Free Return of the Bad Boy by Paige North Page B

mistake ever. The first one kept me away from him for four years.
    Goddamn Dax Harding. He’s doing it to me again.
    Right now, the last thing I want is for him to leave me alone.

Chapter 7
    S tephen Andrews was Valedictorian of our class, Student Council president, Stanford-bound, rarely seen anywhere without Nevaeh, his flawless, raven-haired girlfriend. They were the power couple, admired and fawned over as they strolled the halls together. The entire student body loved them and wanted to be them.
    But Dax didn’t know or care about that. Dax could give two shits about the “elite” of our high school. What Dax did know about Stephen, he learned from me. And my story didn’t quite go along with the Golden Boy imagine Stephen had managed to carve out for himself.
    Dax and I had gotten to a point where we were telling each other everything.
    So I told Dax something I’d never told another soul. Sitting with him in the garage, watching him work, we’d pour out all our secrets. He’d tell me about his deadbeat father. He’d tell me how his one brother was so deep into heroin he’d probably be dead soon and how Dax was the only Harding boy who knew how to change a diaper, because he’d become the family caretaker.
    And I told him about Stephen—and the time he assaulted me.
    It was after yet another dull party at Nevaeh’s. Stephen and Nevaeh got into a huge fight, and she went up to bed early. Stephen and I were alone and he tried to put his hand up my skirt. Then he told me he wanted a blowjob. When I said no, he grabbed me and pushed me against the wall. Stephen was strong, and I was powerless and scared to death. If Juliet hadn’t come downstairs, I know it would’ve continued.
    Stephen played it off like we were just joking around, and Juliet believed him. After all, Stephen was the Golden Boy.
    After I told Dax that story, he was beyond furious and I couldn’t calm him down no matter how much I tried.
    The next day at lunch, Dax approached Stephen and confronted him about the story. Stephen tried to make a wisecrack about how I’d thrown myself at him and he’d had to fight me off—and that’s when Dax truly lost it.
    It only took one punch from Dax to put him down.
    I remember it so clearly. Stephen, stunned, lying on the linoleum floor, blood pouring down his chin. Everyone looking at Dax like he was a madman, wondering why the hell he’d done it.
    Dax’s hypnotic green eyes begging me, and his lips moving over and over again to form the words, “Tell them.”
    But I couldn’t just say it like that.
    Not at first, at least. I was afraid. Not that the truth made any difference to anyone. After Dax got expelled, Nevaeh tore the truth out of me. Stephen was right about one thing: they didn’t believe me. It didn’t matter what I said. She accused me of always being jealous and wanting him. And of course, Juliet took her side, because the Golden Couple could do no wrong.
    So I was completely on the outs.
    My group of friends would glare at me whenever I passed them in the hallway. I blamed Dax for that, when he was the only one who’d ever come to my defense.
    The thing was, he hadn’t asked if I wanted him to stand up for me that way—he’d just done it. Dax had needed to explode and vent his rage at Stephen, regardless of what it cost me.
    What it cost Dax and me both.
    And yes, after my parents found out about the fight and questioned me over and over again about it, and since everyone was whispering about us, I distanced myself from Dax. But instead of giving me that time to process it all, he moved on. Too quick.
    “You know, you almost got me fired,” I tell him as we walk toward Quincy Market. “You can’t keep thinking you need to defend me all the time, and do it without even asking me what I need.”
    He has his thumbs hooked in the pockets of his jeans, mechanic’s grease lining the cuticles of his fingernails. “A job working for that scumbag ain’t worth it,