The Badboys' Good Lips

1

c h a p t e r 1

"Did you hear me?"

"What?" I blinked and turned at the sound of Zoella's voice, catching her just in time to see her rolling her eyes at me with a huff.

"Mae," she almost whined, "I asked if you were ready to go," she repeated, coming to stand next to me in front of her vanity while grabbing a tube of gloss. I watched her through the mirror as she applied a third coat and rubbed her lips together before turning her body toward mine.

I shrugged my shoulders as she did so.

"He won't be there tonight," she tried to reason, but I still didn't look at her. "I gave you coloured contacts. And you're wearing pink hair extensions. And we're hitting up a bar on the opposite end of town. No one is going to know it's you. No one we know is even going to be there."

Maybe she was right, maybe she wasn't, but nothing could stop my mind from racing at the possibility of seeing him there. Of seeing Cole. He loved parties and he enjoyed bar hopping—he could very well end up on the other end of town like us.

"I don't know..." I glanced at myself in her mirror again, not seeing anything different. I was still just the same broken-up-with, sad, 19-year-old girl I had always been, whether it was with my blue eyes or these new gray ones.

My best friend, Zoella Fisher, sighed. "Mae," she began, leaning one hand on her hip and the other on the vanity desk. Her dark brown hair fell from where it had been resting on her shoulder and to her back, slight waves texturing the medium-length locks. "I know that you're reluctant right now, but this is going to help." Her voice was soft as she spoke to me but I still didn't make eye contact with her through the mirror, fixated on my own reflection.

I took my bottom lip between my teeth, mumbling, "He wouldn't like it if I went out... It's going to make things worse when he wants to get back together."

Her chuckle was laced with disdain and disgust, effectively cutting me off. "You can't be serious about that," she shook her head, studying my features. "I am not letting you get back together with him, again. He cheats on you all the time. He treats you like shit—"

"—That's not true—"

"—He uses you—"

"He loves me," I snapped, finally looking her in the eyes through the mirror. "Cole loves me, Zoey. Sometimes he gets mad but that's only when I haven't listened to his rules. You don't get it. You never get it."

And she didn't. She didn't understand him as I did. She didn't know him as I did. She didn't love him as I did. Until she did any of those things, she was never going to understand.

Cole Addams and I had been dating since the eleventh grade in high school when we'd met halfway through the year. He played on the football team and I was a cheerleader, and it seemed almost like we had been destined to be together based on that status alone. Our high school careers are typical which made us the perfect match ever made.

At least, that's what Cole had told me.

He was the first boy I ever loved and who ever loved me, and despite how rocky things have gotten between us, I didn't want to let that go. Call it desperation, stupidity, or insanity, but I didn't care. I loved him. And I knew he loved me too—in his own way.

I shook my head before letting out a sigh, my chest tightening at the tone I had used on Zoey. "I'm sorry," I took in a deep breath, trying to smile the abrasion between us away. "I just... I don't know about this, Zoey."