Home > Bad Boy Blues(5)

Bad Boy Blues(5)
Author: Saffron A. Kent

I have no option but to nod and stand up. I can’t stay here all night like a coward. I need this job. I have a goal. I can’t let him keep me from that.

“Okay, let’s go.”

 The party is happening in the ballroom, located in tower one.

The space is large and never-ending with high cathedral ceilings and vintage Victorian decor. Every corner is filled with intricate arrangements of flowers and tea-light candles. It’s super understated for me but whatever floats their boat, I guess.

I’ve been making rounds of the floor, serving champagne for the past couple of hours, and so far, I haven’t seen Zach.

I know he’s here, though. I know it. Somewhere, amongst all the slick suits and designer dresses, lurks the guy who’s haunted my thoughts ever since I met him.

A man sporting a tuxedo calls for me as I pass him and his group of friends by. I turn to them with my plastic fuck you smile in place and present them the tray. Without stopping their conversation or even sparing me a glance, they each pick up a flute.

Or at least, I think they do.

I’m not looking at them or even paying them any attention. They are inconsequential. Invisible. They don’t exist for me.

Nothing does except him.

Because the moment I turned, the crowd in front of me parted like some useless, catastrophic miracle and I saw him.

Zach.

He’s here.

The boy I hate, the boy I’ve always hated, is back. And he’s standing just ten feet away from me.

God, ten feet is not enough distance between us. Nope. It’s close. It’s real close. We need an ocean between us. A continent. A whole planet. An entire galaxy, maybe.

As it is, I can see him clearly.

I can see every angle of his face.

The sharp peaks of his cheekbones, the slant of his jaw, his strong forehead. Even his eyelashes, how thick and dark they are. How all together, he has to be the most beautiful guy I’ve ever seen. Such a delusion, his beauty.

His meanness comes forth in his size. In the veins of his neck and the way he comports himself. All silent and watching and intense and big.

And Jesus Christ, he’s gotten bigger. He’s taller than I remember. Broader too.

Was he this huge three years ago? This… beautiful, with slick, black hair and full lips?

His shoulders look massive. Even from ten feet away, I can see his chest straining against the dark t-shirt that he has on. His entire body seems to be bursting out of his clothes: black leather jacket and blue jeans.

The clothes that are completely wrong for this occasion. The clothes that only Zach is wearing. The rest of the people are in expensive, formal attire.

And just like that, he sticks out.

He screams rebel. Bad boy. He screams that he doesn’t give a fuck.

He didn’t three years ago and he doesn’t now.

My chest is buzzing, probably the butterflies, and also with something else. Something that feels like loss.

I’ve never thought about it too much but Zach and I, we could be… a bit alike.

We always ended up in detention together. Our uniforms were always disheveled by the end of the day, like we couldn’t wait to get out of there.

And from what I could gather, Zach hated going to school just as much as I did.

I mean, I did my homework, got okay grades, but I didn’t like it. Zach was the same. He was a grade above me, and rumor had it that he was held back a year and that he was flunking every subject.

In my weakest moments when I’d cry in my pillow, thinking about going back to St. Patrick’s the next day, I’d imagine a life where Zach and I were friends. A life where he wouldn’t pick on me and I wouldn’t hate him.

But it was all wishful thinking, obviously.

He did pick on me and I did hate him.

I hate him even now as he throws a smirk at someone to his right.

Bastard.

I hate that smirk. It’s so unfair that it’s beautiful and sexy.

He’d never change.

A hand flashes in front of my eyes and I yelp, almost losing my grip on the tray.

“Aren’t you supposed to go away once you’ve served?” says the man who called for me, his eyebrows arched up in an arrogant fashion.

“Yeah, we don’t need anything right now,” the other man in the group says as he sips his champagne.

The third man chimes in, “We’ll call if we do.”

The only woman in the group, decked out in a silver gown, mumbles, “Don’t hold your breath, though.”

I’m only half listening to them and their condescending comments. Actually, I’m glad they interrupted my ogling.

I need to get away from Zach. Now that I know where he is, I can keep an eye on him and stay out of his sight. I don’t want him to see me. I don’t want him to know that I work here now. Or at least, hold on to this secret for as long as possible.

Apologizing to the group, I take a step back.

I’m on the verge of getting away unscathed when something makes me look up and my gaze clashes with his.

Damn it.

I knew it. I fucking knew that he’d find me.

There’s a thing between us, see.

This thing makes us aware of each other. It doesn’t matter where we are. In the school hallway, in the empty detention room, or in a crowded ballroom.

Somehow, he’s always been able to find me and I’ve always been able to find him.

Maybe this is how hate works, mysteriously and annoyingly.

With his champagne glass poised at his mouth, Zach is watching me with his black demon eyes. Like he used to.

Like he never stopped. He never went away. Last three years never happened. It’s still prom night. I’m still sixteen and he’s eighteen. I’m still waiting for my boyfriend to show up while Zach’s laughing behind my back because he’s about to ruin all my dreams of love.

And on Monday when I go to school, I’ll find out that Zach’s gone. He’s left town abruptly and people are buzzing with shock and gossip.

Except right now, the ache in my belly is sharper and my heart has stopped along with the butterflies that have become frozen, trapped because of his focus on me.

“Oh Christ, what would it take for you to go away? Are you waiting for a tip or something?”

This time the man’s voice startles me so much that there’s no saving the tray. It slides right out of my hand and I watch it crash to the floor in horror.

There’s shrieking, gasping and jumping as the delicate flutes shatter against the marble, spilling bubbles everywhere. Some of them get on the shoes of the man who flagged me down. They were Italian loafers, no less. This piece of information is given by the woman in the silver gown.

A small crowd is gathering around me. There are murmurs and laughter. I can’t say who’s the one doing it. Because my eyes are glued to the broken glasses, the upturned tray.

“I’m so sorry,” I whisper to no one in particular, my eyes filling with tears of embarrassment.

Standing has become such a chore and I wince as soon as my bony knees hit the floor. My hands stick out to catch my balance. But they accidentally land on the puddle of liquid, splashing it on the sleeves of my very white blouse.

That’s the least of my worries, though.

Because as soon as my palm connected with the sticky floor, I felt a piercing stab of pain go through my fingers and wrist.

“Oh, fuck.”

Did I just cut myself?

A gash runs straight down the middle of my left palm. I’m so shocked as to what even happened in the past twenty seconds that all I can do is stare at the red droplets oozing out of the cut.

In all my years of waiting tables, I’ve never dropped a tray. My old boss used to call me a natural.

So what the fuck just happened?

All of a sudden, my thoughts shut down when I feel someone take my hand in theirs.

It’s big, the hand. Dusky. So dusky and bronzed that my skin looks even paler.

Maybe it’s the shock but I’m kind of entranced by the look of my small hand trapped in a large one. The blood on my skin is brilliant red but compared to the bronze fingers that are curled around me, everything looks dull.

“You’re gonna need bandages.”

The voice. His voice. It’s soft and low.

It’s exactly as I remember it but with a rougher edge. An edge that wasn’t there before. His voice is probably the only voice that I can recognize out of a thousand voices, even from far away, even after years.

God, it’s awful. It’s fucking terrible.

Why do I know so much about him?

Why is he touching me? He’s never touched me before.

With suspended breaths, I look up at him, ready to tell him to get away from me and snatch my hand back. But all I can focus on is that his hands are not the only things that are bronzed.

For some reason, I hadn’t noticed it before. But his face has become darker as well. Tanned.

“Don’t,” I say, somehow finding my voice.

With his face still dipped, he lifts his eyes up to me. He studies me for a beat and I squirm under his intense scrutiny.

“Don’t what?”

I swallow against the impact of his voice. It hits me in the chest and I wince slightly.

Of course, he notices.

And maybe to mess with me even more, he rubs his thumb over the pad of my palm. The touch is gentle, not more than a whisper of his skin over mine.

But it’s the only thing that I can focus on.

 I snatch my hand back and fist it. “Don’t touch me.” Then I add, to make it super clear, “Ever.”

He’s darker now.

That’s all I can think about. In combination with his rougher voice and his bigger body, his tanned skin makes him look ruthless.

More ruthless than before.

More ruthless than what he used to look like, standing in front of his locker, or at the school gates, or sitting at the largest and loudest table at the cafeteria. Or riding his bike down the highway.

I’m not sure I like that. Actually, I’m pretty sure that I don’t like it. As if he wasn’t intimidating enough. As if my palms didn’t itch enough to slap the arrogant look off his face.

   
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