Beauty and the Bad Boy

Chapter 18

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Amber POV

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Reconciling with Ryder had surprisingly been the easy part. Matt accepted me almost as quick as Ryder did. Peyton was a little harder to move, but mostly she just wanted another girl friend.

It was Axel who took a lot of thawing before I could even get him to talk to me.

"C'mon Axel, I said I was sorry so many times!" I whined, grabbing onto the sleeve of his letterman jacket.

Axel shrugged my grip off. "I need to get to practice, Amber," he sighed like he was talking to his clingy five-year-old daughter.

If there was one thing I was good at, it was annoying people to get my way. "Axel, please, please, please, please forgive me! You understand! A girl needs her space sometimes. And I was also on my period!" I tried making up excuses on the spot.

He glanced down at me and had an unreadable expression. After a moment, he kept walking.

Stomping my foot in frustration, I let him walk away from me.

"He'll cave soon," Ryder assured me, as I told him what had happened after school in his car. He had taken the responsibility of being my personal chauffer.

Drumming his fingers on the steering wheel, he slowed to a stop at a red light. "Axel's just hurt. I mean, he was your first friend, right? You can't blame him."

I brushed a couple strands of hair away from my face and puffed out my cheeks. "But it's Axel. He's such a sweet person; I want him to forgive me! I miss him!"

"You know, if you didn't like me, I would think that you liked Axel."

Giving Ryder a flat look, I responded, "I don't like you, you egotistical, narcissist, jerkface!"

He didn't respond and we settled into a silence.

"What about your dad? What are you going to do about him?" Ryder suddenly asked.

I took a deep breath before I responded. "He left his address in my room. I think I'm going to see him this weekend."

When Ryder didn't respond, I looked at his face. He looked pained for some reason. Like he wanted to say something, but didn't know if it would be the right thing to say or do.

"What?" I asked, as he kept making that constipated-looking expression.

Ryder switched to a defensive look. "What what?"

I gave him a pointed look. "You know what. Why do you look like you're constipated?"

"I don't look constipated! If anything, you look constipated."

"Okay, can we stop talking about constipation? It's really grossing me out now."

He rolled his eyes and returned my pointed look. "You're the one who brought it up, dummy."

"Well because you were looking it. Now what's wrong? C'mon, we're honest with each other, right?"

Ryder shifted in his seat and pushed down on the accelerator a little harder. "It's just, I brought you to see my father. I figured you might want the same support, you know? But it's fine, I get if you want to go by yourself."