My Beautiful King

Chapter Twenty Seven

The new plan was simple.

I get Tyler to go out with me and he gives me a free ride back to the in-crowd. Then Zayn sees how great a couple his best friend and I am, and becomes over-racked with jealousy. He challenges Tyler to a fight over my heart and then...

That was as far as I had gotten. But I was getting there.

Tyler turned out to be pretty good conversation. It was strange, in the four months that I had been sitting in the same lunch area has him, we had never indulged in such profound conversation.

And boy, did Tyler like conversation. He loved to talk. He would talk about Alex.

"He's turned into a fucking tyrant. He was always pretty short-tempered, but now it's worse than ever. He's convinced that he actually loved Hayley, like loved her. Serious love. And then she went and slept with one of his mates? Nah, he's not taking it well. He's gone and fucked just about every girl from Teasway High. You remember Georgia, you met her that time we went to Cheshicks Park a few days before Christmas? Yeah, there's a rumour going around that he got her pregnant. And he's neither confirming and or denying it."

He would talk about Hayley.

"Getting dumped like that really broke Hayley. You wouldn't think she'd mind so much, seeing as she was cheating on him, but she really liked Alex. He was a 'gentleman' and 'actually paid for and bought things for her'. She liked that. Elliot's not that type of guy at all. And she still refuses to talk to Becca. I don't think she understands that Alex breaking up with her was just as much her fault as Becca's."

He would talk about Becca.

"Becca insists that she didn't tell Alex anything! She says she didn't do it, or at least she doesn't remember doing it. She actually apologised to Hayley... Yeah I know, I was surprised too! She said she 'needs her best friend because she needs support through her relationship with Zayn'. Becca and Zayn. I have never seen a more dysfunctional relationship in the whole of my fucking my life. It's even worse than when Madison and Joe went out, and you should have seen how her Facebook relationship status went-"

"Single, in a relationship, single, it's complicated, in a relationship." I finished robotically. I yanked on a stray unravelling thread from the hem of my skirt and stared into Tyler's dark liquid eyes. "But whatever about that... Tell me more about Zayn and Becca. Aren't they meant to be the world's greatest couple? Sweeter than cupcakes, cuter than kittens and all the crap?"

Tyler aligned his back straight against the looming bookcase behind him and snorted. "Far from it." He laughed. "They put on that whole act for the adoring audience but when it's just us, boom the arguments start! Shouting and spitting at each other, over the stupidest shit. But the one thing that makes it worse and weirder... Is that they never break up."

"They never break up?"

"They never break up." Tyler repeated. "It's fucking weird. You can sort of understand why Becca doesn't end it with him; she's bloody besotted. But Zayn... You'd expect him to dump her on the spot, right? You wouldn't think he'd bother with all the hassle; it wouldn't be worth his time. And sometimes he looks like he's about to break up with Becca but then... He doesn't. He just walks off, mumbling to himself. I don't know if he even likes her that much."

"Zayn's a very unpredictable and enigmatic person." I muttered breathily. Sensing the slight angst in my words, Tyler placed his hand on my knee and squeezed. A simple squeeze. Nothing heart-weakening. Just a gesture that left me feeling hollow.

We could talk about Zayn forever.

"He's refusing to help me." The dark-skinned boy grunted. "Our group is slowly falling apart and Zayn won't do anything about it. But he expects it to be fixed. He's acting so weird lately. You can't even mention the word 'parent' without him screaming at you."