The Bad Boy's Heart: When The Dust Settles...

🌾20🌾

The next morning, I woke up with a shitty headache. As if that wasn't bad enough, it turned out I was set to take a quiz that morning which I forgot to study for. I had to trudge through the questions armed with nothing but aspirin and the remnants of what I remembered from past lectures. Unsurprisingly, I headed straight to bed after the class had finished.

I awoke to the sound of someone knocking on my door. Groggily rubbing at my eyes and sitting up, I called out, "Who is it?"

"It's Precious! Just wanna remind you that we have a cuisine club meeting today. It's starting by 8pm; don't be late, I'm hosting!"

Fuck, I forgot.

"Sounds good!" I replied. "You're hosting it here, right?"

"Yup!"

"Sweet, see you there!"

I sighed as I lay back down. My headache was no more, so I saw no point in heading back to sleep. After a few minutes of laying idly in bed, I grabbed my phone. The first thing I noticed after I switched it on was that I had an unread message from Angelo.

My chest tightened. I swept the notification off my screen, mumbling, "Fuck you."

Unfortunately, the damage had been done by then: as much as I tried to block him out, Angelo remained at the forefront of my mind. Of course, he didn't bring with him loving feelings, just pain and resentment. As time passed, the emotions grew, fed by the thought that Angelo was most likely unbothered whereas I was hurting.

So, I decided to do the one thing that I was sure would bother him.

Dylan picked up after a few rings. "Hello?"

"Hi!" I exclaimed. "How are you?"

"Uh, I'm alright. How about-"

"Fine, fine! So anyway, I was wondering if you want to meet up again sometime this week."

"Oh, about that..."Dylan cleared his throat. "I, uh, told my girl about our meetup and she was kinda pissed-"

Well, no kidding!

"-and she doesn't want me meeting up with you again."

I furrowed my brow. "Wait, what?"

"She's not comfortable-"

"But we're not doing anything inappropriate together! Can't you talk to her about it?"

"Uh...honestly, I'll rather not. I'm not even supposed to be talking to you right now; I only picked up because I felt you deserved to know. Take care, Aimee."

"Dylan, wait-"

He hung up.

Throwing my phone on my bed, I snarled, "Fuck!"

. . .

"Miguel, you're late; as expected."

Grinning, Miguel tipped an imaginary hat at Precious. She rolled her eyes, then grabbed an apron off the counter and tossed it at him. "You can start us off today: blend the red bell peppers, tomatoes, scotch bonnet, and one onion."

"Didn't we establish that my job is to supervise you all?"

"I'm in charge of today's session, and I say you blend."

Miguel looked at the ingredients, then back at Precious. "How about I handle the food tasting-"

"Now, Miguel!"

"Fine!" He groaned. "What are we making anyway?"

"You would know if you had shown up on time." Crossing her arms, Precious looked at me. "Aimee, care to fill him in?"