The Bad Girl and the Good Boy

by Karla Luna

  I put on a fake smile and cleared my throat while standing tall.

  “Sure…” I decided to play along for now. But I’d make sure to have a (slightly) serious chat with Zavier when we got home.

  “Well, that’s sweet. Oh! I haven’t formally introduced myself yet. I am Jocey. Jocey Rodriguez. But clearly, people call me Joss instead.” Or Barbie doll…

  I put on yet another fake smile. But this one was a little less fake than the last.

  She seemed nice – but never trust the nice ones. Or was it the quiet ones? I’m sure it was the quiet ones but… oh, whatever! Just don’t trust anyone!

  Joss put her hand out for me to shake and I was thinking about whether or not to spit on my hand before shaking hers. I didn’t do that since, I admit, the image was pretty gross. Although, I’ve always wanted to do it to someone, just to see what their reaction would be.

  Joss’ reaction with me on Zavier’s lap earlier was pretty priceless though, so I think that was enough for today.

  Hmm, but handshakes weren’t really my thing.

  Without thinking, I just slapped her hand and she looked a little confused and taken aback.

  “O-kay…” She smiled again. “So are you and Zavier really close?”

  “Listen, I wanna ask you something first,” I said and she nodded. “What exactly do you think of him?”

  She suddenly blushed, not meeting my strong gaze. “He’s pretty nice…really cute, too.”

  “Hmm Well, I think he…”

  “Evelyn?”

  My heart skipped a beat once I heard that angelic voice.

  Oh, what the hell, Evelyn? Get your shit together, really. Why did my heart do that? Don’t do that, heart!

  I turned around the balls of my feet and smiled at Zavier. He looked a bit concerned, and I just wanted to squeeze him into a tight hug right then and there.

  “Yes, teddy bear?”

  Zavier sighed, probably still trying to get used to my little nickname for him. What, would he rather I call him pooh-bear? Honey-boo? Those just sounded wrong to me on so many levels.

  “I’ve, uh...” He shyly scratched the back of his neck and adjusted those cute glasses of his. “I've been looking for you.” His gaze moved towards Joss, as his cheeks brightened with more color. “What’s going on here?”

  I opened my mouth to answer him, when Barbie doll gladly interrupted me. “We were just talking. I wanted to get to know her since she’s a family friend of yours, so I figured she’d be spending a lot of time with you this school year.”

  Zavier moved his eyes between Joss and me. I just shrugged at him as if I didn’t know what the hell she was talking about.

  “Um, yeah sure. That’s great.” He turned his head to the left, and I swore I heard him mumble an ‘I guess.’

  “Well then, let’s stop beating around the bush. Let’s go.” I turned to see Joss now fuming. Bipolar much? “Bye, Jossy.”

  She turned red when I called her that, as she faintly whispered a ‘bye’ to Zavier and then stomped away without another backward glance.

  I turned and skipped toward Zavier, grabbing his hand with mine. The whole school was now half empty, as I led him to the parking lot, where my wonderful Ducati bike stood, in all its precious glory.

  We were just walking when he suddenly stopped dead in his tracks, pulling me back so that I collided onto his chest. “Are you sure you didn’t… tell her anything else?” Zavier asked.

  My heart beat fast against my own chest as I looked up at his beautiful brown eyes. His cheeks were still colored, but he looked down at me with such curiosity. I swallowed a huge lump in my throat.

  “Nope, don’t worry. I’m guessing you’re just too embarrassed for people to know about the real me, and why I’m living with you. But I told Jesse the truth, just a warning.”

  He let my hand go and stepped back a little. His eyebrows knitted together as if he couldn’t believe what I had just said to him. “Evelyn, I… I didn’t tell her the truth because I wanted to respect you. I’m not just going to go off and tell everyone about how you’re this... this delinquent girl in need of therapy. I just… I thought you wouldn’t want me to tell them. I apologize for making you think the wrong thing.”

  I just kept my gaze on his, feeling butterflies in my stomach. Seriously, when I looked at him, all I saw was kindness and security. He wasn’t some major asshole who didn’t care about a girl’s feelings.

  Goddammit, why was he doing this to me?!

  That was sweet…

  Ugh, no. Nothing was sweet, Evelyn. He wasn’t sweet. Sweet didn’t exist! Only bad in the world existed. That was the only thing I have ever been taught and told.

  Then why the hell did the boy in front of me, make me think otherwise?

  “Well then... thank... you?” I slowly said, mostly since I knew I usually didn’t use those words. They felt pretty weird against my tongue.

  Zavier chuckled and shyly scratched the back of his neck with his free hand, since his other hand held about three large textbooks. Damn, his arms must be really strong.

  “All right then, let’s hop in!” I excitedly yelled, grabbing my helmet and hopping onto my Ducati. I made myself comfortable and then looked up at Zavier, who seemed to go a little pale. I patted the spot right behind me. “Come on. Get on.”

  “I... you want me to ride with you... on a motorcycle?"

  Well, that one was just completely obvious.

  I decided to be a little sarcastic to lighten up the mood. “Great, you truly are smart. You’re a natural. You know exactly what it is. Now, get on.” This time, I nodded my head to the spot behind me.

  “But…”

  “Scared?” I smirked, making him blush once again. I just loved making him blush and it really wasn’t that hard. It looked simply adorable on him.

  “No, I just think that…”

  “Great, let’s go then.”

  “But... look, judging by the speed with which we might go on this thing, and the minuscule opportunity you'd have to step on the brakes when a car, or even a truck, crosses our path… then I say there's a very big chance that if we do crash, the aftermath would be devastating! Both of us could go flying off with a hugely steep upward trajectory that will most likely break every bone in our bodies when we land... that we most likely wouldn't be able to...”

  “Zavier? Zavier.” What’s up with the word ‘vomit’?

  “Y-yeah?”

  “Shut up. And get on already,” I demanded in the most serious tone I could manage.

  “Oh, jeez...” Zavier bit his lip and threw his head back to stare up at the cloudless sky. “Just promise me one thing. Please.” His perfect, smooth cheeks still held that rosy color.

  I frowned at him. “Um... all right, what promise?” I don’t usually do promises either... but I wondered what his little request was.

  “Don’t kill us.”

  6: Sleeveless

  •Evelyn•

  “Open your eyes!” I yelled out to Zavier, since the wind was too loud for my voice to be heard.

  “Nope, I’m good! Thanks!”

  I chuckled and leaned back into his firm chest, feeling him stiffen up. I had given him my helmet since I knew he would be paranoid about all of this. And to hold us together in place, he had to wrap his arms around me while I steered the motorcycle in the right direction.

  His arms were really tight around me, and it made my heart jump with joy. I’ve never ridden the bike with someone behind me, and I was pretty glad Zavier got to be the very first. I kept smiling the whole ride there, mostly since I found it so funny and cute how scared he was.

  Finally stopping at his driveway, I turned the ignition off and swung my leg over the bike. Zavier got off the same time I did, but he lost his balance a little, so I grabbed his shoulders to steady him.

  He didn’t seem to feel my hand on him, since he just checked his arms, chest, stomach, legs, face, and then breathed a sigh of relief as a cute little smile b
roke on his face. He had such cute dimples on the very center of his cheeks, and his teeth were just so straight and pearly white. Seriously, I was jealous. How could he be so self-conscious if he was that beautiful?

  “Oh, don’t be ridiculous. I was doing fine,” I said, as we started walking toward the front door.

  “I think the speed that we were going at was illegal. Very illegal.” He adjusted his backpack on his shoulders since it was slipping down. On the ride, I told him to put those three, big-ass textbooks inside so that they wouldn’t end up falling to the ground.

  Oh, did I mention I didn’t bring anything for school today? Not even a bag? I was very unprepared and just didn’t care. All I had to do was ask some really shy girl for a pen and paper, and she gave it to me without any questions asked (FYI, I used the pen and paper to draw random shit).

  Zavier stopped at the front door and looked inside his jeans pockets. He took his keys out and unlocked the door. Just as he was opening the door for me to step in first, I slammed it wide open and burst inside, already on my way to see my best friend. The fridge.

  I heard a warm chuckle behind me, but I chose to ignore it for now and just got a bunch of food out so that I could start devouring it while watching random images on TV.

  I had been thinking about what to do with this room of mine. I mean, don’t get me wrong, it looked very cool and all but I felt like it needed something more, something interesting.

  I shrugged it off. After all, it had only been a few days since I arrived. I could do all that stuff later, if I wasn’t feeling too lazy, which hardly ever happened.

  It was now 6:30pm, and I wondered what Zavier was doing right about now. I was pretty sure he wasn’t in his room, since just minutes ago I heard him walk across the hall and down the stairs.

  Plus, the last step of the staircase made this weird sound, so I knew from that.

  Walking down those same stairs, I saw Zavier sitting at the small table near the kitchen while doing his homework, or probably already doing his college homework since he was so smart.

  I gaped when I noticed him wearing a grey, sleeveless shirt with some sort of red-colored design on the front. I wasn’t on the last step yet, so he didn’t notice me as he was skimming through one of his textbooks.

  I bit my lip at how his damn perfect muscles flexed when he wrote with his right hand, and turned the pages of the textbook with his left hand.

  I slowly walked the rest of the way down, and when he looked up, his eyes roamed down my whole body.

  Knowing Stormy probably taught him well, I guess he just looked at me since I was wearing an oversized shirt – courtesy of Drake – and short shorts that almost couldn’t be seen due to the length of the shirt, which might’ve looked as if I was in my underwear again. But hey, we met when I was just in my underwear, so no difference there.

  I knew I wouldn’t be wearing pants a lot around here, so he’d better get used to it. *wink, wink*

  He blushed and cleared his throat, trying so hard to look anywhere but at me. He simply couldn’t. “Hey,” he said in a low voice.

  “Hey, sexy arms,” I commented, winking at him as he blushed an even deeper shade of red, it almost matched the red design on his shirt.

  “Teddy bear, and now sexy arms?” His voice cracked a little at the end, making me feel hot at how husky and tired his voice sounded.

  “It’s not my fault you’re as cute as a teddy bear and have super sexy arms,” I said and smirked at him. “… that I would want all around me.”

  He couldn’t help but smile. He tried to hide it by looking back down at his work. “I usually wear these in the freedom of my own home since I feel more comfortable here with just my Mom and me.” He paused to take a deep breath. “I wasn’t going to wear them anymore, but she told me that just because a girl was living here with us, didn’t mean I should stop doing what I do,… I guess.” He furrowed his dark eyebrows together as if he didn’t get what he had just said. But I understood him. It was good that he didn’t want to change just because I – still a stranger to him – was here, living in his home, the place that he grew up in.

  “You should wear them outside, like at school and stuff. It would attract a lot of people.” Hell, it would probably even attract a few guys, too.

  Zavier just shook his head in disagreement. “Why?”

  In the most seductive tone I could manage, I said, “Because it certainly attracts me.”

  He reacted by blushing and swallowing a lump in his throat. His collarbone was pretty visible, too, making me want to kiss the fragile skin there.

  All of a sudden – to Zavier’s luck – his phone rang. He picked it up at the first ring without even checking to see who it was, and put it against his ear. He frowned and lifted his glasses up with his free hand. “Hel…”

  “Check Facebook! Now!”

  I stifled a laugh when Zavier took the phone away from his ear and skeptically looked down at, looking very confused. I recognized that the voice at the other end of the line was Jesse’s, and he didn’t sound very excited. Hell, he even hissed like a cat who just spied a dog. Then, he hung up.

  Something weird must be going on, eh?

  “You have a Facebook? Really?” I asked. Zavier shook his head and opened up his MacBook, beginning to type at a very fast pace.

  “No, I just use Jesse’s whenever he wants me to check on something. I’m not really too fond of social media.”

  “Why?”

  “They’re rather distracting. I always procrastinated when I was younger.” I tried to imagine a procrastinating Zavier, but I just couldn’t. He seemed like the type of guy who would finish up all his homework in less than two hours, study for at least another hour or so, and then sit down, get a nice warm drink, and read a good book till curfew.

  “Oh no…” He seemed to go a bit pale as he stared at the screen, without even tearing his eyes away for a second.

  “What is it?” I immediately became interested and sat on Zavier’s lap to look at the screen. Like the first time I sat on his lap, he shifted a little, making me bite my lip at the feel of his body just beneath me.

  I looked back at him, seeing him covering his mouth and blushing like crazy. Gosh, so cute. “Well, what is it? You exited the browser.”

  “Right, um…sorry…” He swallowed hard again and moved. I didn’t turn around as he got closer to the screen. I just took the time to really look at him while the laptop’s light was reflecting on his smooth, adorable face. His dark eyelashes were brushing against his high cheekbones a little when he blinked, and the lens of his glasses when he was looking up. His dark hair was also curled over his right eyebrow. I had to stop my hands from roaming that sexy stick-up-in-all-directions hair he had going on.

  He suddenly froze and looked directly at me. “What?”

  “Nothing.” I smiled. “So what’s up?” I turned to the screen and immediately came face to face with a Facebook profile by the name of Willow Rogers.

  Her picture made it clear that she was the kind of girl that wore her hair up with chopsticks dug deep in there. She had a little bit of acne and very huge glasses. Not at all like the cute ones Zavier wore.

  Plus, her smile was a bit too much. And by too much, I meant creepy. And by creepy, I meant ‘rapist face’ creepy.

  I pursed my lips, wanting to look away. But it was so horrible that I couldn’t bring myself to shift my eyes somewhere else. “Who’s...”

  “Jesse says she’s been crushing on me for who knows how long. I honestly don’t know why. But her status…” He pointed down at her latest status. “She says she’s dating me.”

  I read over the status, and it indeed said, ‘In a wonderful relationship with Zavier Coin.’

  She even had the nerve to add a winky face. Dozens of people liked it, and I didn’t even want to see the comments. Oh, hell… who was this damn chick?

  I turned around all of a sudden. Zavier noticed how close my face got to his, but he didn’t move or f
linch at all. It was like he expected it.

  “Is she?” Obviously not, I just… kind of, sort of, wanted to make sure. Be 100% positive, too.

  “What? No! N-no…” He put his hand over his face, but I just giggled and grabbed that hand to move it away from his handsome face. Without thinking, I traced my fingertips up his arm. He shivered, following the trail my fingers left on his warm skin. “What are you…?”

  “Shhh…” My hand finally reached his upper arm, feeling the hard biceps. He started to breathe fast as his eyes raked over my body once again. He was startled when I moved to sit better on his lap and brought my hand all the way up to tug lightly on his soft, messy hair.

  I pulled away and looked down at his soft, rose pink lips. They sure looked quite kissable being this close to him.

  “Have you ever kissed a girl?” I asked. And he blushed. I knew he would.

  He looked down and played with the pocket of the Adidas skinny sweats he wore. They fitted him nicely, and he kind of did seem like the soccer type.

  “It’s okay if you haven’t. Nothing to be embarrassed about.”

  “Yes, it is. I’m a senior in high school, who’s never even had a single date in his entire life. That’s just plain stupid.”

  I wanted to tell him otherwise. I didn’t like him feeling bad about himself.

  But instead, I wanted to know more about this Barbie doll and why he seemed to like her so much. I admit, she seemed like just the perfect girl for him. Pretty, smart, sweet. She was the full package.

  “Tell me about Joss.”

  He bit his lip and nibbled on it. Damn, I wanna bite that lip. “I don’t… I don’t think I…”

  “Please?” I looked at him with big puppy-dog eyes while biting my lip and passing my index finger along his perfect cheekbone.

  He shivered at my touch. “I… It’s nothing.”

  “It is, too. You loooove her, don’t you?”

  He blushed and looked down, staying quiet for a long time. He looked back up at me after what seemed like half an hour later. “I just… I feel dumb saying it out loud. But I’ve liked her since we were in the 6th grade.”