The Bad Boy's A Softie

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          It had been a few weeks since the incident with Noelle at the hospital. My parents didn't give me much information on what happened, but since I still didn't actually get to see her, I guessed that it wasn't that big of a deal.

          The first quarter benchmark tests were coming up, so every day after school for the past few weeks, I had been prepping with Matthew. Ever since I started tutoring him, I had been noticing changes in his presence in the classroom. For the past week or so, he'd actually been raising his hand and answering questions that the teacher would randomly shoot at us and it seemed like he was sort of becoming more interested in what we were learning. 

          "Okay, what are the advantages of the free market?" I asked Matthew. We were currently sitting on his patio, studying and preparing for the benchmarks using my handy-dandy flashcard method. 

           Yawning, Matthew got up from the table and walked over to the railing, saying, "Willow, I'm tired of this. Can we do something instead of study?" I looked up at him and sighed, picking up my phone to check the time; It was currently 3 PM. 

           "Come on, you don't really wanna waste away this perfect Friday afternoon by just studying all day, right?" Matthew said, squinting up at the bright sun in the cloudless sky. I sighed again and closed the book,  then stood up from the chair, pushing it underneath the table.

          I walked over to Matthew and leaned on the railing beside him, looking at the waves fold over each other in the ocean. "Okay, what did you have in mind then?" I said, turning my attention over to Matthew. 

          I saw a smirk slowly move across Matthew's face before he turned around, grabbing my hand and pulling me back inside his room, down the stairs, and outside of his front door. "Woah, buddy, slow down. Where are we going?" I asked as he opened the passenger door of his car.

          "Do you have your bathing suit on?" Matthew asked, avoiding my question and pushing me in.

          "I always do, just in case I end up going swimming after school. Why?" I asked before he shut my car door. "Wait here," I saw him mouth to me through the window. I nodded my head as I watched him walk away from the car to someplace I couldn't see from where I was sitting. 

          After a few minutes had passed, The driver's door opened and Matthew got in, now wearing a shirt and some swim trunks. 

          "So, we're going swimming, I assume?" I asked him as he finally started up the hot car and backed out of his driveway. 

        Matthew smirked and looked over at me. "Even better," He started as he grabbed his sunglasses and started to drive onto the main road. "We're going surfing."

 *

          Matthew and I drove in under 5 minutes to the private beach my parents and I lived on. The thing about this beach is that my parents bought an entire portion of it and built our house up from scratch. It was just like any other normal house where you buy land, but instead of acres of trees or miles of grassy plains, it was covered in pure white sand that made way to very salty water. 

          When I was younger and very naive, people tried to use me to get to this part of the beach by themselves, saying that wanted to be my friend. In reality, they just wanted to go to the beach with their friends without being around everyone else in public. After years of this going on, I found out who my real friends were and decided to just stop trying to make friends.

          After Matthew parked his car in my driveway, he turned off the vehicle and practically jumped out. I adjusted my shorts before following his lead, and by the time I caught up to him, he already had his surfboard in hand "Go grab yours and I'll go set up our spot," Matthew said, pushing his sunglasses up to reveal deep hazel eyes that glowed like a fire underneath the bright sunlight. "Oh, and grab us some Sprite while you're at it," He added, giving me a half smirk and a wink.