Mr. Badboy, We Meet Again [ON HOLD]

Reuniting with the Richardson's

The house still looked exactly as I remembered. It felt weird being back—almost dream-like. I glanced over at the house next to us, but quickly glanced away when I saw a car pull into the driveway. I quickly ran inside, dragging along some of the millions of boxes that I would have to unpack.

I was in the middle of unpacking my clothes when my mom called me from downstairs.

“Coming!” I shouted back. I stood up and brushed my hands off on my shorts and straightened my top, before heading down.

I was greeted with the sight of a man, a woman, and two boys. I immediately recognized Mr. and Mrs. Richardson, but I had no idea who the young boy in her arms was or the older one standing next to her.

“Jasmine! You’ve grown up so much since the last time I saw you! You look beautiful!” Mrs. Richardson praised.

“Thank you, it’s nice to see you again,” I said back politely.

“This is the newest member of our family,” she said ushering to the little boy in her arms.

“My name is Joshua, and I’m three years old,” the little boy said in the cutest little voice I had ever heard. He was holding up three fingers to demonstrate his age.

“Hi, Josh, I’m Jasmine,” I cooed at him. He giggled and turned away shyly.

“And you remember Zane, right?” Mrs. Richardson asked. I was surprised at first, even though it should have been obvious that it was him. In my defense, he looked completely different. His previously blonde hair was now a dark shade of brown, and he towered over me by at least 8 inches, which is pretty impressive considering I’m 5’7.

He smiled and nodded his head at me, and I just gave a timid smile back.

“We’re all so excited that you’re back!” Mrs. Richardson squealed turning to talk to my mom. Our fathers were already in deep conversation about something, so it was just me, Zane, and Josh standing around awkwardly.

“I’m going to go finish unpacking my room,” I mumbled, mostly to myself.

“Can I come?” Josh asked looking up at me with his big green eyes. They looked just like Zane’s.

“Of course, cutie!” I said scooping him up into my arms. “You can come too,” I said to Zane before heading up the stairs.

When we got to my room I set Josh down and continued to pull out clothes and put them away.

“Do you need any help?” Zane asked breaking the silence.

“No, this is the last box I have to unpack, but thanks.”

“Okay,” he said then went to look around my room. “Why don’t you have any pictures with friends?”

“I don’t have friends,” I said truthfully. I immediately regretted it when I realized it made me sound like a loser.

I was expecting him to come back with a mean remark, but instead he asked, “Why not?” He even sounded surprised.

“There’s no point in making friends when you know you’re just going to move in a couple months.”

“So you’ve moved a lot?”

“Yep, I’ve been to more places in the past few years than I can count on my hands.”

“That’s cool! I’ve always wanted to travel, but I’ve never been out of the state.”

“Trust me; it gets boring after a while.”

We fell into a comfortable silence and a thought popped into my head: Why is he being so nice to me? I mean, this is the guy I vowed to hate forever, but right now he’s making it pretty hard to hate him.

I was about to ask him about it when Josh spoke up. “I’m hungry,” he whined. I had forgotten he was even in the room because he had been so quiet.

“Okay, c’mon bud, we’ll go get mommy and daddy for dinner,” Zane said bending down to his brother and ruffling his hair. He then turned to me and said, “I’ll see you later Jasey.”

Jasey; he used to call me that all the time, and I used to hate it. But now, it rolled so smoothly off his lips and it sounded sexy. Wait, what am I thinking? Just because he was being nice to me now, doesn’t mean he’s actually changed.