The Resident Badboy

Chapter 8 • Speak of The Devil

Everything I've buried deep within me along time ago comes rushing to the surface. People might say it's too shallow or it doesn't even make any sense but for me, it's everything.

The nickname is like a one-way ticket down memory lane. Everytime my family—I'm considering the Brodies, Whitelies and Argents my family—calls me that, the pain is bearable and it does pisses me off but I get them. But when a complete stranger, someone I just met today or a month ago, calls me that and it seems so normal, I am push over the edge.

That girl made it so damn casual to call me as if it were a normal thing we do, as if we were friends way back. But what's got my brain in a knot is how I'm feeling towards it. Yes, I'm pissed but deep down, I feel comfortable and I don't want to feel comfortable.

"Ha—" Jace covers Austin's mouth his hand before he could even say the forbidden name.

With a confused frown on his Austin's face, he pries Jace's hand off his mouth. "What the hell is wrong with you?!"

"Haven't you heard?" Jace scoots closer to Austin, leans forward to his ear and whispers in such a volume I no longer consider it as one. "She's gone thermonuclear and transforms to Hulk when you say that name."

I give Jace a force and tight smile when he straightens himself. I lean forward, my elbows on the table. "I can already imagine a duct tape on your mouth."

"You're going to abduct me?" he asks with his eyes wide. Both Bridget and Austin groans in frustration. I, however, just simply shake my head.

Sometimes, for a boy with good grades in English Lit, he could be a class A dense. There are times that he's faking it, times that it's real. But this is Jace Whitely, what's new?

"H," Bridget chose to play it safe.

A few hours ago when they learned that I'm not fond of hearing that nickname, Jace called me Hey or Psst or anything that doesn't come near it. And Bridget resorted to calling me that.

"Could you..." she pauses as she looks down her plate and plays with her food using her fork. "....join cheer practice later?"

I give her my blankest of all blank look. "Nope."

She whips her head so fast I feared she might have a whiplash. "What do you mean nope?!" she outbursts.

"Nope, no, nada, not a chance, suck it up Argent," Jace answer on my behalf in a singsong voice. I point my index finger to him, telling him he got it.

She groans so dramatically loud before pushing her plate away from her. The three of us are looking at her as if she just declared that she's mothering Damon Salvatore's babies. Oh yeah, I've watched that alright.

"So you agreed on Grayson's deal but you won't even consider mine?!" she counters like a petulant child.

I'm not used to reacting with Bridget's childishness but she has to know this is getting out of hand. "What are you? Five?!"

Austin and Jace's eyebrows shoots up. Probably because they were expecting I won't put up with Bridget's shit.

"Look, Argent, you are seventeen years old. You're no longer a child so you better quit that attitude or else I will treat you like a one, you got it? I am your bestfriend for goodness sake! Stop treating me like one of those people who are at your beck and call! I will talk you down when you're being irrational. I won't do as you please, alright?" I spat.