Page 30 of Loved By The Bad Boy

Thirteen

BEN

I feel alone.I feel betrayed.

Gracie doesn’t like me again.

How do you go from kissing one guy to being the girlfriend of another in minutes? That boy was drunk, maybe tipsy. He shouldn’t have been allowed near a steering wheel, yet she jumped at the first opportunity to be with him. From the messages he dropped in the group chat, he arrived home safely. Picturing them as a couple makes me sick. Since when does she like blond guys?

Thank God we have no rehearsals today because I don’t want to be forced to watch them chew each other’s lips. Does she also giggle after they kiss? I bet she runs her fingers through his hair.

The sound of the door opening rips through the silence, and I bury my face in the pillow. I groan when Matt jumps into my bed. I thought he left for work already. He’s interning at some place. We have a two-year gap between us, but he acts like a child sometimes. I slap his hand off me, but he only hugs me tighter. This is just weird. I can’t even get a break on my first day of exile.

It’s Saturday morning. One more day until I have to face Gracie. If she doesn’t agree to talk, then I’ll stop trying. I don’t know the point of a conversation when she’s already with someone else.

“Matt, get off me.”

“I’m not Matt.”

I yank the cover off my head without rolling to face the intruder. Matt has a younger brother, Tom. I’m not sure he likes me because he never speaks when I’m around. If this is him, I can endure it. It’s what I’ll expect from others if Asher is being annoying, and he can be sometimes.

“Thomas?” I ask, rolling onto my back.

“I’m not Thomas either.” The figure hiding his face under my duvet jumps up. “Tada!”

“Champ? You are here. You are real.” I pinch myself to be sure. Yeah, this is not a dream. Asher launches himself into my arms. I squeeze him into a hug that leaves both of us breathless. I have missed him. I will always miss him, but I made peace with that fact when I decided to move here for Gracie. My brother is here. I hug him again, and he grins. “Champ. How did you get here?”

The note of melancholy in the air shifts to something happier. That’s one of his powers. He lights up the place. Asher waits for me to change into something better and slides his hand into mine. I can’t help ruffling his hair. Normally, he would make a fuss, but now he just grins and accepts it.

“Mommy and Josef brought me.” I do a double-take. They had mixed reactions to my decision, but Josef was willing to handle the expenses. Gracie was right all along, so right. He doesn’t give a shit about me repaying him. He doesn’t need my money. As long as it makes my mom happy, you can count on him to do it. “They are downstairs. I’m on a break, and we decided to visit.”

His eyes water, and I squat to his level to draw him into another hug. “Hey, it’s okay. I’m here.”

A tear drops to his cheek. “I have missed you, Benny. It’s not the same. Are you coming home?”

No. I don’t know. Whatever happens with Gracie, I will have to finish the rest of the semester here.

“I missed you too,” I whisper, rising to my feet.

“Have you seen Tessa? I miss her too.”

We all miss her. We start for downstairs, and Asher takes my hand. “She has a new boyfriend,” I tell him. Asher stops at the foot of the stairs to size me up. She called him her boyfriend. Labels are a big deal to her, so she must be dating him. Good for her, bad for me. Asher offers me a sad smile. I don’t need his pity. People fall out of love all the time. “He is in a few of my classes.”

“Do you still like her?” His lips purse, and his brows wrinkle when I nod. It’s almost laughable. I am discussing my relationship with my baby brother. “Then tell her to break up with him.”

If only it were that easy. “It doesn’t work that way.”

“What did you even do to her, Benny?” When I delay answering, he adds, “Is it adult stuff?”

“Yeah,” I answer, nodding too fast. “You will understand when you grow up.”

Asher tugs me toward the kitchen. Matt’s parents have a kitchen as big as the living room or even bigger. Might be because his father is a retired chef. The kitchen is big enough to entertain a whole family. Nobody notices us walk in. I place a finger on my lips to shush Asher. Bart, Matt’s dad, is stirring something white and bubbly in the frying pan. It has everyone entranced.

I clear my throat, and all heads turn. I don’t wait for Mom to recover from the shock of seeing her son before I rush into her arms for a hug. She’s crying by the time we break from the hug.

“Benny.”

Oh, she calls me Benny now. I like it. Mom hugs me again. She is tearing up badly like I have been gone for longer than a month. It has only been how many days? Two weeks? Josef comes over with a napkin for his wife. She accepts it with a smile, and he presses a kiss to her temple. This is something I never witnessed with her and Dad. Maybe I was too young. He gives me a side hug, then excuses himself. We are cool now, but it will take a while for us to be cooler.

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