Everything I Never Asked For

Chapter 22

NIALL'S POV

I can feel my skin baking under the sun, the sting of a forming sun burn aching my shoulders. I mentally thank myself for bringing sunglasses, although I'm afraid I'm going to get a glasses tan. As i take my seat on the jet ski, my shorts begin to soak with the water Zayn previously left on it.

He's been going around a bit too jolly, which from past experience I know means he is just trying to hold in the temper boiling inside of him. The prank Jade played on him was absolutely priceless, but I'm fully aware of how much it hurt him. From the way he's been wearing a hat and refusing to take it off, I can tell the consequences from the gum must've been devastating.

"Who said you can drive?" I look over my shoulder and I see Jade in her maroon nike shorts and black bikini top. She holds her hands to her waists and looks down on me from the deck with a raised brow. My lips quiver at the sight of her dimple, but last night flashes through my mind and I force myself to hold back my usual sweet appeal.

I quietly zip up my tent trying not to wake up Liam and Alex.

"Where the hell were you two?" I hear Alex's voice behind me and I realize he wasn't sleeping in the first place.

"I just took her down to the lake, why?" My mind is still shocked from everything that previously happened. I just got extremely embarrassed first of all because I must've looked like a complete idiot when I thought Jade was going to grab me in my pants when that wasn't even what she intended to do and second I called her beautiful and she obviously showed no sign of enlightenment from my compliment. She actually looked like she felt sorry for me and that was enough to shy me away into my shell.

"You need to stop." He says as I fit myself into my sleeping bag. "Fuck off of her man. She doesn't like you."

"You sound like you like her, that's creepy Alex you're her cousin."

"Shut the fuck up, I'm serious. Can you just be a decent friend and listen to me." I put a pillow over my head so I can't hear him or Liam's obnoxious snoring anymore.

"You little shit!" He grabs my pillow and throws it across the tent where it hits my feet. "Believe me, I'm not just being an asshole. I have a reason."

"Tell me why then. Give me one good reason why I should leave her alone."

"I'll tell your dad." His comment, although childish, shuts me up. No matter how messed up anything I've ever done to him has been, he's never said this to me. He knows that's crossing the line. This is the first time since I met Jade that I considered how dangerous she is to me. "I'll tell him all about how you've been fucking around with some girl instead of going to soccer practice or some shit like that. Maybe even throw in a few of your drunken stories as well, enough to send your little ass into lock down. That way, you really won't be able to see her anymore."

"No you wouldn't." I bite my lip and hold back all of the insulting things I want to say to him.

"Don't test me." His arrogance taunts me.

I thought I knew Alex. I didn't think he would ever rat me out to my dad, he knows how crazy he would get. I mean, he doesnt know exactly what would happen if my dad knew, he just knows that I wouldn't be able to go out anymore. If me playing guitar pisses him off, me having a girlfriend and partying instead of going to practice would throw him off the roof.

The truth is, they would never see me again. When mum left, it's as if she sucked all the life out of my dad. Ever since, he's been trying to replenish himself by trying to make Greg and I live his unforfilled dreams. I guess that sort of thing makes him happy. It seems to me that he doesn't see us as who we are anymore but as individual projects that he could manipulate as he pleases.

That's the reason he's so intense about me becoming successful in soccer. It was his own dream back in highschool that he wants me to achieve while Greg, being better in academics, is going off to be a doctor exactly as my dad wanted. If he caught me being rebellious again by 'giving up everything to be with some girl and to become a wild irresponsible teenager', I'd just be another failed dream of his that would be tossed out like all of the others. He would leave me to knock on my mums door until she, if ever, let me in to stay with her. I would like to think he wouldn't, but he never once sounded like he was joking when he told me he would do it. I know it all sounds so extreme, but it's my dad we are talking about. I wouldn't want to take this chance with him.

"You're wrong, you are an asshole...I'll do it, just don't say anything... please." I beg Alex and I want to punch him straight in the face. "Why would you even fucking do that to me?!"

"I told you, I have a good reason." His voice sounds like he doesn't want to say anything at all to my dad but the fact that he threatened to scares the shit out of me. I bury my frustrated head in my pillow, suffocating the pillow case with a clenched fist, and ask myself, what the hell could be so serious that Alex would take it this far?

"You were too slow. As always." I avoid Jade's eyes. Everything about her, especially her being next to me, makes me want to hide. She's literally a ticking time bomb that could ruin my whole life in seconds. I look around and see Alex talking to Zayn. He can't get mad at me for going on this ride with her, it wasn't my fault, Liam was technically the one that made us go together. I also wanted to use this time to explain to her that I can't speak to her anymore after this.

As much as it hurts, somehow I have to wash her out of my system. I have to put all of my efforts of trying to get her to like me to waste. I can't imagine having to avoid her, not talk to her, maybe forget about her completely. I dont know how hard I've fallen for her...will it even be that hard to forget her?

She places her hand on my shoulder as she boards behind me and I wince from the pain of my minor sunburn.

"Don't touch me." The words come out unintentionally bitter as my head begins to ache with these irritating thoughts causing havoc in my mind.

"Whoa, calm down there buddy. I dont want to touch you, gees, but I have to touch you somewhere, or I'm going to fly off when we start this thing."

"Sorry." My heart sinks when she says she doesnt want to touch me. I resist the urge to recall last night when she was tracing my chest, holding my hand, and hugging me. Every touch that made me feel light as air. I painfully shake the memories away. "I meant, please don't touch my shoulders, I got burned."

She apologizes and wraps her tiny arms around my waist. My mind panics when I hear a whistle behind us that I know is from Zayn. Her grasping me takes my breathe away, but as I meet Alex's infuriated eyes, I seriously want to shoot myself.

Authors note:

Hiii I'm so sorry this took so long & it isn't much but I'm working on the next update right now! Tysm for sticking around, ihope you enjoyed this chapter. Ill try to update every weekend because school has been taking a lot of my time :(

Ty all again, plz keep voting & sharing my story with others <3 ilyg :) xoxo.