My Next Door Bully

Bonus - Anthony

BONUS CHAPTER - ANT & BRODY

10 MONTHS AFTER HIGH SCHOOL

I'm worried out of my mind.

Scared.

Enraged.

Jealous.

Angry.

Different feelings swirl in my head. It's true. He's cheating on me. Brody fucking Gallahgher is cheating on me.

We'd been (unofficially) dating for ten months since the end of high school. We've been together and acted like a couple but never quite made it official.

Brody has been acting distant, and weird this past week. He's always hiding his phone and is jumpy when I ask him about it.

Brody's in the shower right now and I took the liberty of checking his phone since he left it outside. But boy, was that a huge mistake.

After I saw the text I couldn't hold the tears. I, Anthony Ramiréz, was crying over a freaking boy I've been dating (unofficially) for more than half a year. I think I love Brody; he's caring and kind and sweet, handsome as hell, smart, everything you would like in a guy.

Yet, here I am quieting down my sniffles as I hear the shower curtain open and Brody step out.

I drop his phone on the table before I grab my coat and make a move to get out of our apartment. Before I approached the door I could see him walking towards me.

"Where are you going?" he asks in his overly manly and scratchy voice I could just swoon over. Anthony, get a grip!

To say he was buff and looked hot with water dripping down his body, is an understatement. He looked like freaking Greek Adonis. My eyes traveled down his chiseled chest and deep abs to his v line where his towel rested. I definitely loved this boy.

The way he walks, like when a hot piece of meat comes in a movie and they walk in slow motion because we need to have our time to study the Greek god descending from the heavens, that's what he looks like. Dirty blond short hair, sharpest jaw in the goddamned universe, and bright blue ocean eyes that light up my world. How did I get so lucky?

"Done staring?" he asks slily as he approaches me.

I can feel my face heat up. We live together and are in a (unofficial) relationship and he still has this kind of effect on me.

And then I remember. The text. The damned text. Brody's a lying cheating scumbag son of a—

"You okay, babe? You look kind of pale," Brody says, snapping me out of my train of thought. He reaches out to feel my face and I flinch away without meaning to. "What's wrong?" he softly asks.

I suddenly can't take it anymore, I can't stand to look him in the face when I know he's cheating one me. But I'm also too much of a chicken to confront him about it. So I do the first thing that comes to mind. I run.

I grab my keys and say quickly, "I have to go." Then, I walk out the door and into the elevator not looking back at his confused face.

...

"Ant it's okay," Tessa, my best friend, says.

I called her as soon as I could without breaking down. But the moment I told her, well guess what I did, I broke down.

I was driving mindlessly to get away trying to not think about Brody at all. But he kept on calling and texting me. So of course, the traitor that I call my brain, wouldn't stop thinking about Brody. Brody, Brody, Brody, Andrew. Who the f to the k is Andrew. And then my mind wanders back to the text: