Stealing from the Bad Boy [completed]

CHAPTER ELEVEN

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After school I drove my car straight up to the shopping centre, I was going to go up to whoever was behind the counter and ask when Cameron would be in. I walked into the centre and passed all the shops I normally stop by, but today I was on a mission.

I stupidly walk into 'Vintage Baby' confidently and immediate crouch behind a stack of empty crates when I see Cameron behind the register. I made a 'whoop' noise crouching in my school uniform almost falling back.

"One moment ma'am," I overheard Cameron say to a woman. "Natalie?"

I jump up enthusiastically as if I had been looking for something amongst the empty crates. "Cameron, oh hi," I try and say causally.

"You okay behind there?" He looks over me and sees the nothing behind the stack. "What were you doing?"

"Oh you know, just looking." He nods to be polite clearly not believing me.

This is normally the part when I would scatter and try to block out the memory, but I had a schedule to get.

"So," I try to day smoothly which doesn't work at all.

"Excuse me! I've been waiting here for so long. Do your job." the woman by the counter exclaims.

Cameron rushes over to serve her. "That will be $19.99." He slams the cash draw shut when she leaves the shop. "Jeez."

"Get customers like that often," I began casual conversation while looking through some vinyl albums.

"Sometimes," he pauses. "Listen, I probably shouldn't be talking to you if my manager comes out and sees me talking to you," he checks behind him through a narrow door

"But I'm simply a customer," I hold up whichever vinyl I was looking at and show him, he laughs making me curious, I turn it around to see 'The miracle album by Queen'. "Excuse me kind employee?" I ask as a customer would. "Should I get it or not?"

"Definitely not," he walked around the counter. "You need something simple like..." he looked through the crate next to me. "This," he pulled out as if finding gold.

I was not impressed when he pulled out Christina Aguilera Keeps Gettin' Better. "Excuse me, the Andrew Sisters did it better," he seemed taken aback that I knew who the Andrew Sisters were.

"Not only do you know your classic movies, but music too, I'm impressed."

"Oh, you should be," talking to him was a lot easier than last time, this came naturally.

"Let's see," he pauses then turns his whole body to face me. "I'm going to quiz you. Ready?"

"No," I laugh, "I'm not ready for this."

"Best Beatles album?"

"Sgt. Pepper's duh."

"Easy," he replies with a squint. "Now for some harder stuff." He looked through the cases. "'The Man in Black'?"

He has no idea who he is dealing with. I turn my whole body to face him. "Johnny Cash."

"Name the members of U2"

"Bono, Edge, Adam Clayton and Larry"

"Okay, that's freaky, no one at school knows who U2 is."

"I do," I smirk. 'Focus on the mission' I tell myself. "So when do you work here? I wasn't expecting you here."

"Who were you expecting?" He had one eyebrow raised.

"Just wondering," I shrug.

He looked at me sceptically and kept going through albums. "Most days but I have Wednesday's off," I nod casually as if I'm not chanting 'NOT WEDNESDAY. NOT WEDNESDAY' in my head. "Got to pay for school somehow right?"

He was trying to be relatable, but in fact I had no idea what that was like, it only just occurred to me that I had no idea what Cameron's life was like outside of school, besides the obvious parties.

"Hmm, yeah." I move on from the music to the movies, looking over the Romantic Comedy stuff and avoiding the horror at all costs, not after yesterday's chasing accident. "What kind of music do you like? Besides Pig Latin of course."

"Little bit of everything, soul, jazz, rock, classic."

He answered the question the exact same way I would. Not a definite answer but genres. "Exactly! So hard to choose," I say a little too enthusiastically.

Cameron smiled. "Yeah." The tension between us grew as no one entered the store and the volume dropped dramatically. I was afraid to breath.

"Listen," he breaks the tension. "I'm sorry..." he pauses. "About all the shit I've put you through," he says slowly.

That was the last thing I expected him to say, he's doing that quite often recently. "It's fine," I say nonchalantly.

"No, he shakes his head "it's not." The way his voice was so genuine and sympathetic made me want to cry.

I hung my head. I was about to say something but a small whimper escaped. I couldn't cry in front of him. I'd already made a fool out of myself.

I ran out the store doors and straight ahead to the bathroom. "Natalie!" I hear from behind me. I didn't turn around. I couldn't. "I'm sorry," I hear.

I was safely in a bathroom stall before I began sobbing. I had no idea I would react like that. I had visions of the exact same conversation but it would end with me slapping him in the face and saying 'asshole', not with me running away.

I guess I wasn't expecting to believe his sincerity. But maybe this was all an act, he just getting back at me 'lying' about the drumsticks.

I was going to steal his drumstick, I don't care how bad I feel afterwards. He deserves it...right?