Braxton- “Calm down, we still don’t know much about what happened, but she left her laptop and phone outside your house. Lex and I have been working on it and it is apparent that both have been tampered with. We are working on retrieving the deleted items, but it will take a while.” Sebastian spoke. “We need to find her. Something feels off right now. I shouldn’t have been so short-sighted.” “I will give Jace a call…” Lex said, but I quickly interrupted him. “No. Leave him out of this.” I knew that if we involved him, he would once again be in the middle of things between Izariah and me. If I had any chance of correcting my mistake, I needed him to stay out of it. There was too much going on right now and I was just figuring out what I felt for her. This ordeal was a setback for us, but I wasn’t ready to give up yet. If I had to drive around all night, I was going to until I found her. I needed her to understand that I was upset but I was going to stick by her until the end. If
Braxton- “How is she doing?” Lex asked when I opened the door for them a few hours later. “Still sick, but I think she will be fine. She is asleep right now. Did you find anything out?” I directed my question at Sebastian, who had brought Izariah’s phone and laptop with him. He didn’t answer until we were sitting in the room I used as a study. I didn’t want everyone to know what was going on, which is why I chose one of the few rooms that were one hundred percent soundproof. “I did contact the guy in the photo, and he will arrive any minute. As far as everything on the laptop and phone goes, I managed to get everything back the way it was. The pictures were taken with her phone and the article was uploaded onto her laptop. When I traced the IP address on the article to see when and where it was uploaded, it was early Sunday morning.” Sebastian explained and then opened the laptop to show me what he was talking about. “In other words, we are at a dead end?” I asked, feeling frustr
Izariah-I wasn’t sure what he was trying to ask at the moment, because my head was a little foggy. It took me a second to realize that he was practically naked in the same bed as me. At the time it hadn’t bothered me because I had been sick, and I was happy that he wasn’t turning away from me any longer.A blush crept up my neck, to my cheeks, causing them to feel warm. Looking at him now, I saw him in a new light. It was kind of like the way I used to look at Jace, but this was different. When had I started looking at Braxton as if he were someone, I could see a future with?It must be from being sick, why else would I be interested in someone who has done nothing but caused me problems? Okay, so perhaps it wasn’t all bad. We have had times when we got along great. After I got out of the hospital and at the amusement park.Was it possible that I was the one who was causing issues where there weren’t any? Perhaps I was thinking too much. I already knew that I had the wrong impression
Izariah-If it weren’t for the urge to use the restroom, I would have laid in bed and watched Braxton sleep. Careful not to wake him, I slipped out of bed and tiptoed to the bathroom. One look at my reflection and I cringed.Lifting my left arm, I turned my head a little so I could sniff my armpit. I regretted it immediately. Even though I didn’t want to wake Braxton up, I also didn’t want to get near him smelling the way I did. It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t great either.Before using the bathroom, I turned on the water to warm it up. I decided to take a bath instead of a shower, that way I could limit the noise I was making. Once I had the tub set up to fill it up, I used the toilet.I didn’t flush it when I was done, since I didn’t want to mess with the temperature of the water that was filling the tub. While I waited, I looked around the bathroom to see if there was anything I could use to get clean, instead of smelling like a guy. I didn’t find anything, so I took the soap out of t
Izariah-I moved forward to stop Braxton from punching Jace again, but Jace held up his hand to stop me. When Braxton landed another blow to Jace’s face, I winced. Looking at Jace, I could see the blood running down his face, from his nose.“Is that all you got?” Jace mocked as if he was enjoying this.He was smiling and I saw blood covering his teeth. What the heck was wrong with these guys? I wanted to stop Braxton or say something to get him to stop, but every time I opened my mouth to say something Jace just glanced at me and shook his head.“You know damn well I like her, and you just have to come in and ruin everything. You have everything that you could want, so why must you have her too? Isn’t Rachel enough for you?” Braxton sounded extremely pissed by the way he was screaming at Jace. I could even see the veins in his neck protruding.“If you think she is easily swayed by me, then you never had her and you never will.” Jace chuckled as he lifted his chin to prepare for anothe
Izariah-Over the next week and a half, Braxton and I spent a lot of time together. Well, not a lot but more than we used to. He would walk me to and from class, eat lunch with me and he would drive me to and from work.At first, we had a difficult time getting over the awkwardness between us, but by the third day, we were talking like we were really friends. I learned a lot about him during that time. I tried getting him to talk to me about his past and his family, but he would clam up every time I brought it up.I found out he had twenty-seven cars, which I mentioned was too many for a single person to have. That didn’t include the five motorcycles, three boats, and one helicopter. Then there were the ones his family owned that he had access to.The more I got to know him, the less I felt as if I could ever fit in his world. I did realize that I really did like him, possibly even love him, but I felt like it was more infatuation than anything. Since I admitted to liking him, he has
Izariah-Looking at the keys still in my hand, I felt weird about accepting such a big gift, but I also felt weird about not accepting it. It was clear that it meant a lot to him if I did accept it, I could see the hope in his eyes. But how could I accept it? I didn’t know the first thing about driving it.“I am not asking for anything in return. Think of this as a gift to a new beginning for us. I would like to put the past conflicts, in the past.” Braxton spoke.When he put it that way, I couldn’t refuse, even if I knew that it would be better if I did. Moving my gaze from the keys, I looked up at him and I was torn by the look he was giving me. It looked as if he were worried that I would reject him.“I don’t know how to drive a standard.” I sighed as I wrapped my fingers around the keys, accepting his gift.“That is easy.” His smile alone made me realize that I made the right choice.Before I could ask what he meant, he reached over to grab my hand. He took the keys from me but co
Izariah-I regretted my decision the next morning when I was woken up by the sound of pounding on my door. It wasn’t that Braxton woke me up like that, no it was the group of strangers that barged into my dorm room behind him. A tall older woman and a group of both men and women herded me to my computer chair and then forced me to sit down.“What is going on?” I asked, looking past the people around me, at Braxton who was standing idle next to my bed.“I thought I mentioned that my party is tonight?”“Uh, no. No, you did not.” I blanched at him, and my jaw went slack as I stared at him.He expected me to change, or whatever he wanted me to do, in less than a day. I couldn’t even mentally prepare myself. I started to panic as if the walls were closing in on me. In a way, they kind of were as everyone that was surrounding me was gathering around me, not giving me any space.They stood shoulder to shoulder, leaning forward as they examined me and touched my face, hair, hands, and feet. I