The Senior Bad Boy | ✔️

4. Tacos + Teasing

I trudge my way up the front porch steps, still shivering from that damned motorcycle ride, and carry my mom's bong inside.

Now that Jayce is in my friggin' house, I realize just how small, old and unkempt it is. I should really clean more.

I walk into the kitchen as mom places four tacos onto a plate, cheese and toppings trailing behind them, and sets them down in front of Jayce, who instantly goes to grub city.

"So, honey," Mom drawls, smiling at me, her eyes bloodshot and slightly more closed than a sober person's would be. "You didn't tell me you had a boyfriend."

Jayce looks at me with a huge smirk, quickly raising his eyebrows and flipping his hair out of his eyes, awaiting my reply and shoveling chips in his mouth as if he hasn't eaten in a week.

"I-uh," I stutter, completely taken aback by the entire situation. This night has gone so totally differently than I wanted it to. "He's not my boyfriend, mom. He gave me a ride home from a party after I had to much to drink."

She looks like she's trying to be motherly and upset that I just confessed I had been drinking, but she knows there's literally no way she can get me in trouble when every waking moment she has some form of alcohol in her system. "That was awfully kind of—," she glances at Jayce.

"Jayce," he's barely able to say his name because his mouth is so full. It makes me internally chuckle. He eats like it's a contest.

"Jayce," mom slurs. "Well, thank you, Jayce, for bringing my Tink home safe and sound. This is one of the first times I'm meeting one of my kids' school friends. Except Presley, of course," she shoots an accusing look at me, which is met by nothing but a challenge in my eyes. "It's very nice to meet you, Jayce. Feel free to stay as long as you'd like." She gives him a winning smile, ruffles his hair, grabs a bottle of wine and goes into the other room. Cringe. "Oh, by the way, honey!" She shouts from a room over, "Isabel brought over a thing for you tonight. Something about an Ariel outfit? I put it in your room," I hear the TV turn on as I internally groan.

Jayce's eyes are flicking back and forth between me and the other room, no doubt sensing the tension and bitterness, especially coming from me.

"Ariel outfit?" He asks with a curious grin, wisely choosing to not ask about my mother. "I want to see."

"Too bad," I sigh, stripping his jacket off and throwing it back at him. "You can go now," I head upstairs, leaving him with no invitation to follow. I make it to my room, but apparently, the fucker doesn't need an invitation and is perfectly happy to make himself at home wherever he goes because as soon as I open the door to my room, he walks in, slings his leather jacket over my desk chair and sits down in it, looking very pleased with himself.

"Why do you have an Ariel outfit?" He asks in a troublemaking tone, nodding toward the purple shell bra and long, sparkly green skirt hanging on my closet door.

Isabel, my go-to seamstress, had been altering it for me and I guess she just finished it up a few hours ago. She's the best.

"It's for work," I say, finally ripping my heels off my feet and chucking them into my closet before curling into a ball on my bed spread. I close my eyes in an attempt to hint that I don't want him here.

"What do you do for work?" Jayce questions. Why the fuck is he suddenly so interested in my personal life? I squint through my eyelashes to see him inspecting the pictures I have plastered on my wall.