scoring you

Chapter 36

Aiden

I'm not going to lie when I say this nerves me.

I've wanted this- her- for years.

And now at any moment it could all slip away from my grasp within a second. Slip through the cracks formed from our pasts and wander away into another world.

Leaving me like my father, incapable of loving again.

The girl across from me laying in my bed smiles a toothy grin, which I can't get enough of the past 24 hours.

"Hmm," she taps her head in thought, "okay, would you rather own a café but your only customers are robots or work at a café with robots?"

I scrunch my face together, "what kind of question is that?"

"Better than your: would you rather own a phone or computer," she pulls a face, "boring."

I shrug, "a very practical question."

"No," she says, "a stupid question."

"Yours isn't any better," I shoot back, "that is stupid."

"No," she sighs, "it's fun, your just boring."

"Your boring," I reply back.

"Oh?" She asks, "then why am I in your fucking bed Peters? Right fucking now?"

I shrug smugly, "maybe I like boring people."

"Nah," she corrects, "you like exciting people, like me."

"Now your just lying to yourself."

She taps the point of my nose, "you are."

"No, you are."

"Ugh," she groans, "your impossible to play games with, I bet you were a horrible kid to play monopoly with."

"I won every time."

"Exactly," she states, "horrible."

A ding comes from her phone and her face darkens out the sound, it's being doing that for a while and I've ignored it until now.

"Give me it," I say simply.

"What?" She asks but it's obvious that she's in deep concentration as she stares at something else on her screen.

"Your phone, give it to me."

She doesn't even answer as she scrolls through the contents of the messages she's so obviously received, I reach my hand down and pull it right out of her grasp.

"Hey!" She scowls, "give it back Peters!"

I turn it downwards on my knee, "who's sending you messages Alyssa? I know you don't fucking like them and if you don't tell me I'm looking at your phone."

She clenches her jaw and falls back onto her pillow, shaking her head into the softness of it. "My father," I just make out by the quiet sound of her voice.

The sound of his name as an authority figure just makes me want to shove my fists through his skin. "Can I look?" I ask, barely keeping my anger in check.

She nods and I scroll to the top of the messages and make my way down the bunch of them.

My eyes narrow at the recent date of the first text received.

"Tess made me delete the other ones," she tells me looking at my pale face, "she doesn't know about any of these ones." Her voice is quiet.

I read the following messages.