Bad Boy Blues

chapter seven

It's been a few months already, and there's been no progress. At all. I thought I managed to catch Harper at the beach, but I guess to her that was just a one-time thing. Here's an example: Since today was Friday I decided to walk over to their table to just talk to her. I was just going to say hi, I mean, what's the problem with that?

So I walk over there, and before I can even say hi, Aldo blocked me from talking to her. "Get away from us," he said, shifting to where I stepped.

"Woah," I said, "I just want to talk to Harper!"

Aldo's eyes glowered. "She doesn't have anything to say to you."

"Fuck off," I said, then leaned to his side to talk to Harper. And you know what she did? She looked away. I stood up straight, confused, while Aldo had a stupid ugly smirk on his face.

He raised an eyebrow, and said, "See? So now just leave us alone!"

I muttered a curse under my breath, and turned around. For the first time, I decided not to punch his lights out. Harper wouldn't like that. I'd come to accept that I think she has feelings for me, but that she also had feelings for Aldo either.

God, this was complicated as fuck.

I went over back to our table, where the crew was just hanging out. Marlo was seated across Theo, and beside Theo was Stacy. Beside Marlo was Noah and Jude, talking about something that I didn't care about. I plopped down, and groaned. Marlo noticed, and tsk'ed. "Problem?" he asked.

"Harper won't talk to me," I said, looking down. "And I don't know why."

I'd already told them about the beach and the room, and I thought for sure she'd make up her mind and choose me. I guess she still chooses him over me. This was getting complicated, but I'm not backing down.

"Look," Marlo said, leaning forward, "you have to stop thinking that this is Aldo versus you. That shit doesn't matter. You just have to focus on getting Harper, because she doesn't like it whenever you punch Aldo out of nowhere."

I rolled my eyes. "Don't you think I know that?"

Theo put his arm on my shoulder, and chuckled. "Not to break up this heart-to-heart, but your roots are showing."

Immediately, I'm on guard. I whipped out my phone, and opened the camera app. Fuck. Theo wasn't lying. The black was still there, but you could make out the red. I just ran out of that stuff that dyed my hair, and I didn't have money with me.

Before anyone could notice, I took Jude's hat off his head and placed it on mine. "Hey!" he said, in protest.

"Look, I'll give this back to you, okay? I'll just text you." I said, closing the subject.

Jude shrugged, and went back to arguing with Hall. Meanwhile, I was getting more and more pissed off at myself for not realizing that what Marlo said was true. Harper did say that she didn't like me beating up her boyfriend every time he breathed. I let out an indignant sigh through my nose, and crossed my arm. "I don't know what to do."

"Well, sometimes you don't have to. You just have to be ready for whatever happens." Theo said, looking away.

Marlo actually choked on his soda, while Hall and Jude stopped arguing. We all looked at Theo with awed expressions on our faces, and he didn't even notice for a full few seconds. When he did, he practically threw his phone overhead. "What the hell? You look like fucking morons!"

No one said a word, except Stacy, who just chuckled. "Babe, you just had a Shakespeare moment, that's all."

Theo shrugged, and went back to eating his lunch. After a second, so did I.