Hardin Scott has been madly in love with Tessa Young since the moment he first laid eyes on her, but there's no way she could ever see him as anything more than a friend. After all, he's a bad boy with a promiscuous past and she's a sweet and innoce...
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I've been pacing around this damn living room for what feels like hours. Where the hell is Tessa? I'm about to call her when I hear the door open.
"Hardin! I'm back!" She sounds out of breath.
I rush to greet her and see why. "Let me help you with all that stuff!"
"Thanks. There's more in my car."
"So, I guess we're roomies for the next little while." I can't help but smile.
"Thanks again for letting me stay here." She smiles brightly.
"Anything you need, remember that, okay?"
"Okay." She smiles again.
After I help her move most of her stuff into Zed's old room, I turn to her and say, "I'm sorry about earlier."
"It's okay, Hardin. You weren't exactly wrong," she sighs.
My heart drops. I swear if he fucking hurt her... "What does that mean?" I ask impatiently.
"He is starting to scare me. Steph said he showed up drunk going on about how you and I better not be together. He also threatened that he'll make me regret leaving him, again."
"See! I knew this would happen! He's not the same person we used to be friends with, Tessa," I warn.
"I know." She shakes her head and looks down.
"Promise you won't put yourself in a position where you'll be alone with him? If for some reason you need to be within even a foot of him, I'm going to be there," I demand.
"Okay, Hardin."
"Come here, Tess." I open my arms to her. She walks over and buries her face into my chest. "You don't have to be scared. I'll never let anyone, especially Zed, hurt you. You know that, right?"
"I do."
"How about we do something to take your mind off of everything? What would you like to do for the rest of the night?"
"Um, maybe we could watch some old movies or something?"
"Of course. You go pick something and I'll get us some snacks. We should order pizza for dinner, too."
"Okay, sounds good." I finally see that breathtaking smile again.
As I'm gathering whatever snacks we have in the cupboard, my mind drifts to that almost kiss. I wonder if we can finally finish what we started, or has Zed ruined that for us?
A few hours later we've finished two movies, more than half the pizza, and devoured almost all the snacks. Tessa is starting to get sleepy, but insists she isn't ready to go to bed yet and wants to watch another movie.
"Well, at least change into your pyjamas," I suggest.
"Yeah, okay." She yawns. "Be right back." She goes to her room.
