LOGINShare
2 - He Lives Next To Me? Wtf!
publish date:
2025-11-29 00:07:42Ariana
I hated college.
I hated college kids.
I held back a gag, as I recalled some of the things that girl had said. She called me a bitch, seriously? After being so shameless, come to think of it the guy was equally shameless or he would have put a stop to it earlier.
A knock sounded on my door, forcing me to push myself out of bed to open it.
"Can I help you," I asked mom in a lazy tone.
"Get ready, we are having dinner with our new neighbors in ten minutes, and they're already downstairs." Her voice sounded demanding.
God, no, she just had to invite them over for dinner. My mom's a nurse hence why she was naturally nice to everyone, a little bit too nice if you asked me.
"Aren't they the ones who should be inviting us over for dinner considering they're are new and also as a peace offering." I pointed out. My mom took a deep sigh, shaking her head at me.
Sometimes I felt it was hard for her to raise me alone, without dad by her side. My Dad was arrested for fraud a couple years back and sentenced to thirty years in prison. Mom believed he was innocent, but mostly because she was deeply in love with him. Love? I'd g****e it if I didn't have a huge ego.
But I'll tell you what I think about love, it is fucked up as hell. I've seen people turn blind to the truth all in the name of the word that should not be mentioned. Take my mom for an instance, she was bent on waiting for my dad and believed he was framed despite the fact that all evidence did point to him.
"Be ready in less than ten minutes, dress decently and leave your phone on your bed." She ordered, and my mouth fell opened.
I hated that she's a control freak, well a bit like me. But she was the deal, while I was just the copy.
"But Mom."
"Leave the phone!" She repeated the last part loudly, walking out on me.
She have got to be kidding me. I couldn't go down there eating with a bunch of strangers without texting Sofia. How was I supposed to distract myself? Ouch, goddamn it. I hoped the new neighbors weren't creeps. The last ones stole our family album.
Sighing in defeat, I decided to let my chestnut locks fall down my shoulders, as I pulled on my black t-shirt, baggy shorts, and fluffy boys palms. I think this was what she meant when she said decent.
Grudgingly, I tossed my phone on the bed, as I dragged myself down the stairs. I heard voices coming from the kitchen. The more I walked towards it, the more I resisted the urge to walk back into my room.
There was a woman who looked like she's the same age as my mom, she was sitted next to a blonde dude who could be my age, and on the other side of the table, was another dude facing down and typing on his phone. So he gets to text people during this, but I don't. That's just great.
"Nick, no typing." The woman yelled, snatching the phone from him. Spoke too soon.
"Aria, come join us." Said my mom. I offered her a tight-lipped nod and sat next to the second dude, not even sparing him a glance as I did so. I felt his eyes on me though, making me overly self conscious as I shoved a spoonful of mash into my mouth. God, I wanted nothing more than to be over with this weird dinner as soon as possible. My wish came true because the unseasoned starchiness nearly choked me to death, but having grown used to my mom's cooking, I somehow managed to swallow it down and kept eating.
"Eve, Mark, and Nick this is my only daughter Ariana, Ariana this are our new neighbors, the Beaufort." My mom introduced all of us with a beaming smile. I could still feel the intense eyes of the guy beside me. Disturbed, I snapped my gaze towards him and God help me.. the dude beside me looked like sin itself.
He was beautiful in a way that felt wrong. Chiseled features, dark-haired, and a familiar set of striking ocean eyes. I gasped loudly. Hold on.. wasn't this the same asshole from class?
"You." I mumbled, causing him to lick his buttom lips, making it all wet and pink. Okay what was happening? Why was he trying to look all hotter?
"You two know each other?" My mom asked, pulling me out of my thoughts.
"Uh.."
"She's in my class." He interrupted me, his voice smooth, deep and annoyingly sexy.
My mom's face instantly brighten. "I can see you two are already familiar with yourselves."
Nick choked back a laugh. "No, we aren't. She has attitude problem and is rude."
Attitude problem and rude? You have got to be kidding me. Wasn't he the one who was about to get a hand job in public space and even after I reprimanded him couldn't apologize. I laughed darkly, how fucking oblivious was this guy.
"Care to share what's so funny." He asked. I looked up and found everyone eyes on me.
"Nothing. Just the fact that you couldn't even wait untill class was over before trying to charm the pants off your seatmate." I deadpanned.
And that people was the perfect start of an aggrieved situationship between Nick and I.
Latest chapter
CRAVING THE BAD BOY 326 - The Life We Kept
Spring arrived the way the best things had learned to arrive in their life—without announcement, and without asking permission.The ice on the lake went soft at the edges first, then fractured into shifting gray plates that groaned and settled and finally gave way to open water. The longer light that had begun in late winter kept its promise. One morning Ariana woke to the sound of birds instead of the low complaints of frozen boards, and for a full minute she only listened, cataloguing the difference the way she had once catalogued exits.Nick was already awake beside her, watching the ceiling with the quiet expression he wore when he was thinking without urgency.“It’s gone,” she said.He turned his head on the pillow. “The ice?”“The waiting.” She shifted closer until her forehead rested against his collarbone. “I listened for it this morning and it wasn’t there.”Nick’s arm came around her. He didn’t answer immediately. When he did, his voice was low and rough with sleep and somet
CRAVING THE BAD BOY 325 - The Shape of Permanent
The conversation about permanence did not arrive like a crisis.It arrived on a clear morning in late winter, when the ice on the lake had begun to look less absolute and the light stayed longer in the trees. Nick came in from the porch with a folder under his arm and the particular expression he wore when he had already done the research and was only waiting for the right moment to set it down between them.Ariana was at the table with her archival work. She saved the file, closed the laptop, and waited.He placed the folder in front of her.“The leasing office put me in touch with the owners,” he said. “They’re willing to sell. The number is high but not impossible. I’ve run it three different ways. If we want it, we can make it work without either of us taking on anything that pulls us back into the kind of life we already walked away from.”Ariana opened the folder. Clean pages. Figures. A simple floor plan of the cabin and the surrounding land. The language of ordinary purchase i
CRAVING THE BAD BOY 324 - Longer Light
The light began to change before the cold did.One afternoon Ariana looked up from the archival work and realized the sun was still clear of the treeline at an hour when, only weeks earlier, the cabin would already have been sinking into blue shadow. The difference was small. A handful of minutes. But she felt it register in her body like a quiet announcement: the hardest stretch of winter was no longer deepening. It was beginning, almost imperceptibly, to tip.She saved her work and stood at the window until Nick came in from the porch, cheeks flushed, the smell of cold air still on his coat.“You’re staring like the lake said something rude,” he said.“The light’s longer.”He joined her at the glass, shoulder against hers. For a moment they only watched the pale gold stretch farther across the ice than it had any right to in late January.“I noticed it yesterday,” he admitted. “Didn’t want to say it out loud yet. Like it might change its mind.”Ariana leaned into him. “Let it stay.”
CRAVING THE BAD BOY 323 - What Accumulates
The cabin received them back without ceremony.No sense of interruption. No feeling that the rooms had been holding their breath. Nick set the bags down in the entryway and did the familiar thing with the lock—secured it, then turned the bolt the other way and left it open. Ariana watched the small movement from the kitchen doorway and felt the now-familiar settling in her chest, the quiet recognition that they had crossed a distance and returned on purpose.Home, again.The days that followed did not announce themselves as important. They simply arrived and stayed. Ariana resumed the archival work with a focus that felt cleaner after the short absence. Nick took two consulting calls and declined a third that would have required him to be on-site for a week. When she asked about it, he only shrugged and said the numbers weren’t worth the time away. The answer was practical. The choice beneath it was not.Winter held. The lake remained locked under its pale sheet of ice. In the afterno
CRAVING THE BAD BOY 322 - The Open Door
They took the lights down on the morning they left for Evelyn’s.Not because the season was over, but because leaving them up while the cabin sat empty felt like a promise they weren’t ready to test. Nick wound the strand with more care than the task required. Ariana swept the last of the pine needles from the floorboards. When the crooked tree was finally hauled out to the treeline, the living room looked larger and slightly stunned, as if it had not expected the holiday to end.“We’ll put them up again next year,” Nick said, wiping his hands on his jeans.Ariana touched the gold disc at her throat. “Next year.”The words still felt new enough to handle carefully.The drive to the coast took most of the daylight. Snow gave way to wetter ground and then to the low, gray-green of winter fields near the water. Nick drove with one hand on the wheel and the other resting on Ariana’s thigh, thumb moving in slow, absent arcs. They stopped once for coffee and did not speak of anything heavie
CRAVING THE BAD BOY 321 - After the Lights
The lights stayed up longer than they meant them to.By the third day after Christmas the crooked tree had begun to drop needles on the floorboards, and one section of the porch strand flickered in a way that suggested it was negotiating its own retirement. Neither of them moved to take anything down. The soft glow against the snow had become part of the cabin’s winter face, and dismantling it felt like closing a door they were not ready to close.Ariana stood at the window on a bright, hard morning, fingers absently touching the small gold disc at her throat. Still here. The metal had already warmed to her skin. Behind her, Nick moved through the kitchen with the unselfconscious noise of a man who no longer measured every step against the possibility of a threat. The sound of him—drawer, kettle, the low hum he made without noticing—filled the space where vigilance used to live.“You’re quiet,” he said without turning around.“I’m thinking about the first time I woke up here and didn’
You May Also Like
Living With The Player
Crystal Oduwa60.1K viewsUnexpected rebound.
Godwin Hosanna Aga41.4K viewsIce Hockey Stud and His Best Friend's Sister
Kerry Kennedy34.6K viewsThe Badboy’s Little Kitten
Purple Ink28.6K viewsCHECKMATE MY ICY HEART: FALLING FOR THE HOCKEY CAPTAIN
Phebe585 viewsFaking Forever With My Ex's Rival
Author Miguel 77 viewsThe Hockey Boy I Wasn't Supposed To Love
Preshytreenah 359 viewsBully's Sinful Obsession.
Jaciwrites571 views
