The Bad Boy with a Heart of Gold

✖ Chapter 33 ✖

It was easy to pretend being exhausted at the breakfast table the next day. After all, I hadn't got much sleep last night, which was already following a day and some change of solid crying.

All things considered, the night could've been even crazier. There was a moment where too many clothes had been on the floor instead of on us, where we'd been on the verge of rounding all the bases. It wasn't that either of us realized that we had to put a brake on things, that we were moving too fast and that at least one of us wasn't ready to hit a homerun quite yet. No. The only thing that made us stop was that it was getting more and more difficult to keep quiet and Sawyer assured me he'd make me scream if we kept going.

In light of the morning, I wondered if I would've made him scream, too.

I should've been jumping through the roof that a night so amazing had happened to me, someone who hadn't dreamed of this any time soon, but I wasn't. Yes, I was still mourning the loss of the future I'd worked for, but at the same time I was in conflict with who I'd always been. I'd looked down on the kids at school who placed any value of themselves in the sexual adventures they could find. I'd always thought I was mightier than the intention my own hormones had to rule my life.

Now I wasn't so sure that I was above any of that. I hadn't met true temptation until the moment Sawyer crumbled my self-imposed barriers with his surprising kindness. Reluctantly, I'd always found him attractive, but the moment that amped up his appeal was when, without asking any questions or trying to extricate himself from the situation, he took care of me and my family, even, when Toni had the scare early on in her pregnancy. I started to see him with new eyes after that, eyes that started detailing all the good things about him. Including his impressive assets.

I was kind of glad that the threat of my parents hearing us stopped us from going further. As much as my body craved it, as much as I was now dying with curiosity, I didn't think I was ready to deal with the consequences. Already it was hard to face the fact that I'd been wrong. That being with a boy, the right boy, was good. That he'd have the power to cheer me up even in my darkest times, with both sweet and sexy gestures. That they weren't opposites, but could be part of the whole.

It terrified me to see the power he now held over me.

"Are you feeling better?" Toni asked as she placed a plate overflowing with empanadas that she'd just finished frying.

Much.

Kind of.

Confused?

I didn't know what to say, so I shrugged and tucked into a cheese and potato empanada. My favorite. Meanwhile, papa read the newspaper and mama ate in silence. It was probably a good thing I hadn't said anything. I didn't want to trigger a sermon from either of them for missing school yesterday.

The knock on the door surprised all of us. Papa put the newspaper aside and shuffled over to peer out the window. Then he joined us back at the table and said, "It's your friends, Aurora."

That could only mean one thing and it was confirmed once I opened the door. Courtney and Lina bumped against each other in their haste to see who could hug me first, which turned into a compromise of a weird simultaneous hug.

"We're so sorry," one of them said, but the words were muffled and I couldn't determine where they came from. I attempted to thank them, but it wasn't possible considering one arm was wrapped around my head.

I pulled away to breathe and Lina shook me by the shoulders. "Are you okay?"

I weighed my answer carefully but in the end admitted the truth with a shake of my head.