Fighter: A Bad Boy Romance (18 page)

This should be a thrilling moment for me. I should be nervous to speak to him. I should be primping and stressing about my make up and hair, but I’m not. All I can think about is what Joey is thinking right now as he watches me from across the hall.

“Sup, Mia?” I hear Brad say as he steps up beside me. I turn and pretend I didn’t know he was coming.

“Oh hey, Brad! How are you?”

“Doin’ all right,” he says, leaning against the locker beside me. My eyes flicker to Joey and back. He’s not smiling anymore, but staring intently at me.

What is he thinking?!
And the better question is,
why do I care so much?

“Sup, girls?” he says, all nonchalant, to Cassidy and Merrell.

“Hey, Brad!” they say in unison, unable to hide their crushes on him. But they quickly go back to their phones as he moves closer to me.

“You know what I was thinking? You need to come to the dance with me on Friday.”

I hear a sharp intake of breath behind me from Cassidy when she hears this. She’s excited. At least someone is. My eyes flick to Joey, whose eyes have narrowed into a glare, almost like he’s examining me. What does he want? He must know what’s going on.

But why do I care? He’s made it pretty obvious he isn’t going to ask me out, and even if he did, who knows what I would say? So he sketched a picture of me in art class and told me my art was good for a Fleecer. That’s supposed to just win me over and make me rethink going out with the coolest guy in school? I don’t think so.

I turn my head slightly and catch his gaze. He lifts his eyebrows as I say to Brad, “Sure.”

I can tell “sure” wasn’t what Brad was expecting, and he’s a bit taken aback. Most girls would be fawning all over him, but I’m not most girls. He gets over it and smiles.

“Yeah. Of course. Awesome. Why don’t you give me your number, and I’ll text you?”

He pulls out his phone, and as I recite my number to him, I turn and look at Joey, who has a look on his face I’ve never seen before. I can’t read it, but if I was to guess, I’d say … disappointed. I instantly regret giving Brad my number.

“Sweet. I’ll hit you up later,” he says as he turns to go.

“Okay. Talk to you later.”

“Bye, Brad!” the girls both shout in unison. He waves over his shoulder like he’s too cool for school, then joins the rest of his friends.

My friends go wild behind me when he’s out of earshot, going on and on about how jealous they are, asking me how long before I hook up with him, whether or not I can hook them up with one of his friends. The conversation, if you can call it that, washes over me like a dull wave as we walk down the hall, through the double doors and into the cold air of the parking lot.

It’s freezing outside, which is pretty normal for Stonehill, New Hampshire. I grew up here. It’s a little Podunk town in the middle of nowhere. There’s not much to do, and there’s not much money. Not many people get any sort of education past high school. Most of us just end up staying here. There’s a saying around town: “You’re born in Stonehill, you die in Stonehill.” But I have other plans.

I’m gonna get out of here one way or another. Whether it’s from my paintings or not, I’m not going to die in Stonehill. I’m going to travel, I’m going to see the world, I’m going to be happy, and I don’t care what I have to do to make it happen.

“Okay, so. You
have
to text us what he texts you when he does, okay?” Merrell says as her dad pulls up.

“Okay,” I reply.

“This is too awesome!”

“Talk soon,” Cassidy says as she and Merrell pile into the car and drive off. They both live on the opposite side of town from me so they carpool. I stand there on the curb as I wait for my mom, who will more than likely be late, lost in my own thoughts, when I hear a set of footsteps behind me. I don’t know how I know, but I know it’s him. I want to whirl around and slap him and ask him what the hell his problem is, but I don’t. I just stand there, letting him stare at
my
back for once.

“So, that’s the kind of girl you are.”

His voice, cold and stern behind me, sends a chill through my body, and I feel goose bumps on my arms.

“What?!” I say, whirling around, right on the edge. “What are you talking about? What’s that supposed to mean?

I feel all the anger from the last few weeks rising within me as I walk toward him. I expect him to back up, or flinch, or show some signs of worry, but he just stands there until I’m right up in his face.

“What kind of girl am I?”

“The kind that dates douchebags so she can be cool.”

I can’t believe what I’m hearing. I’ve never met such an arrogant boy in my entire life. I’m so offended, but the worst part is that he’s absolutely right, and he knows he is.

“What do you know?” I almost shout at him. “Maybe I like Brad.”

He bursts into laughter so loud that I step back.

“Come on,” he says, chuckling. “You really expect me to believe that? No
way
you like that asshole.”

My mind is twisted into knots by this boy. I never know what’s going to come out of his mouth or what I’m supposed to say to him. How does he know I don’t like him? What does he see in me?

“And why wouldn’t I?”

“Psssht, please. A girl like you? Painter, wants to travel, in love with the townie hockey all star? Maybe one of your dumb friends would be into him, but not you. There’s a lot more to you than texting and parties, Mia.”

I frown at him. What is he getting at? He’s so confident, standing there in front of me, openly mocking me. He doesn’t have any friends backing him up, absolutely zero social status at school, and all his clothes are second hand. If you were to look at him on the surface, you’d say there’s nothing for this guy to be so arrogant about.

I’m cool, I have lots of friends, and the coolest guy in school just asked me out. If you were to look at me on the surface, you’d say I have everything in the world to be happy about. But somehow, he sees there’s more to me, in a way that no one else has, and it terrifies me.

“Okay, Joey,” I say, summoning any remaining confidence I have left. “If you think you know me so well, what kind of guy
would
I go for?”

He doesn’t respond. Does he not have an answer for once? I step closer until I’m right under his chin looking up at him. He’s tall, and I feel small next to him.

“Someone like you maybe?” I see his eyes narrow. That hit home. I summon all my courage and just ask him. “What’s wrong, Joey? Do you like me?”

I think I see him back away from me, so slightly that it’s almost not noticeable. He doesn’t respond, and I feel my heart pounding in my chest. He doesn’t speak, and the tension grows until I feel like I’m about to explode, then finally he lets out a small laugh.

“Yeah,” he says. “You wish.”

His words hit me like a truck, and I feel myself frozen in place as he brushes past me and walks away.

T
hat night
I can’t focus on anything. So much happened today. I know I should be all excited about Brad asking me out. I should be on my phone to Cassidy and Merrell, but it’s all I can do to bring myself to respond to the flood of texts they’ve been sending me since I got home.

The questions never end: OMG How excited are you? Do you think you’ll kiss? Do you think he’ll try and drive you home? Can you ask Devon if he thinks I’m pretty?

Normally I’m fine with this sort of thing. It’s part of being a high schooler. I get it. But something about my encounter with Joey has left my head spinning. I’m pushing peas around my plate when my mom finally speaks up.

“What’s the matter, honey?”

“Hmmm?” I say, looking up.

“You’ve been quiet all afternoon.”

“Oh, it’s nothing,” I say. I don’t even know where to begin the conversation. I’m not even sure to explain what I’m feeling, let alone how to explain it to someone else.

“Boy trouble?” she asks, raising her eyebrows. My mom is pretty protective of me and suspicious of the opposite sex ever since my dad walked out on us. Just completely out of the blue, and like that, he was gone. My mom either didn’t know why or wouldn’t tell me, but to me, it was like one day I had a dad and the next day I didn’t. I tell myself I don’t want to see him ever again, but the truth is, I really don’t know.

“No, not trouble really,” I muse, picking a pea up off the table with my fork. “More like … confusion.”

“Boys will do that. They say it’s girls that are confusing, but that’s all nonsense.”

“I just don’t know what to do.”

“High school can be hard, Mia. There’s all sorts of social pressures and people telling you what you should and shouldn’t do, but when it comes to this stuff, there’s only one person you should listen to, and that’s
you
.”

I smile. My mom’s the best. She’s always been there for me. Even after dad left I never once saw her cry, and I know it’s because she didn’t want to upset me. I’m sure she did it behind closed doors, but she always wore a brave face for me. I stand up to clear the table when a knock comes from the front door.

“Who could that be?” she says. I shrug. Probably a salesman or the Mormons or something. I grab our plates and head to the kitchen as Mom heads to the door. I drop the plates in the sink and hear her talking to someone. Then her voice from the other room.

“Mia? You’ve got a visitor.”

What? I’ve got a visitor? What is she talking about? Everyone who would come over would text me first …

I start feeling nervous as I make my way past the dinner table and into the living room. The door’s open and my mom’s standing in front of it so I can’t see who she’s looking at, but as I get closer, she turns and smiles at me with a sly approving smile. She steps aside and I see who it is.

Joey is standing on the front porch. I can’t help but gasp. I’m completely shocked at his presence here. I didn’t even realize he knew where I lived. Normally I’d be sort of creeped out about that, but somehow this seems completely in character for him for the last few weeks. I step out onto the porch into the cool evening breeze.

“Hi,” he says.

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