The Bad Boy's Crush (bxb)

28) To track down a tracker

The boy on the bed rolled his eyes at the childishness. James sighed, "Yes, there is. What's on your mind?"

"Nothing's on my mind, James!" Ryland protested adamantly. He got up from his place on the sofa across the bed and walked to James, landing a hand on his shoulder and shoving him back into the soft pillows, "Just go to sleep!"

"Hey-!" James struggled to sit back upright and when he did, he regarded the back of Ryland's head with a petty glare. "Fine! If you want to be like that when someone's trying to help you, so be it!"

He pulled the covers over himself and roughly turned onto his side with his back to the other boy. James mumbled, "I was going to offer to play chess," He lifted his head up to glare at Ryland again, "But clearly someone's too worked up that their brain wouldn't function properly."

Ryland swivelled around to give a pointed look at James. "Excuse me?"

"You heard me," James mumbled into the sheets a bit more quietly, "... Stupid ass."

"Right," Ryland's nostrils flared in anger and he pounced onto the lump on the bed, wrapping the sheets around the body, suffocatingly, "I'm actually good at chess, I'll let you know!"

James yelped at the sudden tightness around him and he wiggled around, shouting out in annoyance at how he couldn't move properly. The sheets worked as a form of barricade that muffled his voice, "Stop lying! I saw you play against Jiyeon once! You were shit!"

"Wha-" Ryland's words dispersed for a second at James's use of the curse, before he regained his structure in a teasing tone, "What? You think I would purposely win against my own girlfriend?"

"No," James stilled and simply said from under the covers, "I think you just can't win in general."

There was a second's pause, before the cover was lifted off James's face, who gasped for fresh air. He peered up into the face above, that held a gleam of pride and ego in its ice-coloured, cold eyes.

"Get the chess board," Ryland declared hardly.

A curve of the corner of James's lips was felt and he sat up, shrugging carelessly, "Don't be a sore loser later, you asked for it."

After James had gotten up and taken the set from beside the bed, he sat down and opened it. He looked at Ryland with a smirk, "Know how to set it up?"

He was answered with a roll of the eyes, "Of course I do." Ryland reached for the white pieces, "Where did you get it from, anyway? You didn't have this in your bag when you came here."

James stopped setting up his black pieces. How did Ryland know that?

"Did you go through my bag?" James accused the other boy with his eyebrows drawn.

He wouldn't put it past Ryland: He seemed like the type to think he needed to know everything that was in his room.

"No!" Ryland denied, looking offended, "Why would I look through your bag? All I'd find is books, study equipment and what? Reading glasses?" He joked, indicating the typical nerdy things. "I wouldn't find anything interesting, they'd be boring."

James had enough.

He shut his chest set. "We're not playing anymore if you think I'm boring. And eff-wie-eye, Elijah drove me back to my house today to get it."

A groan escaped Ryland's lips and he put his fingers to his forehead, "I'm not saying you're boring- oh my gosh," He mumbled off, evidently giving up.

He watched as James started to shove his pieces back into his set. Ryland tilted his head and smirked, "You just don't want to lose against me."