A L E X

It started out slow.

Really slow in fact, that he never bothered to really check himself on it. Or put a stop on it.

And when he finally realized it, he already had Lovesickness in an alarming high stadium towards a certain girl he knew he shouldn't love.

Feelings weren't something that Alex liked to discuss about, or talk about, or for God's sake, feel about. He liked to keep his mind clear, thank you very much, and he didn't like his judgement clouded by trivial, inconsequential feelings.

It was hard enough to have a live like his. He had a lot of responsibilities, and he knew he would be bequeathed with a whole lot more responsibilities sooner or later. Feelings made everything harder. Feelings would slow him down.

And recently, as he had suddenly found out this terrible Cancer called April Hale, he felt that he had caught on the worst feeling ever:

Falling in love without wanting to. Slowly. Steadily. Over the years.

It was exactly the kind of feeling he wanted to avoid the most, because it was exactly the kind of feeling that would be the hardest to get rid of.

Oh, damn it.

He knew he should preserve. He shouldn't act on it, and he knew he never would act on it. But sometimes he found himself slipping away from his ironclad will. He would play a bit with this particular brand of Cancer, touching her hand or patting her head or ordering food for her.

And it felt so good. So right. So explosive. As if just doing even the simplest things for her could supply him with endless energy that he could get on and on and on.

He knew he was doomed, in the worst possible way.

It didn't help that April was finally reunited with someone who had broken her.

Ryder Black wasn't someone that Alex would consider worthy enough to think about for more than five minutes at a time. Ryder was oftentimes ungraceful, and he didn't have the kind of power or money that Alex could benefit from.

(And he would only keep the beneficial friends, not the detrimental ones)

But apparently, Alex's Cancer considered Ryder to be someone worthy of her love, time, tears, and thoughts. It often made Alex angry at how much effort April wasted on Ryder. It made him even angrier that he would care for something like that.

It wasn't how he was designed to operate. It wasn't how his family taught him to live.

Because, really, even though Alex knew that he would have gone full-stupid for April, he inherently knew that she wouldn't do the same towards him. Or at least, if somehow, someday, she considered him as an option, her efforts towards him wouldn't be in the same par in which she had done for Ryder Black.

Alex's particular brand of cancer was April, but unfortunately, April's particular brand of cancer was Ryder.

Alex only wanted to settle down with someone who would consider him a dangerous nuclear to her world. And preferably someone who wouldn't remind him of his biggest sin.

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2.25. the explosion of the mind and the body

There were a few perks of having Bella as your housemate.

First, she almost didn't take any of your food ratio. I personally think that she was designed to survive without the same amount of food most people needed. I almost never saw her eat, and when I did, it was only measly amount of yoghurt or fruits.

"I'm just not hungry," she often said, although I knew that if my mother saw her, she would have stuffed the poor girl's mouth with the whole content of our fridge. She looked like she needed that much food to nourish her bones.

Secondly, she reminded me of my own schedule.

Bella always had strict ways of maintaining her men. Maybe it was the norm of a girl with so many love lines to do (not that I would know of, since my love line was basically nonexistent after the only one I ever had left me to mourn and weep), but she would wear pink on Monday, wear tartan skirts on Wednesday, and spritz a lot of perfume on Friday. According to her, it was the least she could do to stroke the men's egos, based on their preferences.

I should say, I gave her thumbs up for dedication.

There was one single downside of having her as a housemate, though.

"April! There's a huge par-tay this Saturday!"

She was ridiculously up-to-date with the town's hottest parties and clubs.

"You're coming as my wingman!"

And she always dragged me into the jungle.

I texted her since I wasn't ready to scream my lungs dry. It was our means of communications. Bella would shout at me from the guest's room on Penguin's apartment, and I would reply to her in the form of text or email or chat messages.

Efficient? No. But the medium of the message conveyed our personalities best. I liked having the option to think before I answer, and she liked to hear her own voice.

No, Bella.

"Why the hell not? Are you expecting someone?"

No.

"Have somewhere else to go today?"

No.

"The new season of that crappy tv show comes out?"

This one took a few minutes to answer, since I had to google for all five tv-shows that I was following just to ensure that none of them had a new episodes released tonight.

No.

I heard a loud crash. "Then why the fck are you not coming?" Bella kicked open the door and appeared on my room. "April where are you?"

"H-Here," I squeaked from beneath my bed.

"What the-" Bella pulled up the covers so that she could see me writhing under the bed. "Honest question. You actually found it safer to hide under the bed?"

"I-Is that a bad idea?"

"You know that's where the monsters often hide, right?"

My heart made a crazy leap from my ribcage as the possibility appeared on my head. Right. Right, why didn't I think of that? Now I had to find a new safeplace whenever someone unexpected barged into my room.

Maybe the closet would be a good idea-

Bella waited for me to come out and then she was already sitting in front of the vanity mirror. "You really should come. I think the last time you came out of the house was five days ago, and that's only because you ran out of milk and nobody would deliver food to you!"

I shrugged, remembering the blissful five days of peace. That was exactly the amount of days I needed to recover from the 'say my name' incident, which was pretty arduous, for the lack of a better word.

"Anyway, you haven't told me," Bella's voice dropped into an undertone. "What did you two did? You know, the day you almost killed me with your food."

"Both spaghetti and granola are perfectly edible food," I differed.

"Yeah, but combine them together and you can make a powerful poison. Spoonfeed them to your greatest enemies and watch them retch their guts out. Anyway, don't change the subject. I've been itching to have some girl-time and you're going to provide me exactly that."

"Can we talk about another topic? Girl-time doesn't always have to involve about boys," I said, remembering the long time I had taken at the bathroom today. "Actually, I found something that I shouldn't want to find in my armpit this morning."

"Oh my god, so let me see. Here we can talk about a wart that materialized in your armpit or we can talk about your ex, who asked you to live with him and then cornered you at three AM. What's more interesting?"

"The armpit mole can be life-threatening?" I suggested, because it might probably entice interest her more.

The look that Bella gave to me was enough to make me feel death in all gross manners.

"He wanted me to wear his t-shirt," I said.

"Rawr, Daddy," Bella did this weird thing with her hand in which she imitated a cat in heat.

"He wanted me to say his name," I said in a much more hushed tone. Just thinking about that already gave me a lot of headaches and heartaches.

"Uuuhh," Bella was practically jumping up and down at this. "Okay, so. If you were somebody else I would have thought that both of you have the intimacy level of elementary schoolers, but this is great! This is great! So you're getting back together?"

The thought of it jolted my whole existence to hell. "No."

"Why not? Penguin's getting super hot these days, even I have to admit that, despite my 'childhood-friend-glasses'. He has this apartment and he's getting job here and there. He's an eligible bachelor!"

"Yeah, except whenever I think about him, my mind goes like this," I said as I showed Bella a gif of a volcano erupting.

"So? Just screw it out of your system," Bella's eyes squinted as she smirked. "And what I mean by screw is 'have hot kinky sex with him while you're at it'. Believe me, when your mind's doing that thing-" she replayed her gif. "The sex feels the best. It will literally make your body-" she replayed the gif once more. "Double kaboom."

"I'd rather just have my mind explode then," I said, and to further the effect, I replayed the gif once more. "And how come your advice is to have sex with my previous Precious Person? (—Bella gagged at the mention of Precious Person) We never even have done it before and I don't want my first experience to be a make-up sex."

Bella's eyes widened and then squinted and then widened again. "Are you serious?"

I nodded. "Positive."

"How old are you?"

"Wait," I started counting for the days to give her an accurate answer.

"Okay, don't bother," Bella was enclosing her hands around my head and then brought my whole head towards her bosom. She stroke my hair as yelped for air in between her cleavage. "Poor girl, oh you poor, frustrated, girl."

"The poor part is true," since I lost my job. "But I'm not frustrated."

There was a snort. "Well, of course you're not frustrated. You've been having that thing with Alex."

I squinted. "I have to ask, so that there wouldn't be any misunderstanding. What kind of thing?"

"You know, the almost boyfriend-girlfriend kind of thing," Bella shrugged, and then for the first time, I saw the first sign of flushing on her cheeks. "I mean, it's okay. It's not like I like him or anything."

"Hmm," I tipped my chin. "Alex always have a girlfriend. In fact, he changes girlfriend faster than I do laundry."

"You do laundry like, only once a month!" Bella stomped her foot. "Alex is a major flirt. A major flirt with that kind of face and that kind of wallet will attract a lot of attention."

"Really?" I tried to remember any instances he tried flirting with me, but came up with a blank. "He never flirted with me, though."

"Not even once?" Bella didn't wait for my answer and just rolled her eyes. "Okay, I forgot that you can't differentiate what's flirting and what's talking to a dog. So let me give you an example of one of his oldest tricks," Bella patted the space in front of her, and I sat on that place. She sat cross-legged across me, and then sighed audibly.

"Imagine Alex right in front of you, and the two of you are conversing. Okay? Got the picture?" Bella waited until I nodded before she resumed. "Right. So, somehow when you two are talking, there is a point where you have to close the distance between the two of you. Then you raise one of your hands because he's been saying very cocky and moderately sexist things. You raise your index finger-"

I raised my index finger just for an added authenticity in Bella's make-believe.

"And you talk about something, just a little tale to educate him about how his cockiness will never get him far in life, all the while with your index finger popped up." At this point, Bella's voice became a bit ragged and she started panting. "What do you think Alex will do?"

"Keep a respectable distance of three meters between us and make sure that there is no physical contact included in our relationship," I said. "Except for two times, he and I never touched each other."

"And that's exactly why he likes you, you buffoon!" Bella exclaimed. "Because when I popped my index finger in front Alex, he would lean in, put my finger inside his mouth, and lick it!"

I didn't know how to respond to that kind of personal experience so I just gaped. I believed my mouth was not clamped close, though. Bella's index finger was in the space between us, and for a moment I thought she wanted me to do exactly like Alex had done to her.

"So you want me to-" I pointed at my tongue and then to her finger.

"No!!" she screeched. "The motherfucked licked my finger, and then he smiled as if he had done nothing and resumed the conversation like the usual!" Bella was practically screaming at this point. "I was so fucking confused because his casualty about the whole thing suggested that it hadn't been real, and thus I just carried on, very reluctantly I may add, thinking that things never happened. And then, right before we parted ways, he smirked at me and then say, and he say it very huskily, 'I know how to use my mouth, don't you agree?'. That's the cruelest thing you could say to a woman!"

"And... is that cruel because..." I racked up my brain for a realistic answer. But apparently, my search for the right answer took a horribly long time because Bella already balled both of her fists.

"He knows what a girl needs, that's all I'm saying. And that's apart of the probability of him being an amazing kisser."

Note to self: google what a girl needed with a man's mouth. Apart from kissing.

"You know, from what I experienced, guys actually try to touch the girls that they like-" I never expected to be in this position, to comfort Bella and gave her guidance about the art of flirting.

"Oh yes they usually do. But when a guy who's pretty much a fuckboy towards everyone refuses to touch a certain girl?" Bella's dark brown eyes caught me, and she smiled wryly. "He's trying his effing best to not fall for you, chump."

I was still in the middle of gathering all of this information when Bella stood, and then showered me with clothes. Not my clothes, but hers.

"And that's why you're coming with me to this party. Because Alex is the one who's got the invite, and he won't be able to refuse you, even if you've got a plus one." Bella pounded at her chest. "Me."

"I.. I don't know." I let the clothes that Bella threw at me bury me because that seemed like a really good idea right now. "I still can't get over how Penguin wanted me to say his name. I guess I want to just stay here and replay the memory a thousand more times before deleting it once and for all."

"I swear April, you're masoshistic, maybe you should get that checked out with your therapist."

"I did. Mr Simmons did say that I have a tendency to prefer pain over pleasure."

Bella giggled at that. "Whoever pops your cheery would be very lucky."

"Hey. I know what that means," I said, half indignant and half embarrassed.

"You have to try to play the field sometimes, sister. I know that I'm friends with Pefuckingnguin first, but he's rich now and you look clueless." She picked something from the pile of clothes on top of me and examined a piece of very thin underwear. "So I give you the permission to hurt him by going out with Alex."

I had to hold myself from laughing. "I don't think it works that way. I think the girls that usually hang around Alex's arms are unusually pretty and I'm not in that caliber."

"Nobody's in that caliber," Bella scoffed. It bothered her that Alex's girlfriends were always some kind of models or supermodels or aspiring models, because that meant she wouldn't be the prettiest person in the room whenever Alex brought his latest conquest.

"But please, April, help me. You know I've been trying to get into an acting gig, and I heard that there will be a lot of producers and directors in this party," Bella's expression turned into something that belonged in a kpop girl group. "I'm at my end's wits. I promised my mother that if I don't get an acting job by the end of this month, then I'll start waitressing."

I thought about it.

"I have His old emails when he checked up on me a few years ago," she offered. "Lots of informations. Including the new tattoos that He got."

I hated myself for my own weak willpower.

I chose one dress on the very top of my head, and then asked Bella to help me draw my eyebrows.

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To: bellathebest

From: Ryder Black

Bella,

How are you? How about her?

The studio's great and I've been learning a lot of new techniques to carve woods. It's still hard to actually get proper food because I owe those guys too much money and they demand upfront payment every month, but at least I can eat a slightly more expensive ramen than two months ago. Baby steps, right?

I've been thinking of a new tattoo. What do you think about a calico kitten in the arms of a grown man?

Okay, I just threw up when I imagined that. A sloth, then? Better?

You know someone that could draw a real good sloth for me?

I'm fine, btw, despite the debt. Please tell my grandmother that I'm fine and I've added 5 kilograms. She insists of sending me food every week. Just tell her to send April food. Not me. From the photos that you sent me, she looks sickly thin.

P.s: next time, don't take a group photo with that Alex guy. He ruins the picture. Ugh.

P.p.s: and don't flirt with him. PLEASE.

Best,

R

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✎ author's note ✎ CAUTION LONG AND IMPORTANT

thank you soo much for reading <3 i love that you guys are still with me and continue supporting and reading my story. it really is the best feeling! lately i've been feeling crazed, and sometimes there are multiple days when i can't sleep. but reading your comments really cheer me up. anyway, as you can probably tell, i've become sooooo attached to our guy Alex. this never happens to me before y'know. i never create a secondary character and then actually really really like that character. but he's been showing up in my head more and i decide to give him his own story.

well, it's not exactly a sequel, but it's definitely a story about alex. he's built up a lot of history and background and if i just decide on my whim, then this is not the story of april hale anymore but just an ode for alex. ha. of course, this would mean that you'd know that he WON'T end up with april. (because... you know. #secondleadsyndrome) but that doesn't mean he'll get a great story.

but hey, that doesn't mean that he'll get a goddamn good storyline in this story. there's still a lot in store for him.

without further ado,

Pizza Delivery Girl VS The Rich Kids

Summer Chase hasn't always been poor, but her father made very bad investments that reduced them penniless.

And now she delivers pizzas to make a living, in between her dreams of her art career picking up (ahem. not likely.)

However, things take a sharp turn when she delivers to one particular person, Alex Malifeci.

Her senior in high school, who, Summer was head over heels with. (Nope. Unfortunately they never dated. Just good 'ol one-sided adoration.)

Alex is young, incredibly good-looking, and ppsst, A hotel owner. If only Summer hasn't completely humiliated herself in front of him years ago. If only Alex weren't such an unreadable jerk. If only Summer didn't trip on her stupid chicken suit and threw a whole box of Pizza towards Alex's cousin, Cameron.

Now she's trapped between the two billionaires, who apparently has had bad blood forever. Both of them are using her as a pawn to get to each other. And as their game grows more and more dangerous, Summer must decide if she really wants to get involved in their mind-games and toxic rivalries.

----

excerpt:

#1. "Picture this. I'm delivering five boxes of pizzas to the newest, coolest luxury boutique hotel.

And then I see him. The guy I was absolutely obsessed with during highschool; Alex Malifeci.

Only, instead of swearing, he's saying a lot of foreign business terms.

Instead of wearing sneakers and selling pot, he's all suited up and smells like money.

And here I am, instead of glammed up and looking cute, I'm wearing a chicken suit because my company insist all big pizza deliveries must be accompanied with an 'exuberant chicken dance'.

Woe is definitely me."

#2. "I'm just here to deliver pizza!"

  Cameron shrugs. Handsome. "I know. But it'll be better if your service comes with an option to irritate my annoying cousin, Alex."

He has really beautiful eyes and lips. A bit slanted and thickly lashed. I swear if he ever decides to smile, I'll be done. Done.

  "Such as?"

  He smiles. "Feeding me in front of him."

  Yup. See you on the other side.

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as a treat, there's also a bonus chapter for you after this one. if you want an early access up to 3 chapters beforehand (hence 3 weeks waiting-time), please check out my radish account demonicblackcat. i'm uploading chapter 28 this TUESDAY/WEDNESDAY.

those who actually purchased my previous chapters, THANK YOU VERY MUCH. i hate that we can't communicate on radish, but thank you thank you thank you. you've made my life so much easier by supporting me. i love you <3

and this note is already long enough, so i'm just gonna say bye now.

BYE