All The Odds

Seventeen

//One day when the sky is falling, I'll be standing right next to you. Nothing will ever come between us, cause I'll be standing right next to you...// Chris Brown & Justin Bieber.

"I don't like how he keep sending you things," Iverson complained in a stern voice, walking closely behind her. "Or that you seem to be having a kick out of it."

'Maybe I am' Bella thought with a little shrug as she kept walking towards her room, a box of street quality and a single red rose clutched to her chest like she was a goblin and that was her gold.

Blissful would have summed up the next couple of days after the beach if Iverson wasn't constantly breathing down her neck like a possessive jerk whenever Derrick sent her a gift.

She was sincere, got on the phone with Derrick the instant they got home from the beach and told him she was with Iverson now. How could she be blamed that he just laughed in her ears.

"You were there all these while but the minute I showed interest he decided he wants you too and of course you are thrilled, aren't you?"

"I'm not a piece of meat." Bella had snapped at him. Iverson had always been there too and though he didn't say, she knew he wanted her.

"Well I'm not going to just give up on you okay?" Derrick argued. She wouldn't lie, it warmed her heart.

"I know you probably want him because you think he's the good guy and let's face it, you aren't much of a risk taker which is what being with me will be, a risk. But I promise to work hard on my commitment issues if you just give me a chance. I have more excitement to offer you than that piece of shít."

"I'm sorry." She whispered with nothing better to say and ended the call on him. The next day however, she received a bouquet larger than life from him, to replace the one Iverson destroyed, said the message attached to it.

"Are you even listening to me?" Iverson voice brought her back to the present just as she slipped into her room with him right behind her.

"You know Derrick is only doing this to piss me off right?"

"I know right?" She laughed sarcastically, placing the stuffs in her hand on the table before turning to face him with her hands on her hips.

"With how hideous and totally undesirable way I look, god forbid anyone genuinely like me or want to be with me just for me. Makes me wonder why the hell you are with me Ivers, who are you trying to piss off?"

She glared at him as he opened and closed his mouth twice at a lost for words. "Huh, who?" She prompted.

"Goddamn it woman, how do you always turn my words around and hit me in the face with it?" He said with that stupid smirk that has a way of instantly dissipating Bella's anger. He moved to stand before her, leaving only a breath of gap between their bodies.

"You know that's not what I meant." He picked a strand of her hair and twirled it around his forefinger. Her heart began to flutter in the rapid way she had come to associate with having him close.

"You are the most beautiful woman I've ever seen and you don't even try." His eyes was sincere, at least he believed what he was saying. He removed one of her hands from her hip and placed it on his chest, where his heart beat.

"I just found you and I don't want to lose you. Ever." He said in an emotionally ladened voice, his eyes brimming with the words left unsaid.

A lump was caught in Bella's throat as she stared up at him, seeing that clear message in his eyes always left her unsettled, even more than the two times she had heard him say it.