𝐫𝐢𝐩𝐩𝐥𝐞 𝐞𝐟𝐟𝐞𝐜𝐭 || baxter radic

4.

The party has come and half gone. Summer for once isn't attached to Ari. In fact, she's spent the entire night what feels like staring into my soul. She's calculating every single one of my movements. Mapping out every facial expression I make. I can tell she's concerned by my outburst, but I know she won't address it. Instead she's just watching from a distance. She's becoming the person I am, a people watcher.

I'm stood by the fridge grabbing some water for myself, when I feel a pair of eyes staring at the back of me. I turn around expecting it to be the looming cloud that's been Summer, but it's not. Bax is standing there, leaning against the kitchen island with a question hanging on the tip of his tongue.

"Hello." I raise my brows at him in shock that I'm in his focus right now, not someone else. Also, how lame can I be? Hello? What person causally greets someone with a hello?

"Maybelle." Baxter raises himself off the counter and slips my cup from my hand, stealing a sip like I've poured the cup for him. I mean I'd give it to him in a heartbeat, but I was genuinely parched.

"That's my name..." I trail out my last word still confused on why he's guarding me in the kitchen.

"Gonna spill why you called me cute earlier?" His eyes dance. It's like he's enjoying making my skin crawl. And he probably is. But I hate this. Of course this happens to me. Of freaking course.

"I—" I start but the words are just trapped in the messy maze inside my head. Every direction they turn is toward a dead end and I'm standing here looking like a fool once again.

"Going to blame Summer again?" He steps toward me, grabbing my hand and placing the cup of water back into it. My eyes instantly jump to where his skin touches mine. Now not only is my mind a mess, but it's distracted as well.

After a few seconds of silence, my mind jumps in, "huh?" I look up to see a smug look on his face. He knows exactly what he's doing. If he were a cop and I were a criminal, it would be easy to say I've been caught red handed.

"Right. That's what I thought." Bax chuckles as he turns to walk away. My mind clicking in the moment he decides the conversations over.

"Bax!" I call out and he actually stops, he turns, and waits for me to say more. The only acceptable response is an answer to his original question. I didn't have the guts for that.

"Summer misheard me." My head drops. Why couldn't I just admit that I thought he was cute, definitely not cute, definitely hot, but not the point. Finding someone attractive shouldn't be an issue, but I feel like it might be.

"So you don't think I'm cute?" By the time the words finish rolling off his tongue, he stood next to me again. His hand on the kitchen island practically touching mine.

"I don't recall saying that." I move my hand away and spin around in frustration. I feel like I make an audible groan, but that might be all in my head. Totally embarrassment making me lose all self-control.

"Always so easily flustered Maybelle." He chuckles and walks off.

I storm off to my room, slamming the door behind me. For a second I was beginning to think that maybe he genuinely cared about that I thought about him. But of course not. He just wanted to make me flustered. Wanted to make me feel overwhelmed.

This is why I kept my emotions private. Any time you give someone an inch they take a mile. Emotions are like a game of cards. One is always being played. Someone wins, and the others lose. I'm notorious for being the biggest loser in card games. They never fall in my favor.

Not even fifteen minutes pass before there's a knock on my door. "Go away." I mumble out, but the door clicks opened before I even finish speaking.

I turn my head toward the door to see the pink haired boy standing at the door. "Come here to make fun of me?" I roll over so my back is toward him, I don't want to see the smug expression I know he'll have painted across his face.

"You know you give nothing to imagination." His voice gets closer as he walks toward my bed.

"If you're going to insult me, you can just leave." I'm genuinely upset. But he's right. I don't. I'm as boring as it gets. If Summer wasn't my best friend, maybe it'd be another story, but I can't compete with that.

"You don't really want that though." His voice is smooth, it doesn't waiver. His words are carefully chosen. His tone complementing actually what he's trying to portray.

I don't. "I do."

"How many mornings do you wake up early just to go to the beach?" What's this? A quiz now?

"That's not relevant." I stab a dagger into my own side, because it's very relevant.

"It's every day." He's confident with his answer. But how does he know?

He's hovering at the end of my bed and I know he has to be staring at me. But there's no way in hell I'm pealing my eyes off the wall they've been staring at this entire conversation. If I look, I swear he'll learn all my secrets.

"How do you even know that?" My fingers fidget with a string on my blanket as I wait for a response.

"That's not relevant." He repeats my own statement back to me. Again, it is relevant.

"Well you got me. Big whop. I go to the beach, like most people do. What do you want Bax?" I finally sit up and let him look for whatever answers he's been searching for. It's clear there's a point for all of this.

"You know what I want May." His eyes narrow as he brings his face closer to mine. We've never been closer and my heart hasn't ever beat faster. I know without doubt my face looks like I've layered on an overabundance of blush on it, but I don't even have a bit on my cheeks.

"I'm not going to confess to something that you miss heard." I stand my ground. The only reason I do is because it's the only way I've earned a bit of his time. He's spent minutes if not hours focusing on trying to rattle together why his name left my mouth combined with a positive attribute. 

"So now it's not Summer. Now I miss heard something? Your stories changing. What lie are you going to tell me next?" His fingers nick my chin and I fight off a smile I know he's waiting for me to crack.

"Baxter, there are no lies." I fall back on my bed, annoyed that I'm having this conversation to begin with. We should be talking about how lame the party is. Or how Ari is just going to break Summer's heart again. I would take anything other than this conversation that's backing me into a corner. 

"My full name, you're going to crack eventually." His charm and inability to let things go is sending me. Every time he speaks I have to fight off the urge to spill my guts. To tell him that he is cute, that I've liked him since I laid my eyes on him. "All you have to do is confess one of the many secrets you've been keeping to yourself, and I'll leave."

I open my mouth to speak, but his thoughts catch up to him. "You don't want me to leave." He scoffs playfully. "How could I forget."

I run my hands down my face before I sit up on my bed again. "Why do you care so much?" 

"I don't. I just like watching you suffer." He smirks as reaches out to touch my cheeks. "Like I said, you give nothing to the imagination." And just like that he walks away letting me seethe with my bodies inability to keep its secrets.