Caught up with the Bad Boy {COMPLETE!}

Chapter Thirty Six: Backsliding is a bitch.

March 13th

Backslide: verb. Relapse into bad ways or error.

"Sometimes when I dream, a guy in a raccoon suit appears and tells me that I need to eat my vegetables. Is that normal?"

Sam snorts loudly from her spot against the lockers, I can't help but giggle at Liam. Only he would be having this sort of predicament and genuinely be worried about it.

I hide my smile when he looks at me with his innocently worried expression. Sometimes he reminded me of a Lab puppy.

"I'm sure it's perfectly normal Liam. But maybe start eating more vegetables?"

He scrunches up his face in disgust. "I hate apples."

I tilt my head at him and can't hold in my laugh this time.

"Liam, apples aren't vegetables!"

A clearing of the throat interrupts our conversation. I catch a quick look in Sam's direction before turning around to see who it is. Her face falls into something desperate and unwilling. Something that is rare to see on Sam Mason's face.

A graceful smile falls onto my lips when I see Cole. His expression nervous, and by the way he smiles I know he's hiding something. Or at least trying to hold something in.

"Hey," I say slowly.

He scratches the back of his neck "do you think I could talk to you?" He asks, his eyes indicating that he want to only talk to me.

I nod and look back at Sam and Liam. I ignore the way Sam looks at me, as if I'm doing something wrong.

I follow Cole as he leads me to the basketball court downstairs. We reach the boys locker rooms before he even speaks. We don't go in, but instead leans against the wall. A memory fills my head making me blush.

The night Cole gave me the rose, this is the wall that I fell into his kisses on.

Weird, how it's only been months later and now Cole and are just friend, and I can't get the memory of a boy with black hair and stormy blue eyes out of my head.

"I'm sorry."

His words bring me out of my memories and confusion clouds my thoughts.

"You're sorry about what?"

He sighs and leans his head back, his brown hair curving a top his ears from his workout this morning. He swollows harshly before he speaks as if he's trying to hold back the word vomit trying to break through.

"The way I treated you," he whispers out. "I shouldn't have done that to you."

I cross my arms, feeling uncomfortable, "where is this coming from?"

He looks at me with a strangeness I've never seen in Cole before.

"Wendy broke up with me," he lets out in one breath. "She just-I don't understand why this keeps happening."

I wrap my arms around him in a hug, his head falling into the crook of my neck, his breath hot against my skin.

"I'm sorry Cole... what happened?"

He pulls away but doesn't let go, instead his hands fall to my waist and stay firmly planted there.

"At first she said it was because she was moving to South Carolina. But, when we got into an argument about it she said there were other reasons."