He's Bad News ✔

Chapter 3 - Best Friends? Hardly.

CHAPTER 3 - BEST FRIENDS? HARDLY.

After Seth walked off, leaving me alone and speechless in his room I returned back to my own and opened my laptop hoping it would get my mind of Seth. And Ryder West.

Which didn't work because soon I found myself stalking his Facebook page. Of course we weren't 'Friends' or anything there - neither in real life though. He had only a few people add couples of them were from our school. He's junkie's friends. Seth included. His activity was pretty much nonexistent since there was no single post of him on his timeline. Just tagged photos of him, posted by his friends. No surprising at all, all of them were taken at parties or clubs. And no surprising at all in all of them he either smoke or drank alcohol. Even in his profile picture in which just to make things more 'dramatically' he was even leaning casually against his motorbike to prove that he was indeed a bad boy and all.

After stalking his profile a little longer I went over to Seth's -who still hadn't accept my two year friend request. Unlike Ryder's, Seth's profile had lots of posts of music videos and 'wise' words of him and other famous people. Seth knew how to play my mom's game obviously - making everyone think he was a son role model when he was just a troubled teenager.

Suddenly there was a knock on my door and I went of his profile just in time my mom entered the room.

"Chloe honey do you mind doing the Grocery shopping today? I'm really busy organizing the food ration for this Sunday's church service."

I shrugged "Sure, what do you need?"

She gave me a shopping list and after she left to let me get ready. I wore a cute floral sundress and brown sandals and put my hair into a messy bun. Downtown was really crowded and didn't want anyone see me sloppy.

I drove to Target, which was only five minutes far and start going through the list my mother gave me, after stopping of course to get Starbucks because...duh.

I was there for about good ten minutes when someone whispered "Boo" in my ear, scaring the Jesus out of me. I spin around scared and that someone turned out to be no other but Ryder West. But of course!

"What are you doing?" I hissed. "You scared me!"

He chuckled. "Well yeah, that was the whole point wasn't it?" his voice was playful and steady and didn't stutter like last night. His eyes were now back to their normal green color and didn't stink alcohol but shampoo and after shave lotion.

Seeing that we were too close -for my liking- I took a step back and crossed my arms over my chest. "Are you following me now?"

He chuckled again and I had to admit...I liked his laugh. It was... playful. "You wish cupcake. I'm just here to pick up some stuff."

I grabbed a box of chocolate chip cookies (my favorites) from the shelf, put them in my cart and start walking again. "Whatever."

"I didn't know that miss goody two shoes does the grocery shopping." He said falling into step with me. "I thought you had a butler do that for you."

"You don't know anything about me." I said focused on my shopping list. The faster I finished with my shopping, the faster I would get rid of him.

He clicked his tongue. "That's not true."

Feeling a sudden rage building inside me, I spinned towards him. "Just because he had 'that night' doesn't mean we are besties now."

He clamped his hand over my mouth, which at the same time made him come closer to me. I slapped his hands off but couldn't really move since I was trapped between him a shelf.

"Lower your voice, will you."He snapped. "Someone might hear and get the wrong idea!"

I hadn't noticed I had yelled till that moment. We both looked around to see if anyone was watching but thankfully no one was in this section of the store.

Hmm... apparently I wasn't the only one who worried about her reputation. Ryder seemed to worry about his as well. Even though I hardly believed I could possibly ruin his. Probably only make it better.

"And I agree." He said turning back to face me. "We are hardly besties but..." he smirked "let's face it cupcake, you are an open book. And everything I said about you the other night was true."

I raised a finger. "One; Don't 'cupcake' me." Raised two fingers "Two; I'm not an open book." Lastly I raised three fingers "and three; you were as wrong about me as everyone else. You would still think shit of me if I hadn't told you the truth."

He was silent for a moment and then...smiled "You're right." Duh. "And don't worry I won't tell anyone your secret."

I raised an eyebrow "Not even to your friends?" For some reason I always seemed to attract the attention of the junkies in our school and they thought my life was so 'fascinated' they wanted to know everything about me. And no that's wasn't a good think. Because what I called 'fascinating', they would categorize it as 'hilarious' or 'rich girl problems'.

He smiled again "I promise you I have no friends to tell."

"Good." I said but only when the words were out of my mouth I realized that it had come out the wrong way and not the way I wanted. Nonetheless I didn't do anything to take it back.

There was silence for a few seconds as we both stood very close, our gazes locked... before I looked away feeling for some reason very self conscious and uncomfortable under his gaze. "I need to go." I said and start walking away dragging the shopping cart along with me.

Not even five seconds later I heard calling him from behind me. I turned around as he walked towards me and opened his wallet, handing me some cash. "For the rum." He said softly.

I looked at him startled.

"I'm not a total asshole." He explained.

Yeah... maybe he wasn't a total... 'A' after all. Nonetheless I shook my head. "I can't accept this."

"Yeah, whatever." He opened my palm, placed the money there and closed it, holding my hand wrapped in his for a few seconds before pulling away. He smirked and walked past me towards the cashiers.

"Oh!"

I turned around and looked at him.

"Tell your brother to give me a call will you? I need to talk to him."

I smiled sweetly at him. "Not even over my dead body."

Ryder chuckled and left without another word.

I couldn't help but stand there watching him leave. Who would have thought? Ryder West being nice to someone for a change? I felt... fluttered... I guess. But not that it meant anything. After all Ryder was right about one thing.

We were hardly besties.