Beware of Bad Boy(16)

Before he could say anything else, Jared came up to us and asked to talk to me alone. Seizing on the opportunity to ditch Caleb, I quickly walked with Jared to the front door. When I glanced over my shoulder at Caleb, I saw a disgruntled expression on his face. Good, it wouldn’t be fair if I were the only one annoyed.

Jared and I sat on the front porch. The late summer night breeze was nice. “Thanks for interrupting us. He gets on my nerves.”

“Really?” Jared seemed surprised. “I thought he was pretty cool.”

I nudged him playfully. “That’s because he beat up Josh.”

“I’m glad you broke up with Josh.” I watched as the breeze picked up a chunk of Jared’s dark hair. Then I noticed he seemed tense.

“Well, I don’t know if we’ve technically broken up. I mean, the words haven’t been said. I’ve been ignoring his calls and texts all day, but I haven’t told him it’s over yet. I do plan to officially end things with him. I’m just not looking forward to dealing with his protests.”

Jared was thoughtful for a moment before saying, “Good enough for me.” His lips were on mine a moment later. This was the second time in one night a guy surprised me like this. I hoped it wasn’t a new trend.





CHAPTER SEVEN



“Whenever, at a party, I have been in the mood to study fools, I have always looked

for a great beauty: they always gather round her like flies around a fruit stall.”

-Jean Paul



GIANNA



I couldn’t believe Jared was kissing me! What was even stranger was that I wanted to kiss him back. This felt good, but I couldn’t help comparing it to Caleb’s kiss. Was Jared’s kiss different in a good or a bad way? Kissing Caleb was like a fire igniting, probably because he made me so mad. Kissing Jared was like a slow burn. Why the hell was I thinking of Caleb while I was kissing Jared. I hated Caleb!

Jared pulled back from the kiss and put his forehead against mine. “I’ve been waiting to do that for a long time. Like I said, I’m glad you broke up with Josh.”

“Excuse me,” said a stiff voice behind us. We both turned our heads to see Caleb standing there. “Gianna, I need to talk to you before I leave . . . about family stuff.”

Yeah right, family stuff. He just wanted to harass me again.

Jared squeezed my hand and stood up. “Sure, no problem.”

Once the screen door slammed behind Jared, Caleb still hovered above me in the darkness. I couldn’t see his face clearly but he was motionless. “What?” I asked him in exasperation.

“How long has this been going on between you and Jared?”

“It hasn’t. I didn’t know Jared had those kinds of feelings for me until about five minutes ago,” I explained, then added, “Not that it’s any of your business.”

“He isn’t right for you,” Caleb pronounced as if he were some sort of authority on the matter.

“How would you know? You just met him tonight and you just met me a week ago. Besides, I saw you come out of the room with Cece.” When he made an aggravated sound, I couldn’t help teasing, “I think it’d be adorable, a sister and brother dating another sister and brother.”

“Stepsister,” he corrected me. “And nothing happened with me and Cece. We were just talking.”

“Whatever, I just hope Cece didn’t taste Skylar in your mouth.”

Caleb chuckled and sat down next to me. “Like you should talk.”

I had no comeback for that, so I changed the subject, “What did you want to talk about that’s so important you had to interrupt me and Jared?”

“I want to talk to you about the fact it’s almost two o’clock Sunday morning. Your ass is mine. Grab your bag, let’s go!” he ordered like a drill sergeant.

“No,” I refused.

He gave me an oh yeah look and pulled out his phone. “As a good stepson, I feel it’s my duty to inform Julie that I found you at a wild party downtown.”

He messed with his phone and I caved. “Fine!”

Stomping inside to get my overnight bag, I grabbed it from Cece’s room only to have Jared stop me in the living room when he noticed it in my hand. “Where are you going, Gigi?”

“Um, family emergency. I’ll call you guys later. Tell Cece I’ll call her tomorrow.”

“Okay, we’ll talk about . . . things, later,” he said pointedly. Reminded of the kiss, I felt awkward around Jared. How would it change things between us?

“Not likely,” Caleb muttered from where he stood by the front door.

Caleb held the door open and followed me outside. As soon as we were out of earshot on the sidewalk, I spun around and demanded, “So, what now?”