BAD INTENTIONS (BAD #1)

CHAPTER 7

CAROLINE

I hurry down the stairs and frown when I see the mess all around the house. Everyone's gone now. I catch some people making their way out the backdoor, laughing at something. I walk to the living room and turn off the music. When I turn around, I see two police officers standing outside by the doorway.

I gulp then I put a smile on my face and try to relax my shoulders. "Oh hi," I say casually as I walk towards them. "I'm sorry, I'm guessing this is about the music?"

"Yes," one of them says. "We had a noise complaint."

"I'm so sorry," I say with a smile. "I didn't realize how late it was."

"Looks like you had quite the party here," the other police officer says as he looks around the mess in the living room and kitchen.

"Uh, yeah," I say then smile. "But it's over now. I promise not to cause any more trouble."

"So everyone decided to leave at the same time?" He asks suspiciously.

I shrug. "I guess so. I was actually upstairs in my room." I do my best fake yawn. "I'm very tired so I'm glad everyone left. Did you guys need anything else?"

They look at each other and I watch them, hoping they don't ask me for some identification because that would be really bad.

They don't look convinced but before they can say anything, Xander suddenly appears behind them and I let out a sigh. This is the first time I'm actually glad to see him.

"What is going on here?" He asks and the cops turn to look at him.

He's wearing a black suit. The first few buttons of his white shirt are unbuttoned and his hair is a little messy, almost as if he's ran his hand over it a thousand times...or maybe someone else did. I can't help but wonder if he was with Sandra when I called him.

"Are you the owner of the house?" one of the cops asks him.

Xander nods. "Yes, I'm Xander Sullivan."

"Well, Mr. Sullivan, there was a noise complaint," the cop says. "And we have reason to believe there were minors drinking in your house."

"That's ridiculous," I say laughing. "I go to UCLA. I can promise that everyone here was old enough to drink. I don't hang out with people that are younger than me." I look at Xander. "The music just got too loud but the party's over as you can see."

Xander looks at me and nods slowly, playing along. "I'm sorry, officers. She's my new roommate and it looks like we're going to have to go over the house rules again." He gives me an amused look then he looks at them. "It won't happen again, you have my word."

The cops exchange a look and I gulp, feeling nervous that they won't buy the story.

"I'll walk you to your car," Xander says when they don't say anything.

They glance at me one more time before they finally give in and walk back to their car with Xander.

I sigh in relief and watch as Xander talks to them by their car. They laugh at something as if they've been friends for a long time. I can totally see how good of a business man Xander is. That's good, considering he's a running a company and all.

After a moment, I walk to the kitchen and pull out some trash bags. I start picking up the trash in the living room. There are beer cans and red cups everywhere. It seems like none of these kids were taught to throw away the trash in the trash can. As I do that, I think about Brianna. I can actually sympathize with her more than she knows. I actually threw a couple parties when I was younger behind my dad's back too. Now that I'm older, I realize that it was a big cry for help.