There goes my heart beating
'Cause you are the reason
I'm losing my sleep, please come back now
There goes my mind racing
And you are the reason that I'm still breathing
I'm hopeless now
I'd climb every mountain
And swim every ocean
Just to be with you and fix what I've broken
Oh, 'cause I need you to see
That you are the reason
There goes my hands shaking
And you are the reason my heart keeps bleeding
I need you now
If I could turn back the clock
I'd make sure the light defeated the dark
I'd spend every hour, of every day keeping you safe
- Calum Scott, You Are The Reason
AUTUMN
I chewed and swallowed. "What do you mean?" I tried to take another tiny bite and refrained from eating like someone who hadn't seen pizza in years.
"When I visited William, I told you this the other day. I met you in Carlton." He finished his pizza and downed his wine. "Remember that time when you saved Everly from drowning?"
"Everly? Why did that name sound so familiar?" I spent one full minute searching this name in my brain database but found none. "Who's Everly?"
Frazier laughed. "Nathaniel's little sister," he provided the answer yet I still couldn't figure out the story. "Cunningham Falls? Remember anything?" I shook my head shyly as I blamed my brain. "Well, we went there with the others, I think you were in a car with Castile, your boyfriend, and your petite Asian friend."
"Mey." I nodded to let him continue the story.
"When we were busy getting drunk, we didn't notice that Everly fell into the lake and couldn't swim. You were the one brave enough to jump and save her life. I think Niel owed you a great deal considering his ass is on the line if something happened to Everly."
The mention of Niel refreshed my memory. "Oh! I remember! Why didn't you just mention Eve and Niel?! I would've instantly remembered."
"Because," he said as he raised one brow and leaned forward, "unlike those guys, I don't use the weird shortened version of their names. I'd like to call them using the normal ones: Castile, Raphael, Orlando, William, and Nathaniel."
My eyes narrowed to slits. "I'm sure I heard you mentioning Cas and Liam before."
"Okay, maybe I did but not to the other three. It feels weird saying Owl, Raph, and Niel. What kind of names are those?" He shook his head in disbelief. "Especially Niel and Owl. I still don't get it. Why didn't he use Nate instead? I wouldn't mind calling him Nate."
"I like Niel." I gave my shoulder a small shrug. "It sounds more original and less GG."
Frazier frowned. "What's GG?"
"Gossip Girl," I answered like a true fan although I stopped watching after season four. "You know, Nathaniel Archibald played by the hot Chase Crawford?"
He shook his head. "I've never watched that."
"Anyway, I like Niel more than Nate." I took a sip of my wine. "Sadly, bud," I paused and patted his shoulder lightly. "Even though I remember the incident, I don't remember you."
"Well, I kept a low profile back then and only spent time with Rebekah."
My hand which was reaching for another slice of pizza stopped midair. "Rebekah Saltzman?"
He gave me a nod. "You know her?"
"She's my junior. She went with us on that trip but spent most of her time making out with—" I paused as the realization hit me.
"—me. Making out with me. Yep, I'm that devil who lured the innocent young girls," he continued my sentence and ended with a smirk.
My eyes widened. "How did you know what I said to Mey?!" I continued to stare at him in horror. 'A devil who likes to lure innocent young girls' was exactly the words I'd used to describe him but I remembered when I'd said that to Mey, we were alone. Or so had I thought we were.
"I was sleeping in that storage room when you had that talk with your friend."
"Sleeping?" I made a face. "Eww! Don't tell me you were with Rebekah too."
He laughed. The devil laughed without shame. I couldn't believe my own eyes. "No," he said once he calmed down. "I was sleeping alone."
"Why didn't you sleep in your room?" I would've imagined it was fairly uncomfortable to sleep in the storage room. I doubted they even had a bed there.
"The receptionist girl came to my room and went on the pull. I barely managed to escape her." For someone who could be considered a player, he didn't act like one.
"Didn't you flirt with her the whole time you weren't with Rebekah?"
Under the moonlight and the dimmed street light behind us, I could see his cheek reddened. "I wasn't going for the kill."
I laughed. "Then why did you flirt in the first place? Aren't boys flirting so they could get laid?"
"Not all boys." He made an annoyed grunt, just like any male would react upon hearing this. "I flirt with you cos I like seeing you blush and cos we're friends, this won't have any effect on either of us." I would beg to differ since these last few days his flirtatious comments had made me feel nervous.
I cleared my throat. "Okay, then why did you flirt with Regina?"
"Who?"
I rolled my eyes. "The receptionist."
"You remember the receptionist's name and not mine?" Frazier asked, one dark eyebrow raised in disbelief.
"Like you've said," I shrugged as I continued, "you spent most times locking lips with Rebekah, I hardly knew you existed throughout the whole trip."
"Unbelievable," he mused.
It wasn't that hard to believe. "So, why did you?"
Frazier let out a huge sigh, then looked me in the eye. "I was trying to make someone jealous."
"Who?" I leaned forward as this story just got more interesting. I disliked being involved in a drama but I loved listening to it. "Rebekah?"
He shook his head. "You."
"What?" I was confused. He tended to confuse me a lot. "Me?!"
"Yep." He grabbed his cup and downed his drink in one go. "Believe it or not, I had a crush on you." He took one strawberry and held it a few inches from my mouth. "Strawberry?"
My hand went to grab it but he moves his hand away quickly. "Nah, just take a bite."
I was too perplexed by the new information that I found myself doing exactly as he said. He ate the remaining half and smiled. One charming smile that didn't look like Luke Hemmings' or Harry Styles's' or Shawn Mendes'.
It felt so electric and almost magical how I was pulled by an invisible string toward him. Before I knew it, there were only a few inches left between us.
Maybe it was the wine or the night air. Maybe it was the ocean breeze fanning my face or the wind went through my hair. Whichever it was, I found myself closing the gap between our lips and kissing him.
He didn't respond for five seconds, making me feel self-conscious that I might be a bad kisser, but just when I was about to pull away, he picked up his moment of daze and kissed me back. I could feel the raging pulse of my blood and the pounding of my heart.
This was wrong, so wrong, yet it felt so damn right. I knew he was a good kisser, I'd been kissed by him before but I never knew my body would react this way. Perhaps getting to know him more these last few days had changed things.
My hand snaked up his arm, across his shoulder, and to the side of his face. Suddenly, out of nowhere, he tore his lips from mine and laid back on the blanket. He put his arm over his eyes as if he didn't want to see me as he said, "I'm sorry. I'm sorry I can't."
What does he mean? He can't what?
TYLER
^ this is Tyler, I'm aware that the photo is cropped (lol, I cropped it myself) but you can see the full photo on the web ^
I stood by the window and looked out at Empire State Building beyond. The street was quite packed, filled with people roaming around Fifth Avenue and 23rd Street. Below, the sound of traffic drifted upward to the sixth floor, even with having the windows closed, I could still manage to hear the noise.
My hand reached for the Heineken sitting on the floor beside me. I raised the beer to my lips and tipped my head back as I swallowed hard, past the sudden constriction in my throat. "Fuck!" I cursed under my breath. I'd promised myself that I would not cry, that I would not regret anything. Yet again, saying something and actually doing it were two different things.
I raised the beer to my mouth and took a long drink, hoping that somehow alcohol would make me forget what I'd done. Or if it couldn't, then hopefully I would be drunk enough and pass out because that was the reason I had to pick up the bottle in the first place.
Insomnia wasn't the reason, I was sure of it. It wasn't something physical, like a sleeping disorder, it was her. She was the sole reason I couldn't sleep right now. There was no logical explanation. If she were here, right next to me, I knew I would be able to sleep in an instant.
No. I shook my head. Even if she was here, the fact that I'd hurt her stayed. The fact alone could haunt me even in my dream. I'd done something that I thought I would never do, especially not to her.
I thought I knew the formula: boy meets girl, boy screws up, boy loses the girl. I thought I had made sure that that wouldn't happen to me, that I would not screw up our relationship. I'd cut all ties with Santiano and his organization, I'd stopped using drugs (I'd never liked it anyway, it was all part of the job of being a drug dealer), and I'd given up my revenge plan against my father. I had done everything so there wouldn't be anything that would screw things up.
I downed the remaining beer and put the bottle aside. With a weary sigh, I stood and leaned heavily against the window frame, trying to decide whether or not I wanted to go for a second drink. Perhaps something stronger than a beer, something that would knock me out in no time.
"How drunk are you?" asked Mario, pulling my attention from the city below.
I turned and saw him standing in the doorway. He wore a pair of boxers and a plain white shirt, his chestnut hair sticking up on one side of his head. Mario looked like he had just woken up.
Pointing at the two empty Heinekens on the floor, I replied, "those are not enough to get me drunk." At a time like this, I hoped I wasn't a heavy drinker. In that case, I wouldn't have any trouble knocking myself out. "How's Faith?" I picked up the bottles and walked towards the bin in the kitchen.
"She's asleep." Mario followed me to the kitchen and swung the fridge open. "I hope Nico's taking a day off tonight. It could be a problem if any of the guys saw her here." He nudged his head in the direction of his bedroom where Faith was sleeping inside.
I simply nodded and settled on one of the chairs at the four-seater dining table. Mario poured fresh milk into a microwave-safe mug. It seemed that he was the type who went to bed after drinking a warm glass of milk. I'd never been a fan of milk but it got me wondering if maybe that could help me sleep.
Mario seemed to notice me staring as he took another mug from the drawer and poured some milk inside. "Do you want it cold or warm?"
I vaguely remembered reading somewhere, probably in one of the books that my high school teacher Mr. Stanton gave me, that milk has tryptophan, which is an amino acid that was responsible for inducing sleep. "Hot."
A frown appeared on his forehead. "That's not any of the options, dude. If you want it hot, here," he put the mug on the table in front of me and continued, "you should boil it yourself. I'm happy with a warm one." He went to the microwave and put his mug inside. After setting up the timer, he pressed the start button.
"So much for Italian warm and generous hospitality," I jokingly said as I picked up the mug and headed to the stove.
Mario replied to me with a shrug. "I'm an Italian living in America so there's a difference." The microwave made some noises and he took out his mug.
In minutes, we found ourselves sitting at the dining table with mugs in our hands. "So," Mario asked, wiping off his milk mustache. "What makes you stay up in the middle of the night?" Before I got a chance to answer, he held up one finger and waved it in front of me. "No, no," he said in a thick Italian accent. "You can't blame me or Faith cos nothing happened. We just talked."
I raised one brow and gave him a pointed look.
"Well, we kissed, and I spooned her until she fell asleep," he muttered his answer at a fast speed. "But we didn't make any sound that could disturb you. So," he paused and cleared his throat. "What was it, amigo?"
"Aren't you Italian?"
Mario grinned. "Sorry, I meant to say amico." Even a blind man could tell how happy he was and I was happy for him too, but the fact that I'd just broken up with Autumn today (well, yesterday since it was past midnight now) made my mood as dark as the sky above.
I took a sip of the hot milk and cursed myself as the hot liquid burned my tongue.
"Told you warm milk is better." As if to prove his point, Mario took a sip of his milk before setting the mug on the table and then added, "and safer."
I gave him a murdering glare and he raised both hands like a white flag. "Was it her?"
I swallowed. "Yes."
Mario nodded. "The first six months were the hardest. It's going to sound cheesy and stupid if I said I couldn't sleep and eat since, well, I ate and slept. If not, I wouldn't be here today but inside a coffin. But that doesn't mean that it didn't feel that way." He dropped his gaze to the mug in front of him and his eyebrows knitted into a thin, straight line. "I couldn't eat or sleep properly. Sure, I ate but everything tasted bland. I slept but I wasn't really sleeping cos I woke up the next day feeling more exhausted. And when I was finally able to sleep," he paused and took a deep breath, "she was the only thing in my mind. I dreamt of all the happy memories she and I have shared, and when I woke up, I regretted waking up because I wanted to live in my dream, the only place I could be with her without risking her life."
We finished our milk in silence. A few times I saw Mario opened his mouth as if he wanted to say something but in the end, he closed it again. Maybe he knew that there were too many things inside my head right now and didn't feel like adding more to it.
"Okay, time for bed. I have to wake up in a few hours and drive Faith home before Nico or someone else bursts in here and sees her." Mario took his empty mug and put it in the sink. He was about to walk to his bedroom but paused at the small cupboard next to the TV.
He moved beside me and put two pills on the table beside my mug. "Here. Sleeping pills. I took them whenever I had trouble sleeping. Tonight I don't need my dose, you can have it." A comforting smile appeared on his lips and he patted me on my back and then headed back to his bedroom.
I stared at the pills for five seconds before gulping them down with the rest of the milk.
~*~*~
a/n: I have been writing the concept of "BAD BOYS" for about a year, hopefully, I can launch it on Christmas as planned! BTW, what do you think of the title? I feel that there are too many movies/books titled "BAD BOYS", do you have any suggestions? Think of this as a TV-Series, so it is a name that could become a brand. How does "CARLTON CROWN" sound? Feel free to drop your suggestion in the comments! ♥ loads of pizza, agatha x
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