The Bad Boy Next Door

1. The Neighbors

"Kate, come downstairs so we can go meet the new neighbors." my mom yelled from the bottom of the staircase.

"Okay. Have fun meeting them by yourself, because I'm in the middle of something." I said. I was actually in the middle of something- throwing darts at a picture of my ex boyfriend's face. 1 point for the chin, 2 points for the eyes, and 5 points for the dimples.

     "Get your ass down here right this second. I'll have your phone taken away from you if you don't." She said, starting to get irritated. She tends to go from the friendly neighborhood single mom to the wicked bitch of the west.

     "Fine. I'm not staying long though. I'll stay long enough for them to realize that you can't go 10 minutes without social interaction, so they decide that they'll never invite us over for neighborhood dinners or stuff like that." I said, walking down the stairs. "Let's go. I want to get back to throwing darts at Hamilton's face. I still can't get him in the dimples! Plus, I want to see your face when they tell you to leave them alone." I said, slipping on a jacket and black Chuck Taylors, trying to look presentable.

     So we walked next door. Well, she walked. I just jumped over the fence.

     "Really?" My mom said, disapprovingly. She expects me to be this perfect princess girl. But the truth is, I'm nowhere near a princess. So when we got over to the door, my mom knocked on it like 10 times, not realizing there was a doorbell.

     "Uh, mom?" I said, pointing to the doorbell. "There's this magical button that you can press that creates a new sound that alerts people that someone is at the door. I think it's called a doorbell or something like that." I said with a tad bit of sarcasm in my voice. My two most amazing traits- sarcasm and wit. They're also the traits that could cause my mom to rip her hair out and make smoke come out of her ears, but she hasn't yet, so I guess I need to work harder.

     So she rang the doorbell, and a super cute teenage boy answered. I'm guessing he thought the same thing about me, because we both had the same twinkle in our eyes and dropped jaws.

     Ruining the moment, my mom started talking to him. "Hi! Are your parents here? We live next door and we were just coming over to introduce ourselves. I'm Kathi Michael, and this is my daughter, Kate." She said, reaching her hand out so he can shake it.

     "Hi. I'm Braxton. Yeah, my mom's here, but if you talk to her, don't bring up my dad. She doesn't like to talk about it." the really sexy teenager said, motioning for us to come in.

     "Hey. I'm Kate. I don't know if this sounds mean or anything, but I really wish I wasn't here. No offense." I said, trying to make small talk.

     "None taken. And don't worry, I wish I wasn't here either. The only reason I stayed with her instead of my dad is because my dad's in jail. It was either this or living on the streets." He said, closing the front door.

     "Well, that's close to my situation. Except my dad's dead. He's probably sitting in hell, though. He popped painkillers like they were breath mints." I said, enlightening the whole "our dads are both gone" thing. He laughed at the joke. I guess that was a good thing.

     "Well, I'll give you the royal tour of this miniature castle estate." he said, getting ready to walk up the stairs. Huh, he's a jokester too. Sexy and funny. If he likes ice cream and dart games, I think I found myself a keeper.

     "Okay." I said, following him up the staircase. This could be fun.