treat you better ; shawn mendes

six

Riley's POV
It's 5pm and Jack is due to come over to my house at any point by now. My parents aren't home so we have the house to ourselves. We're just going to be studying anyway.

All day today, I haven't stopped thinking about what happened last night... How Dylan almost killed all of us and didn't even seem to care and he left me on the side of the road with nothing but a 'whatever'. All I had to do was call Shawn and ask for him to pick me up and he'd worry and fuss over me. I miss people caring about me for once. The only other people that do are Jack and Lyss. All my other friends are just kind of 'there'. Like Matthew and Danielle.

But I can't stop thinking about the conversation I had with Shawn when he picked me up on the side of the freeway last night...

"Are you okay? What are you doing out here?" Shawn asks as soon as he pulls over on the side of the road a few metres ahead of me. He jumps out the car and walks over to me, stopping a few centimetres from where I'm standing.

"Dylan told me Matthew, Jack, him and I would be going for a drive but then he pulled into the gas station and started doing burnouts. I freaked out and told him to stop because we could get in trouble but he didn't. Then this guy came out, threatening to call the cops so Dylan drove away. But I didn't want to be in the car with him so I told him to drop me off here which is where I called you from." I say all at once, starting to feel overwhelmed with emotions. I don't know what to feel. I'm angry because of Dylan, I'm scared because of what happened, I want to cry but I also feel happy that Shawn is here now.

"Are you okay?" He asks, putting his hands on the sides of my arms and dipping his head down to look at my eyes.

I shake my head 'no' and immediately fall into his arms. I curl my arms into his chest and he wraps his strong arms around my shoulders, resting his chin on the top of my head.

Being in his arms makes me feel instantly better. Then that's when I realise that that's the first time I've ever hugged Shawn or even been that close to him. It was comforting but what if he doesn't feel comfortable?

I pull away from his body and wipe my weeping eyes.

"I'm sorry. I don't know why I did that." I say, feeling stupid.

"Don't apologise. Come here." He says before he puts his arms around my waist and pulls me in for another hug. I wrap my arms around his neck and just enjoy being in this moment.

After a short while, we let go of each other and I look at Shawn.

"Should we go home now?" He asks with a little smile. I nod.

"Please." I laugh.

My daydream/re-cap of last night is suddenly interrupted when I hear the doorbell ring. I get off my bed and walk to the front door. When I open it, I see an adorable little Jack standing before me, greeting me with a closed-mouth smile.

I'll admit, Jack is really cute. If we weren't such close friends and I just saw him from time to time in the hallways, I'd probably have the biggest crush on him.

"Hey." He says cheerfully as he walks through the door.

"Hi." I say equally as cheerfully back before I close the door and lock it again.

"You weren't at school today. Why?" He asks as we walk into my room and he flops on my bed, making himself at home.

"I had bad cramps. I couldn't get out of bed." I say. Jack scrunches his face up.

"Ew, I don't even want to know." He says in disgust. I laugh and throw a pillow at his face.

"Shutup! It's not that repulsive." I laugh. Jack chuckles and opens up his books and I groan.

"We haven't even started and you're already making those grumpy noises." He scoffs.

"Yes, because I don't want to do this." I whine.

"Too bad."

•

It's now 8pm and Jack and I have been studying for three hours - with food breaks in between of course.

"Okay. That's it. I'm done. If I work for much longer I'm going to explode." Jack says, slamming the books shut and throwing them onto the floor.

"Thank God. The words were starting to get fuzzy." I say. Jack laughs and looks at me. It's not a glance though, it's a stare.

"What?" I ask. Jack looks away and shakes his head.

"Nothing." He shrugs, stacking papers to avoid eye contact.

"Don't be annoying. Tell me." I say with a small laugh. Jack sighs and looks at me, his deep brown eyes staring at me.

"I feel so terrible about what happened last night. I knew that what we were going to do would freak you out and I didn't stop Dylan for you. Worse still, I just let you walk out of that car to be left on the side of the road." He says. I put hand over his as if to let him know it's okay.

"Don't worry about it. I was fine. I called a friend to pick me up." I say. I don't think I want to mention Shawn to Jack just yet.

"Still..." He ponders. Jack pauses and looks into my eyes again. For a moment, I can see his breath hitches... Right before he leans in to kiss me. But I know better, so I pull back just before his lips touch mine and I stare at him with a shocked expression.

"What are you doing?" I ask, wide-eyed. Jack's cheeks instantly flood red and he looks down.

"Oh fuck. I'm sorry. I don't know what I was thinking." He says, embarrassed, "I'm so sorry. I don't like you like that. It was an 'in the moment' thing. I promise I don't have feelings for you. I know you're with Dylan and he's one of my best friends. Please don't tell him that I just did that, oh my god." He rushes, smothering his face with his hands. I giggle and put my hand on his shoulder.

"It's fine, Jack. Stop stressing." I laugh. Watching him freak out is actually really adorable.

"Really?" He asks and I nod. He then laughs at himself and shakes his head.

"Pretend the whole thing never happened?" I compromise.

"Yes. For the love of God, please. This never happened."
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a/n: for those of you that want to get a visual on Jack, go to @manurios1234 on Instagram. That's Jack's character (trust me, you'll thank me later)
Anyway,
Vote & comment. ily xx