Filmed_ An Alpha Bad Boy Romance(19)

And yet he had such a fucked up past. His father was clearly an awful human being, and Noah didn’t seem much better. He was a womanizer and a drinker. He kept calling me by that awful nickname, even though I asked him multiple times to stop. His perfect smile, great sense of style, and amazing body annoyed the hell out of me. It pissed me off how much I found myself thinking about him.

If he was so terrible, why couldn’t I just start ignoring him? There were plenty of guys at Temple, and some of them were pretty hot. I was sure I could meet someone else with a similar taste in movies if that was what I really wanted. Why was Noah Carterson the man that stuck out in my head?

Trying to distract myself, I pulled out my laptop and logged in. I opened up Facebook and stopped short in my tracks when I saw the New Message icon at the top of my screen. I had completely forgotten about adding him earlier, like an idiot. My heart began to hammer in my chest, and I was nervous to read his message. I clicked the icon and the window popped up at the bottom of my screen.

Noah: Thanks for the add, dots.

That was it. Nothing else, no jokes about me stalking him, nothing. I stared at the message for a second, and then decided to type back.

Me: Stop calling me dots. And you’re welcome.

I hit send, then clicked his name and started paging through his pictures. They were the pretty typical college bro pics, plenty of drinking with his boys, boring stuff. But I started to notice that there were different girls in almost every set of pictures, as if he went out with different people every night.

Or, he was meeting new girls every night. That pretty much solidified his reputation in my mind. Noah Carterson was definitely a player, although I had to admit that didn’t necessarily mean he was a bad person. I noticed there weren’t any pictures of his family, and I realized I didn’t know anything about them, except for who his father was. I didn’t know his mother, or if he had any siblings, or if he was close to his grandparents, or his cousins. Basically, I knew nothing about him.

Suddenly, the sound on my computer dinged loudly, and I turned it down, startled. I was constantly forgetting to turn down my volume, and it was always scaring the crap out of me.

When I looked back at the screen, I got the second biggest fright of the day: Noah had sent me another message. There was a little green dot next to his name, which meant he was currently online, and currently messaging me.

I stared at it for a second, at a loss. I hadn’t planned on actually talking to him. I clicked his name and the window popped back up.

Noah: Don’t be so sensitive, dots. It’s a compliment that I keep thinking about your underwear.

He could be such an asshole. And yet I was blushing, and my heart began to pound. He hadn’t been so direct before, and always skirted outright saying what he meant. I guessed talking online gave him a little extra confidence, or at least he wasn’t afraid of me punching him in the nose.

Me: Keep it up and I’m going to pour popcorn over your head at work.

Noah: I welcome that. I love popcorn.

Me: Not when you get that fake butter stuff in your hair.

Noah: Don’t assume. I love fake butter, too.

I couldn’t help but smile. He was fast, and always seemed to have a comeback prepared. That was something I liked about Noah: he was clearly smart, sharp, and funny. He could be a total jerk sometimes, but I had to admit that I did like sparring with him. I hadn’t met too many guys that could keep up with me, let alone guys that held their own. Noah was a rare breed. I just wished he would stop calling me “dots.”

Me: Okay then, we’ll find out.

Noah: Looking forward to it. What are you up to?

Me: Not much. Just got back from lunch with my mom. You?

Suddenly, I felt awkward about having mentioned my mom. What if he knew about his dad and my mom? Noah was into the whole film community, and so it wouldn’t be super unlikely that he had heard her name, and he could have put two and two together since I last asked him about our parents. I wasn’t sure how I felt about any of it, let alone how it affected Noah and I. Truthfully, it shouldn’t change the way I saw him at all. But I couldn’t help but imagine my poor mother, kicked out of her dream career because of some petty movie producer.

Noah: Not much. Killing time in the library.

Me: That’s pretty cool, you’re such a good student.

Noah: Nah, not really, dots. Feel like doing something?

That took me by surprise. Noah wanted to hang out with me again? What was with that guy? One second I was insulting him, and the next he was pretending like it never happened, and everything was cool. I shook my head in disbelief. I did want to see him, and it wasn’t like I had anything better to do. As I began to type back to him, I suddenly stopped and stared at the screen.