Dangerous Boy

Chapter Eight

"I think he's bad for you, he sounds like trouble" Mason says, looking away from the homework in front of us a few days later after school. "You need to stay away from him before you get seriously hurt. You could do so much better Grace, you have a future and he has a gang."

Perhaps telling Mason everything about Xavier wasn't such a good idea after all. But there's nobody else I can talk to about the situation. If I tell Arnica the entire school will know by tomorrow and there's no way I could talk to either of my parents about this. They're already off on their next business adventure in New York anyway.

"You're right" I look at him, his hair is messy and he looks tired. We both look tired and the pages of math homework in front of us isn't getting done any faster. "I don't know what I was thinking" I breathe quietly, opening the lid of my highlighter. "I haven't even spoken to him again since Sunday so I doubt I'll ever see him again."

A smile now makes its way to Masons face, which is a change from the frown that was there a few minutes ago.  "I didn't want to have to kick his ass with these bad boys anyway" he flexes his biceps and wriggles his eyebrows at me as I roll my eyes. I know he's doing the protective best friend thing and I should listen to him, he's known me most of my life and he's always looked after me. Somehow I still find the idea of never seeing Xavier again hard to swallow.

"I'm just trying to look out for you Grace" he nudges me lightly with elbow. "Guys like him are only looking for one thing from a girl and I don't want to see you get hurt. Especially not from some moron criminal who doesn't deserve you."

"Thanks for looking out for me" I smile and nudge him back before looking away from him, feeling his gaze on me. Xavier never came across like that when I was with him. He'd never want to do anything like that with me anyway - I'm sure he has a list of supermodels on speed dial for that kind of stuff. I don't know why the thought of that upsets me so much.

"Can we please finish the homework now?" I poke Mason with the highlighter, shaking the unneeded thoughts from my head. "I don't want to be stuck here until you fall asleep again."

"I was having a power nap" he scoffs, wiping the mark I'd highlighted on his cheek with his thumb.  "I did not fall asleep."

"You were snoring, loudly."

"Power snoring" he explains. "It's a new thing, helps my brain juices start flowing."

"You have to have brain juices in the first place for that to work" I tease as he headlocks me, using his much longer legs to push me from my bed.

*

Finally at nearly ten, after eating our body weight in two minute noodles Mason decides to go home. I walk him to his ute, waving goodbye as he pulls out of the driveway.

The lights from his car brightens the street outside of our gates. My eyes fall on the black Range Rover I'd recognise from anywhere parked on the other side of the road.

"Xavier?" I walk towards the recognisably tall figure walking across the now empty street. "What are you doing here?"

He stops walking once he reaches me and my heart begins beating out of control like it usually does whenever I'm around him. "I was passing through" he explains, his eyes are soft and I suddenly realise how much I have wanted to see him over the last couple of days. "I wanted to see you, but I thought I better wait for the guy to leave." His tone is slightly off, as if he's annoyed by something but I'm not sure what.