The Boyfriend Deal

Evernight Teen ®

www.evernightteen.com

Copyright© 2016 Charity West

ISBN: 978-1-77233-729-7

Cover Artist: Jay Aheer

Editor: Melissa Hosack

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

WARNING: The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal.  No part of this book may be used or reproduced electronically or in print without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in reviews.

This is a work of fiction. All names, characters, and places are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

THE BOYFRIEND DEAL

Charity West

Copyright © 2016

Chapter One

Hadley

Seeing Hunter head my way, a determined, slightly psycho look in his eyes, made me panic. I did the only thing I could think to do. I grabbed the first boy I saw and kissed him like my life depended on it, but as my body pressed against my unsuspecting target and my lips crashed against his, three things became very apparent to me. One, the boy knew how to kiss; his lips were divine and the hands going around my waist weren’t so bad either. Two, I was slightly in over my head, as he pressed me back against my locker. And three … well, I was still reeling from one and two. Three would have to wait for later.

“If you wanted me to kiss you, Red, all you had to do was say so.”

My eyes popped open and I stared in open-mouthed shock at the boy who had just made me melt with his kiss. Tyler Robbins. The one boy I should avoid like the plague. The only boy who had the power to completely devastate me, rip out my heart and stomp on it, and do so without any true effort on his part. I’d had a major crush on him since pre-kindergarten. Perhaps crush was too tame a word. When you’ve obsessed over a boy since the age of four, it escalated things beyond crush level.

He winked at me and moved along down the hall, as if the earth hadn’t just moved, as if lightning hadn’t just struck, as if … well, you get the point. He was everything I’d ever wanted, and the one thing I’d never have. Tyler flitted from one girl to another. He didn’t have a flavor of the month; he had a flavor of the day. Or maybe it was a flavor of the hour. Except for Alicia Thompson. She was his on again off again girlfriend for the last two years, and she was a total witch. The last time they’d broken up, she’d egged the car of his next conquest.

It took me a moment to realize Hunter was standing beside me, looking both livid and hurt all at the same time, but really, the entire thing was his fault. If he hadn’t cheated on me, then turned stalker, my lips never would have touched Tyler’s. Then again, maybe I should be thanking him. Now I could cross off a major item on my wish list. I’d been dreaming of kissing Tyler Robbins since the first time I saw him, on my very first day of school. Of course, that was before he started crushing on the snotty girl in our class, then I just wanted to pelt him in the face with a mud pie at recess.

“Why are you doing this, Hadley? Tyler Robbins? Don’t you know he’s going to use you and toss you aside like yesterday’s garbage?”

“Yeah, because there’s no one around here who hasn’t already done that, right? In case you missed it, Hunter, we broke up. You have no say in who I do or do not kiss. If I want to make out with him in the janitor’s closet, that’s my business and not yours. And stop stalking me! I’m not taking you back. Not now, not ever.”

I snatched the books out of my locker, slammed it shut, and took off down the hall. I could feel his gaze boring into my back, and I wasn’t not going to lie, it seriously creeped me out. But what could I possibly do about Hunter? My own family thought I should give him another chance; every girl in school was praying I wouldn’t, and no matter what I said to the boy, he wouldn’t take no for an answer.

What I needed was a boyfriend. Someone who wouldn’t be intimidated by Hunter, who would stand up to him and tell him to back off and leave me the heck alone. What I needed was a jock, but no self-respecting jock was going to be seen with a band geek like me. And I wasn’t even in the marching band, the semi-cool band geeks because they kept the audience revved up during football games. I played the flute, but I wasn’t coordinated enough to walk and play at the same time. Not without landing on my face at any rate.

I sat through first period in kind of a daze, not really hearing anything the teacher said. I managed to write down my assignment and shuffled toward the door when the bell rang. It seemed I wasn’t the only one in a daze and ready to leave Mr. Bertram’s math class because everyone bottlenecked at the doorway. As I was squeezing my way through, someone grabbed my arm and I found myself plastered against Tyler for the second time that morning.

Startled, I looked up at him, wondering why his hands were on my waist, and more importantly, why was he looking at me like that? You know, in that
you’re the only girl in the world
kind of way. Not even Hunter had ever looked at me like that. He didn’t say anything, not at first. He just stood there smiling down at me. I took a moment to admire his perfectly gelled hair and—
sniff
—his heavenly scent. I had no idea what type of cologne he wore, but if I could wrap myself in that scent—preferably by way of his arms being around me—then I would die happy.

“Mind if I walk you to class?” he asked.

I didn’t think I could have spoken if I’d wanted to, I was that shocked, but I managed to squeak out some sort of reply that he must have taken as consent. He gave me a little smirk, and with his hand resting at the small of my back, he ushered me to my next class. My conclusion was that I’d somehow fallen into an alternate reality during math class, because in what world did the captain of the football team walk someone like me to class?

No, I’m not ugly. But I’d seen the girls Tyler “dated”, and I used the term loosely. They weren’t anything like me. They were all blonde, curvy, and at the top of the social food chain. He could literally have any girl he wanted in the entire school, so why was he escorting me to class as if he was my boyfriend? Sure, our kiss was probably the most important event of my entire life, but he’d locked lips with plenty of girls. I doubted my kiss was special.

We paused outside of my next class and he pulled me close again. His head lowered and my breath hitched in my throat. Was he going to kiss me? I felt my eyes widen, but he stopped a mere inch from my lips, lips that were now tingling and begging for a kiss that would probably never come.

“I’ll meet you here after class.”

There was a mischievous twinkle in his eyes right before his nose caressed mine. He pressed a kiss my cheek, making my lips insanely jealous, and then he took off. I was left standing outside my class, slack-jawed and probably looking like a complete loon. Somehow, I managed to snap out of it and went inside to find my seat. My best friend, Amber, stared at me, eyebrows raised, as she waited for me to dish about what was happening between Tyler and me. Except, I didn’t know what to say.

“He wants me to wait for him after class.” I know I had to look at least half as dazed as I felt. Amber smiled at me, but it was this devious
I’m plotting to take over the world
kind of smile.

“Maybe he can be your Hunter repellent. You should ask him out.”

I think I must have hallucinated for a moment. “Did you just say I should ask out Tyler Robbins?”

She nodded, that same scary smile on her face.

“Amber, he’s
Tyler Robbins
. Why would he go out with me?”

“Maybe for the same reason he just kissed you. I know you don’t see it, but you’re gorgeous, Hadley. He had to have noticed at some point, and now that you’ve broken the ice, not to mention having dumped Hunter, he figures it’s time to make his move.”

She believed the words coming out of her mouth, but I just thought she was crazy. No way Mr. Football Captain wanted to date me. He probably hadn’t even known I existed before I kissed him this morning. Maybe I gave him false hope and he thought he was going to get lucky? Well, if that was what he believed, I would have to straighten him out next time I saw him. My lips craved his, but that was as far as I was willing to go. Unlike the girls he usually hung out with, I was far from easy. I’d dated Hunter for nearly two years, and he’d never even gotten to second base. Now, I was eternally grateful for that.

The teacher droned on and on about the book we were reading in class. Being somewhat obsessed with books, I’d read ahead. All right, to be perfectly honest, I’d read the entire book. It wasn’t like I was heading to Milo’s Pizza Café on a Friday night with my boyfriend, or going to whatever party was taking place on the weekends. Even when I’d dated Hunter, I hadn’t been a party kind of girl. He’d been okay with that, perhaps a little
too
okay. It had just never occurred to me that he was heading to those parties solo and hooking up with random girls. Not until I received the video proof on my phone.

There was a knock at the door and I looked up to see the object of my obsession leaning against the doorframe.
How does he look so incredibly sexy so effortlessly?
His gaze clashed with mine across the room and there were instant sparks. Had he felt it too? The way his lips tipped in a slightly sardonic smile said he knew exactly what I was thinking and that it amused him.

“Mr. Robbins, shouldn’t you be in class?” Mrs. Lundstrom asked, as she adjusted her glasses.

“I need to see Hadley Ryan for a moment. It’s important.”

Mrs. Lundstrom sighed, but I could tell from the slight smile on her lips that she wasn’t really annoyed with him. I didn’t think there was a female alive who wouldn’t fall under Tyler’s spell, even the seventy year old Mrs. Lundstrom. She gave a slight nod and motioned for me to step into the hall. My heart was pounding in my chest, racing like it was trying to win the Kentucky Derby, and I smoothed my skirt as I made my way over to the door.

Tyler took my hand, tugged me into the hall, and then closed the classroom door. I was pretty sure Mrs. Lundstrom didn’t mean for that to happen, but she didn’t exactly stop him either. As I looked around, I realized we were completely alone and it made my palms sweat a little. I didn’t think Tyler had anything nefarious planned, since there wasn’t an audience, but for the life of me, I couldn’t figure out what he could possibly want to say to me that required him to drag me from class. I could practically feel the stares on the other side of the door as everyone speculated about what was happening in the hall.

“If you wanted my attention, all you had to do was ask for it.” He smirked at me, but there was laughter in his eyes. I was glad someone found this amusing.

“I was trying to prove to my ex that I’ve moved on. You just happened to be handy.”

“Who are you trying to convince? Will it make you sleep better if you tell yourself you didn’t mean to kiss me? That I was just in the right place at the right time?”

My eyes narrowed at him and I pursed my lips, wanting to argue the point, but what was the use? He was kind of right. I hadn’t intentionally kissed him this morning, but I’d definitely wanted to for almost my entire life. And something told me he knew about my infatuation with him. But then, every girl in school was infatuated with him, so it wasn’t a big stretch to come to that conclusion.

“Look, you need me, whether you want to admit it or not.” He smiled at me again. “So why don’t we make a deal?”

“What kind of deal?”

If he thought I was going to sleep with him just to chase off Hunter, he was sadly mistaken. Of course, if that was all he wanted, he could get that anywhere. It was no big secret that was why he dated Alicia. She gave him everything he could possibly want, so I was a little confused as to why they kept breaking up.

“You need a boyfriend so Hunter Prescott will stop following you around like a lost little puppy, and I need a nice, stable girlfriend that I can take home to meet my parents. Mom is threatening to send me to military school if I don’t change my ways, and as I see it, you’re exactly the type of girl she wishes I would date.”

“You mean someone who won’t let you get past first base?”

He nodded. “Besides, you have that wholesome girl-next-door quality. You’re the exact opposite of the girls I usually date, and if Mom sees the two of us spending time together, then she’ll forget this insane idea of sending me away.”

“So you want to pretend to be my boyfriend?” I wasn’t certain I’d heard that right. And if I had, while it was very tempting, I could see major flaws with his plan. For one, my heart was going to get trampled because I was seriously ga-ga over the boy. For another, Alicia was going to destroy me if she thought for one moment Tyler was serious about me.

“We each get something we need, and in a few weeks, we can break up. Dating me will open the door to other guys asking you out and get rid of your stalker, and my dating you will keep me out of military school.”

The boy was seriously crazy. He really thought anyone would believe he would date me? Like he’d said, I was the exact opposite of the girls he usually hung out with. No way was anyone going to believe he’d suddenly fallen for the band geek, not even if they’d seen our kiss this morning in the hall. The determined set of his jaw told me he was going to make it work, one way or another. Why couldn’t a boy come after me with that sort of determination for real? Aside from crazy Hunter. I hoped this didn’t come back to bite me in the rear. The last thing I needed was another psycho stalker on my hands.