Beware of Bad Boy(53)

To me, the knock on the door was obnoxious, so it must’ve been Jared’s weak fists. I got out from under Gianna to let them in. Cece practically trampled over me in the doorway to get to Gianna. Jared and I just gave each other a nod, no love lost there. Right now was about comforting Gianna, not beating the shit out of each other again.

“Gigi! Tell us what happened! I’ll run that jerk over with Caleb’s car! What did he do?” Cece raged. My car? She could just leave my baby out of it.

Gianna calmly explained to them that while she was walking to class, Josh grabbed her from behind again and forced her out of the building. He went crazy finding out she was dating me and kept yelling at her, demanding she break up with me and give them another chance. He slammed her against the wall like last time, but harder, so that she was knocked out. By the end of her story, Gianna was crying again and I let Cece comfort her.

I picked up the story from there, letting them know I beat the crap out of Josh in an eye for an eye style. I also told them I planned on getting Dante and Taye to come with me to have a nice long talk with Josh sometime in the near future.

“I’m coming with,” Jared insisted.

Grudgingly, I bit out, “Fine.” I did respect the fact that he was always looking out for Gianna, but I still didn’t have to like him. It was the principle of it. He wanted what was mine.

The four of us hung out for about an hour, trying to cheer Gianna up and make her forget about being attacked. It worked mostly because Cece was a little ball of hyper energy. However, Cece didn’t like violence in movies, so we switched it to one of my mom’s indie flicks.

It was getting late, so I told them Gianna and I had to get home before Julie and my dad god worried. We said our goodbyes and on the drive home Gianna was in much better spirits.

At home, my dad gave me a disapproving look and Julie questioned us coming home so late. I wondered if she was starting to get suspicious. They bought our excuse of an afterschool homecoming project. I’d been smart enough to call in to the school’s office earlier pretending to be my dad to excuse our absences.

Upstairs in my room I called Dante. He’d already heard about what happened from Taye, who found out from Jared. The plan was for the three of them to meet me at my school sometime after they got out tomorrow. Then we’d wait for Josh at his truck after football practice. He didn’t see me by myself as enough of a threat, so we’d see how he liked the threat of four of us.





CHAPTER TWENTY



“It seems like the chaos of this world is accelerating, but so is

the beauty in the consciousness of more and more people.”

-Anthony Kiedis



GIANNA



Caleb slept in my bed with me last night, waking me up every hour just in case I had a concussion. He slipped out of my room before dawn and went back to his own so my mom wouldn’t catch us. In the morning, he drove me to school again. He insisted on driving me everywhere nowadays, but I didn’t mind. But would I ever drive my Jeep again? Maybe I should’ve demanded we take my car sometimes.

Caleb told Kara and the misfits, as he’d so fondly nicknamed them, about Josh attacking me twice at school. It was kind of embarrassing. He left out the first incident before I broke up with Josh when he tried to force himself on me.

They agreed to help keep an eye on me at school which made me feel like a helpless wimp. As if knowing about my ex-boyfriend drama weren’t bad enough. Even if it was pathetic, it’d make me feel safer to always have someone with me.

Josh scared the crap out of me yesterday, acting like a psychopath. Caleb was so sweet through it all, taking care of me at his mom’s place, feeding me and trying to get my mind off what happened. Maybe he was capable of being a good boyfriend after all.

Caleb drove us home after school but made no move to get out of the car. “I’m going back to the school to meet Dante, Taye and Jared. We’re going to wait until Josh is out of football practice then confront him.”

“Do you think this is such a good idea Caleb? I mean, what if he gets crazier after this? Maybe we should just call the police on him.”

“We could do that, but they’d want to speak with your mom and Josh. Josh knows we’re together and it may get back to your mom. Are you ready for her to find out about us yet?”

Some choice. “I’m not looking forward to that confrontation,” I grumbled. “Fine, do it your way.”

“Good, we’ll take care of it ourselves.” He sounded so confident that roughing Josh up would work. I wasn’t so sure. If I had any more problems with Josh after this, I’d go straight to the cops and risk my mom finding out about me and Caleb.