Page 91 of Bullied By The Bad Boy

I feel the subtle shift in the air before he motions to his backpack in the backseat. I take the hint and climb off his lap. He accepts his bag with a polite smile. “Asher is out with my mom.”

“Your mom?” Ben nods. I observe him, but his face gives nothing away. This is an opening to know more about him and his family, so I take it. “You never talk about her.” He shrugs. His nonchalance stings a bit. He’s too laidback. For now, I don’t let it bother me. “Where’s she?”

My question seems to turn him off. His smile is tighter. “Out with Asher. I have to go, Gracie.”

He places a kiss on my lips to shut me up. If he’s home alone, why is he in a rush? Ben stops at the entrance of his house to wave at me, and I realize he never replied to my question about a date.

Fifty

I am pickingBen up today, like I have been doing for the past two weeks. His bike is working fine, but our arrangement is better. We don’t share so many classes, so this is one of our chances to get a private moment before school. The other option is to let him pick me up from the house. My boyfriend might be an expert biker, but I am still scared to death of bikes. Ben has promised to teach me, but nope, I will stick to fighting for now. Besides, I don’t want my parents to meet him yet.

Their front door swings open. Asher runs to my car with an excitement I never feel on a Monday morning. He is always so happy, and I wish I could share some of his happiness. He takes his rightful position in the front seat and pulls me in for a hug. Ben is not the only one who stole my heart. His younger brother did as well.

“How are you? How was your weekend? Did you miss me? I missed you, Tessa,” Asher says all at once.

He breaks away from the hug, and I smoothen the collar of his white T-Shirt. Ben comes out in a shirt of the same color but with blue jeans. We are all wearing jeans today. I might have slipped that into our conversation last night. I honk. Ben holds up one finger and returns inside to pick up something. He does that almost every time. It is annoying in a cute way, if that makes any sense.

Asher snickers at his brother’s forgetfulness. He takes pride in embarrassing his big brother. I might pretend to be on Ben’s side when his younger brother starts his funny uncensored stories about him, but I secretly love hearing them. Who knew the school’s hot jock loved performing a concert in the bathroom with his awful voice? Asher claims Ben sounds like a dying chihuahua.

“Fine. Fine. Yes, I missed you too.” The weekend was filled with texts, calls, and scheduling. I ruffle Asher’s hair, and his eyes light up. He stops me from removing my hand from his head, so I let it rest there. Asher equals cuteness overload. “How was your weekend? How’s your mom?”

I don’t understand their family arrangement or dynamics. Ben doesn’t want to talk about it, and I am afraid I will push him away if I insist. His mom is a no-go area, almost the same as talking to a brick wall. Asher wasn’t home all weekend. Ben informed me when he returned last night.

“Champ,” I call out to Asher, who’s raiding my car for his cookie stash. “How’s your mom?”

Asher grins. Since I became their driver, I always bring him cookies on Mondays. “Mommy is fine.”

That’s all I get, nothing more, nothing less. Asher is more forthcoming than Ben, but his answer can be unhelpful sometimes. He squints at my wrist and frowns at my bracelet. I haven’t thanked him.

“Thanks for the bracelets, Champ. I love them.”

Asher’s laughter builds like a faulty car about to start. His head falls back, and his raucous laughter takes over the car. “It’s not me. It’s Benny. He made two of them.” My head rears back. The first and second time Ben gave them to me, he clearly stated they were from Asher. “It’s an apology. Yep. Apology. What did he do? Did you forgive him? Is that why you are dating him?”

This is twenty questions too fast. I open my mouth. “Err…”

“Wait, is Benny your boyfriend?” he cuts in. Chocolate sticks to the corners of his lips as he dives into his cookies. I pass him a paper towel to clean his mess. “Are you dating Benny?”

My hands close around the steering wheel. A pink hue stains my cheeks as my eyes fall on the curb we had our first kiss. The first bracelet he gave me was after he punched me. The second was before I hugged him. Why? He was nice to me at the rehearsal. Oh. Before that, he made me cry when I refused to go to Asher’s game. Both times were a silent apology to me. He’s an idiot.

“Are you okay?” Asher asks. I cut him a look that evokes a smile from him. “You are smiling, and I didn’t say anything. I don’t think that’s normal. Wait, is that an adult thing? When Ben and Mommy do weird things, and I don’t understand, they say I will understand it when I grow up.”

Laughter overtakes me. I snort. “I’m okay. I just thought about my boyfriend. It made me laugh.”

“Benny?” he asks. I nod.

Ben didn’t ask me out, but he acts like my boyfriend. We fell into our respective roles without a word. I drive him to school, he carries my bag, walks me to class, and is always waiting at the door of my last class. Our chemistry is sizzling. Ms. Jota commented on it at the last rehearsal.

Asher’s eyes mist with tears, and my hand lowers to his back. I’m on high alert. He sniffs and mutters through his tears, “But Benny says you are not his girlfriend. I want him to be your boyfriend.”

Come again, say what?His words run over me like hot coals. I repeat them in my head, and my heart thumps like an angry squirrel. I unfasten the seat belt that grows too tight around my neck.

“When?” I whisper. His forehead wrinkles in confusion, but he doesn’t reply. I don’t find him so cute right now. He should have kept his mouth shut. Maybe not. “When…when did he say this?”

“Last night.” I fake a smile, and he smiles in return. We spoke last night. The load in my chest shifts to my hands, and they grow too heavy for me, which is good because I so want to strangle that boy right now. “When we were talking. I wanted us to go on a double date with Shantel.”

Shantel is his beautiful girlfriend. He tells everyone who cares to know that. Asher licks his lips, then continues demolishing the cookies. My hands tremble violently as I clench them into fists to stop myself from doing something as stupid as storming into the house to hit the two-faced jerk.

“Thanks for telling me.”

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