The Senior Bad Boy | ✔️

18. Wishful + Warnings

Part 2/2 for the double update! Go back and read chapter 17 if you haven't yet! 🧡

Three days later, my heart still couldn't decide if it wanted to be happy because of the conversation with Jayce on Sunday night, or if it wanted to get all muddled and tangled up in thinking about Tom Jeffers, Alexei Solis, Layla Wright and the fact that soccer tryouts were coming up on Friday. As was cheerleading tryouts. Layla hadn't let me forget.

I'm not sure if she was intentionally operating under the ideology of "keep your friends close and your enemies closer," but it sure seemed like she was. It didn't matter how many times I said I wasn't going to fucking try out for her squad. She still cornered me multiple times this week to tell me I should try out, and each time she gave me increasingly weirder shit. From Pom Pom pens and spirit ribbons that I was supposed to wear in my hair or something, to coupons for manicures and pedicures, to most recently, a literal eagle egg that I don't even want to know how she got her hands on. If the Eagles are supposed to be our mascot, you'd think she would protect them, not literally murder a fetus of one. This just further proves that she's a completely cold-blooded sadist.

And Jayce is still dating her, so that's cool and stuff.

I get that he's using her to further his dream, but I still think it's wrong, even if she is a gargoyle. Not to mention, it fucking sucks knowing that any thought or fantasy I have about him is about another girl's boyfriend.

Jayce and I haven't seen each other much this week, other than after school when we have conditioning for soccer and can see each other from across the field. Every day, he's given me one of those hot head nod things guys do, along with a little wave and a smirk. I hate to admit that every time, it's made me have to fight off a smile.

He hadn't talked to me about this photoshoot he supposedly wants to do, but it's not like I didn't have a shitload of other things to occupy my time.

Between AP classes, soccer conditioning and multiple bookings for Party Princess this week, I'd somehow managed to also spend time with Presley, who'd been shockingly great at not bringing up Jayce.

It was 11pm on Wednesday night and I had just finished my homework after conditioning and a short hospital visit dressed as Belle. I had an AP Calculus test tomorrow that I was not particularly worried about, but still wanted to make sure I was well-prepared for. It had been a long ass day.

I ran downstairs in my fuzzy socks, volleyball shorts and big t-shirt to make a cup of chamomile tea before tucking myself into bed. The house was dim and quiet, as I'm sure mom was tweaked out in her room and Haven was out with his friends. Or maybe he was already asleep, since he's been waking up so early for his runs. I don't know. We hadn't spoken much since the meeting with Jeffers on Sunday.

I stand on my tiptoes to reach for the tea leaves when I hear a knock on the front door.

The fuck?

My heart jolts with anxiety. Who the hell is knocking on my front door at 11pm? I cower behind the kitchen entryway, which is only about 10 feet from the door, terrified to move or breathe.

They knock louder, harder.

I wish I had my fucking phone. I'd be dialing 911 right about now. I feel like I can't breathe as I start imagining who could possibly be on the other side of the slab of plywood.

"Fallon!" A suppressed but shrill voice shouts from the other side of the door. "Open up! I know you're in there, you whore! I'm freezing my tits off out here!"

I hear a callous cackle that I'd recognize anywhere.

Fuck.

It's Layla.