “Hey… hey… what’s wrong?” I slam into Artist as he holds onto my arms, and I try to get away. “Why are you crying? What happened?”

  “Get away from me!” I push him and make my way into a bathroom stall to ball it out. I’m texting Jesse like crazy, and he’s not responding. That’s when it hits me that he’s working out and preconditioning today. It really sucks when you need someone to talk to, and there’s no one.

  I dab my eyes with this paper. I call it that because it’s not soft at all. I think I even cut my cheek. I flush it down the toilet and almost lose my shit when I open the stall door.

  “You need to talk?” Artist stands there leaned against the sink like he’s not breaking any rules of being in the women’s bathroom.

  “What are you doing?” I try to push him out, but he doesn’t budge, so I wash my hands and dab my eyes again with a wet paper towel trying to get rid of the puffiness. “Do you have any eye drops?” He gives me a deadpan look, and I instantly know it was a mistake to ask him that.

  “What’s going on with you, Echo? You can talk to me, Y’know.” Could I? It’s not like I really knew him at all. He’s still practically a stranger. “I’m guessing it has to be some deep shit for you to drop tears over.” He gently rubs my shoulders.

  “You wouldn’t understand,” I tell him.

  “Try me.”

  Should I try him? He turns me so that we’re face to face, and he tilts my chin. His eyes seem genuine. His touch feels caring enough. “If I confide in you, don’t run your mouth to anyone.”

  “I promise, it won’t leave this bathroom,” he says softly, and I’m really thinking about trusting him because who else do I have at the moment?

  “Okay,” I clear my throat. “My… my card was declined,” I whisper.

  “I’m sorry, what?” He bends down closer to me.

  “I couldn’t tan today because my card… was declined—”

  “Are you fucking shitting me right now?” He pushes me away. “Is this your idea of a sick fucking joke?”

  “What?”

  “I
’m in the women’s bathroom for crying out loud, thinking that something is really wrong with you! You’re dropping tears all because you couldn’t get a fucking tan? There are actually real people out here with real fucking problems, and your problem is tanning?”

  “What—No… that’s not—”

  He comes closer to me and speaks in a low tone. “Here’s a tip. Now I know you’re probably not used to this, so it might come as a surprise. But there’s free tanning, for us less fortunate ones. IT’S CALLED THE FUCKING SUN! You also get a bonus of fucking vitamin D with that Queen!”

  “Fuck you loser, if you think that was it! I’m so glad I didn’t trust you with my real problem.”

  “So, you admit you told me a fake one first? You’re a waste of fucking time and emotions.” He leaves out of the bathroom in a huff, and I’m glad he’s gone. I didn’t know it was possible for me to hate him even more.

  I’m not as shallow as everyone thinks I am. Sure, I was upset about my fucking card, who wouldn’t be. Who likes to get their time wasted and be embarrassed by it. It’s not even that so much. It’s… It’s… nevermind.

  I freshen my makeup to hide any sort of emotions that may have seeped out through my pores, and I hide them. When I come from the bathroom, Ashleigh and Nicole are already standing there with strange condescending expressions. “What?”

  “Nothing, Sweetie,” Ashleigh says as she hands me my now lukewarm Latte.

  “Nothing, my ass!” Nicole huffs. “Do you really have to be so greedy? You need every guy sniffing behind you?”

  I’m done with trying to figure out what the hell Nicole is trying to say. “What is she going on about, Ash?”

  “You know she’s majorly crushing on the new kid,” Ashleigh smirks as she glances at Nicole and back to me.

  “What the hell does that have to do with me?”

  “Well…” Ashleigh drags on. “He was spotted storming from the women’s bathroom and then you shortly after, girl. Care to share some deets on that?”