We were chilling outside on the field, drinking a couple of beers as we talked. The boys in the Sports Club weren’t half bad now that they knew I was off limits.

After Daniel kissed me, he pulled back and walked over to his buddies, leaving me flustered and bothered.

The way he glanced at me as they all talked, I knew he knew what he was doing to me. What was he doing to me? My annoying subconscious had to ask.

Something!

Gah!

“Why’d you decide to leave the Drama club?” One of the boy’s by the name Travis asks. He had brown skin and matching colored eyes.

“Don’t tell me it was because of your boyfriend here.” He nudged Daniel who rolled his eyes as everyone chuckled.

“Actually, Charlie couldn’t get along with the other girls there,” Hunter explains and I swat his arm playfully before he chuckles. Hunter and Jack were eventually aware of why I really left the Drama club.

Jack tried making the girls apologize but I told him it was okay and that I was fine.

I had to make it look like I didn’t care, remember.

“I just think I could do the weekly dose of exercise,” I say through a shrug. The boys shrugged at my response as well and I was glad that was over with.

I didn’t want anyone knowing I had to do this and avoid white bread or I wouldn’t be able to see my toes again!

“Did you guys hear about that new transfer student everyone is talking about?” I hear Travis ask and that catches all the boys’ attention and even mines.

I sip my beer as I pretend to mind my own business but deep down I also was a little curious about this new transfer student.

“Apparently she’s hot as hell, transferred from Amingdale university,” Hunter adds. Not him too, I think, rolling my eyes. My eyes find Daniel and they narrow slightly when I notice he’s also very attentive in the conversation.

Interesting.

“She’s taking management studies I heard.” Travis continues and my nose scrunches. Boys were so weird, how did they even figure out all of this!

“Hey, aren’t you taking management studies?” Hunter turns to me to ask with an eyebrow raised as the other boys seem equally interested.

“Yup,” I say.

“Wish I was majoring in that, so much hot girls.” Travis groans and everyone chuckles, except for Daniel who smacked him upside the head.

I think I caught him smiling a little too.

“Just stating facts!” Travis protests rubbing his head and winking my way. I shake my head, smiling at Daniel. He was actually acting really well; I’m almost convinced he’s my actual boyfriend.

Almost.

After Club hours, I decide to walk back to my dorm to get some rest. On my way there, I come to a stop at the sound of someone calling my name.

I whirl around to come face to face with Daniel, surprise evident on my face. He was smiling my way before gripping onto my hand.

“Why’d you leave without me?” He asks, tilting his head a little to the side to observe me. I open and close my mouth like a fish out of water.

“I—” I didn’t know what to say. What kind of question was that I just left without him, no big deal right?

“We’re dating remember? If you want people to believe that then we should do things people who date usually do.” Daniel grins before he starts walking ahead, my hand still in his as he leads me down the sidewalk.

“Don’t you think you’re taking this a little too far,” I say, trying to pull my hand away but it doesn’t budge so instead I huff in defeat.

“What do you mean? I told you I was going to make you fall in love with my charms,” Daniel winks at me before swinging our arms back in forth as he grins.

I roll my eyes but don’t fight it anymore; instead, I let him walk me back to my dorm building.

“Why?” I ask once we reach my building, and by the looks of it, my simple question seems to surprise him.

“What do you mean?” He asks, tilting his head to feign confusion.

“Why are you trying so hard to make me fall for you?” I clarify, genuinely curious. Like I said before, I understood the fact the boys here were horny but Daniel, it didn’t make sense that he would go to such lengths just to win me over.

“I like a challenge. That’s why.” And he kisses me on the side of my mouth before strolling away and down the block with a funny dip in his step.

I shake my head, trying to get my head out of the gutter, before entering the building.

On the way down the corridor to my dorm, I bump into Jack and Hayden talking in the hall.
Jack spots me and waves me over while Hayden just looks at me, his black eyes holding me captive until I force myself to break away and smile at Jack.

This was the first time I’ve seen Hayden in a while, he’s usually never in our dorm and if he is it's really late at night.

“Hey guys, what’s up?” I ask with my attention focused more on Jack.

“Charlie, I was actually looking for you.” Jack starts, looking at Hayden briefly before back at me. I think he notices there was something up with Hayden just as much as I have.

“Since we have a vacation coming up, we were wondering if you’d want to hang out with us at the beach for the weekend. You, Hayden, Hunter, Clark and I.”

The first thing I do is look Hayden’s way, I wasn’t surprised to see he was already looking at me, but I was surprised to hear he actually wanted me to go.

“It’ll be cool if you came,” Hayden says through a shrug.

After days of ignoring me, he tells me he wants me to come? Maybe I misread the situation, maybe he wasn’t ignoring me and he was busy? We were friends after all, so why would he ignore me?

“Well, I have work. I can’t just ditch that and neither can Clark!” I say, coming back to reality and remembering my parents didn’t give me allowances like theirs, I was all on my own and I had to work just to put food in my stomach.

“I know you and Clark work the same shifts and she already talked it out with your boss, she’s willing to just give you a couple of days off.” Jack smirks and I make an impressed face.

“What do you say?”

Jack and Hayden both await my response with anticipation so I decide not to keep them waiting. “Sure!”

“Awesome. Hayden has a beach house over there,” Jack says, nudging Hayden who shrugs like it was nothing but I just gape at him.

“A beach house!?” I exclaim.

“It’s nothing much.” He shrugs again, rubbing the back of his neck as Jack grins at him, shaking his head. My eyebrows are still slightly raised.

So Hayden was rich but he was humble about it, I would’ve never thought. Unlike Daniel, he took whatever chance he had to show off his status.

“Well I’ll see you guys around, I should probably meet up with Hunter, we have a lecture in like 5 minutes.” And with that, Jack was off.

Biting my lip, I glance over to Hayden who was once again already looking my way making me blush a little. Why was he always looking at me like it was the most natural thing in the world?

It kind of made me uncomfortable but a different kind of uncomfortable from the hungry stares of the other students.

“You sure you don’t have any plans with your boyfriend?” Hayden asks, catching me off guard as he walks inside our dorm room. I hurry after him with my reply.

“He won’t mind, besides he’s only my boyfriend for now until I can fool everyone that those rumors weren’t real,” I explain, closing the door after me.

Hayden turns to me briefly with raised brows before jumping onto his bed with a sigh, his hands folded behind his head as he gazes at me intently.

“Do you even hear yourself?” He chuckles. “Look at the mess you’ve gotten yourself into.”

I lift my chin in the air haughtily, gazing down at him through my lashes as I take a seat on the edge of my bed. “I know exactly what I’m doing;  this will be a piece of cake.”

I tell him definitely. Hayden rolls his eyes.

“If you say so.”

Turning around on his bed so that his back was facing me, Hayden leaves me alone in the room to dwell in my thoughts once again.

...

For the most part, I was wrong about one thing; dealing with Daniel wasn’t a piece of cake.

At first I thought he was head over sneakers for me, telling me he was determined to be my boyfriend for real, but lately, I’ve been the one craving his attention. There was something about Daniel that made me feel so wanted and I loved it.

I craved it.

And judging by the way he was acting, he knew the effect he had on me.

Daniel and I were in the receptionist building, waiting for Rebecca to give us our slips for our schedule for next semester after vacation. He insisted we get them together.

I knew Rebecca was being as polite as she possibly could to Daniel who was impatient as usual.

“Could you hurry up please,” he tells her in aggravation, just like the first time I had ever seen him. Here. In this exact place.

The difference was, this time I didn’t mind his attitude as much, which was weird. Maybe I was starting to catch feelings for him, for real.

“Don’t be too hard on her,” I tell him, my arms wrapping around his shoulders.

“She’s doing her best.” Daniel scoffs but I give him a look and he gives in before bending down to kiss me full on the lips.

I sigh against his lips.

I know I said this a thousand times before but kissing Daniel was so much different from kissing Alex. I was also starting to think it was a good different. He grins against my mouth, biting my lower lip before pulling away.

Such a tease.

“Babe, so I was wondering—” Daniel starts but before he can finish, the doors to the receptionist building are being pushed open.

Usually, I wouldn’t be so distracted by something so trivial but that wasn’t the thing that caught my attention.

It was the sudden chatter that erupted throughout the place.

Everyone was looking, everyone was staring and everyone was whispering towards a particular someone.

Daniel let's go of my waist to turn in the direction everyone else seems to be focused on. When we both see who it was, I feel Daniel stiffen from beside me. The girl was absolutely beautiful.

She had long dark brown hair that she didn’t stop to flip about every second. Her hazel eyes seemed to glow with something similar to mischief, but maybe my eyes were deceiving me.

The girl’s face was undeniably gorgeous but there was something about her that looked oddly familiar.

Whoever she is, she grasps the attention of everyone in the room.

As she walks into the building, she isn’t the least bit phased by the attention of the males or the glares thrown by the few girls who watched her with spite and jealousy as she applies her lips gloss. Totally unlike me when I first came here.

I notice she had trouble walking in her heels.

The little detail made me frown. It was almost as if she were trying too hard. Especially by the way she swayed her hips awkwardly, but it seems everyone else was fooled by the act.

I look over to Daniel who was watching the girl with the exact same look he gave me the first time he saw me. His eyes were wide and he was staring at her with shock.

He was shocked the first time he met me too; he was shocked because he said he found me beautiful. So that meant he found her beautiful? The thought left an unsettling feeling in the pit of my stomach. I knew exactly what that feeling was too.

I was jealous.

When I look back at the beautiful girl who looks like she has literally jumped out from a magazine, I’m surprised to see she’s already looking right at me. And she’s not very happy when she sees I’m clinging to Daniel.

_____________________________

I imagine the song lip gloss by lil mama playing when our new character walks into the room for some reason. Y'all prolly already know she's going to be having a pretty big role later on ;)

Planning this book, I actually planned on hating Daniel at first but now I find it so funny to write about him and read the comments. So yeah, it'll take a while to get rid of him folks, sorry😂

Next chapter: Alex's Pov ;)

Also I'm going to go back and try to dedicate a chapter to each and every one of you because y'all are aweosme!

Comment, vote and share!

xxx