The Undercover Bad Boy

Chapter Seventeen - My Fault

(A/N: Told you I would update soon!)

Chapter Seventeen - My Fault

I woke up four hours earlier than I was supposed to. The clock on my bedside table read 4:01 in neon lights, I needed to be up at eight sharp. I suppressed a sigh at the thought of going to school.

My room was still dark and the walls were decorated with still shadows. I could hear the faint sound of the rain pouring outside every time it hit the roof above. The weather was miserable. I was waiting for the temperature to drop even more so I could see the city covered in a blanket of snow. That's one thing I loved about Christmas.

Zach was fast asleep, snoring softly. His arms were tightly wrapped around me, to the point where I couldn't move at all. I was afraid to breathe too deeply, not wanting to wake him up. I started drifting in and out of consciousness, my thoughts jumbling together in my mind. Sometime after that, I went back to sleep.

It was eight in the morning when I was awoken again, this time by the sound of someone pacing next to my bed. At first I assumed it was Zach, but he was still here sleeping next to me. I cracked open one eye and saw a figure leaning over me.

I jumped in surprise.

"Alex Hale, what is going on here?" the person demanded.

At first I panicked, thinking that it was my mother. Instead, the voice belonged to an angry looking Tara. She was stood next to the bed, arms folded over her chest, eyebrow raised and an enraged, confused expression on her face.

My eyes widened and I quickly bolted away from Zach. This woke him up with a start. He looked like he was going to complain and go back to sleep, but he froze when he realised that Tara was standing there, glaring at the both of us.

"Hi," I said, trying to break the tension.

She just stood there, tapping her foot against the floorboards, waiting for an explanation.

"How did you get in here?" I asked.

"I've been your friend for five years, Alex. I know where you keep your spare key." Her voice was unusually cold. "I came here to check on you, to see if you're alright by yourself, but then I find you here sleeping around with some guy. I thought you were better than that, Alex. I never would have expected it from you."

"I am not sleeping around with some guy. In actual fact, it's Zachary," I replied, hurt that she could even consider that.

Zach scrambled over to the bedside table and grabbed his glasses.

Her eyebrows knitted together as she processed the situation through her mind. I noticed her glance over Zach's tattoos and muscles with a questioning look. She was clearly confused, but I knew where she was coming from. You wouldn't expect the math genius, who dressed in sweaters and trousers, to look like this out of school. I would know.

"Zachary, I didn't recognise you," Tara finally said.

He adjusted his glasses and released a nervous, shaky laugh.

Tara rested the palm of her hand on her forehead. "I knew it. I knew you liked him. That makes it even worse. You could have told me. I'm your best friend, Alex. You can trust me with stuff like this."

Guilt washed over me as I nodded in agreement. "I'm sorry. I should have told you."

"It's not what it looks like," Zach inputted. "We're not like sleeping together, in that sense."