"No!" The voice saying that one word was powerful, filled with determination and hints of impatience and rage. No one could change his mind. Sadly... no one was asking for Aiden's opinion."But I haven't seen you play for years." His father said with a sigh, almost sounding as if he was whining. The voice makes Aiden even more unshaken by his decision. As if he would allow himself to get embarrassed in front of the entire school. "Even Jeremy is coming."Hearing this, Aiden had the sudden urge to end his existence and play ghost. Why are you saying that as if it would make things any better?!! "ABSOLUTELY, NO!"Mathew, his father stared at his son and bit his lip in order not to smack the back of his head and accidentally smack out that little brain he had left in that thick skull of his. Instead, a low humorless chuckle vibrated from his throat as he shook his head slowly, a dangerous aurora radiating from him. "Boy." One word made Aiden freeze. That tone was used only on one occasion
The game was being held in the gym which, much to Ryder's surprise, was pretty packed. A lot of people had come, chatting and laughing, their voices filling the spacious place like buzzing bees. Since she didn't come to such events, Ryder didn't have any way of knowing that the gym was this packed pretty much every time there was a match. All the noise was a bit overwhelming and for sure it would get worse when the game started.Unlike Ryder who couldn't find it fun to watch several guys tossing and running after a ball, Jasmine was quite excited. Even though she wasn't a hardcore fan of any sports, in particular, she enjoyed watching basketball, volleyball, football, soccer, baseball games... as long as she knew the rules and could understand what was going on, she would enjoy the match a lot. As for with which team she was, Jasmine preferred to play Switzerland in WWII. However in this game... since it's Aiden playing, she would definitely be with the other team out of spite.There w
For someone who didn't particularly like crowded places or sports, Ryder was bored out of her mind to the point she had put on her headphones listening to music while searching online on how to make a Mad Hatter hat. She had truly tried to focus on the game but after a while, it was getting quite boring.Of course, that wasn't the case for Jasmine. That Momma bear had quite some lungs. She seemed to be enjoying the game a lot. Given the fact that she had decided from the beginning that she would be with the team from the other school just because of spite, she had seized this opportunity to indirectly bully Aiden. Jasmine couldn't just start cheering for the other team with everyone from her school there. After all, even though she wasn't famous or whatever, she had quite the reputation and a lot of people knew her. So she could only yell at Aiden all sorts of things."Pass the ball! Pass the ball! DO YOU EVEN KNOW HOW TO PLAY?!!"Aiden who is the captain of the team "...""What the he
By the time the game ended, Jasmine was quite disappointed. Her school won. She didn't yell her throat sore to see Aiden scoring a three-pointer in the last minute. However, she was the only one feeling this way. As Aiden scored one last time right before the game ended, the gym erupted into cheers thrilled from their victory.Aiden looked as if he was about to collapse on spot. He was panting hard, his legs felt like noodles but his anger had boiled for too long to the point it made him look like he was going to commit murder. Nobody dared approach him to celebrate the victory. So immersed in anger, Aiden wasn't in the mood to celebrate at all. Instead, he wanted revenge.Thinking this way, he wiped his forehead with his forearm and rushed to Ryder whose eyes left the phone screen only now that the game was over. She was looking at him with a smile on her face, understanding from the crowd that they had won, while Jasmine was glaring at Aiden for winning.With the intention of killin
Now it's one thing... being young... falling for someone... wanting to be in a relationship... wanting to hold hands with that person and... you know... want to kiss them... it's pretty normal. After all, as soon as you reach a particular age, hormones hit you in the face like fucking Optimus Prime in its truck form. BUT IT'S A WHOLE OTHER THING!!! TO FUCKING BE IN A RELATIONSHIP!!! AND YOU DON'T EVEN KNOW ABOUT IT!!! How the actually holy freaking biscuit crap did I get into this mess? Ryder really couldn't understand. How could such a misunderstanding happen? It's not like you can take someone else's feelings for granted when you have never even had a decent serious conversation, let alone talk about feelings. As Jasmine calmly, but extremely annoyed, explained everything to Ryder, the latter's brain just... POOF... malfunctioned. The brain literally went: Oh hell naw, I'm outta here! After finally recovering her wits, everything took a nasty turn... for Jasmine. Now, it's not li
Now that was actually a pretty good plan, so the three of them headed to the "Wooden Lord" bookstore after school. But there was a tiny problem. Actually, there were two. First of all... even if the old lady that owned the bookstore would let them check the recordings, the young lady working there for sure would kick up a fuss. She already had fed her anger towards Ryder for months now that her cute and handsome crush hadn't shown up at her store ever since that ugly cow appeared. There was no fucking way she would let this cow find her cuttie and have any chance with him. The worker didn't quite understand what was the situation between this nuisance of a being and her cuttie but she knew Ryder doesn't know who he is or what he looks like. Whatever the case, she wanted to keep things as they were. Now Ryder came up with a solution for this. Without batting an eye, she dead ass asked Remy to flirt with the girl. Remy is tall, has dark hair and dark eyes, is handsome as hell, and unlik
His entire body froze as if possessed by an ice demon, but contrary to the ice statue state of his body, Midnight's heart was restless, beating hard against his chest as if trying to leap out of it. The breath he was inhaling at the moment the two arms circled his waist and the tender and soft voice of Ryder spoke, got stuck in his throat, almost choking him. In those moments, Midnight was so stunned and speechless he was unable to react, his thoughts were in chaos and he even dared to think he was dreaming.Have I gone crazy? Am I hallucinating now because I'm sleep-deprived?With a trembling hand, his fingers touched lightly the skin of the back of Ryder's hands almost as if he was scared that by touching her, she would disappear in thin air like an illusion his tired mind created. But the warmth of those hands almost scalded his fingertips. Yet he couldn't bring himself to pull his hand away. Instead, as soon as his hand touched Ryder's, his fast-beating heart slowly calmed down and
"Why?" Ryder pouted. She was suddenly back in the mood, swinging her legs happily for winning the fight. Haha! She had tamed a Midnight today. "Are you displeased with this Prince? I'm very charming."Midnight didn't say anything but simply smiled at his silly sticky kitten."You can't leave this Prince without his Cinderella, okay? You will come tonight, won't you?"Midnight hummed a soft response. "Mhm.""Promise?""I promise.""Pinky promise?" Ryder stretched out her pinky."Pinky promise." Midnight said and grabbed her pinky finger, but before he could get a good grip on it, Ryder slapped his hand away."The right hand. Use your right hand.""It's the same. It doesn't make any difference.""It does. The right hand has the mole. The left one doesn't.""What does that have to do with our pinky promise?"The cheeks that had remained pale throughout the whole ruckus she had caused, while she was screaming and jumping on Midnight's back, even when talking crap like being Midnight's Prin
Those three words shocked Michelle stiff. During this whole month, the drama queen's role was occupied by Henry who would wail and complain the whole time for getting his daughter stolen by a brat. However, Michelle was rather calm. Isn't it just a boyfriend? Yet only now did she realize the situation was quite serious. Where did this love come from? Wasn't it just a simple crush? What love??? No, no, no. Nobody talked about love! This is serious. Her daughter really got stolen right in front of her eyes! Unacceptable!!!!! The corner of her lips twitched. Michelle lost all desire to cook. She didn't even want to see Jake anymore. She needed time to digest all this. Wait a minute.... Does this mean she is going to meet her future son-in-law? BUT I'M TOO YOUNG TO BE A GRANDMA! And so when Henry came back, the pair of husband and wife looked as if they were facing a calamity. Who knew Ryder better than them? That damned girl didn't even make friends that easily. If she said she loved Ja
Five minutes later, Ryder was breathing heavily, her face as red as it could get. She wanted to glare at Jake but couldn't for she also felt rather shy after that kiss... Let's say... a few sounds she had never done before came out of her and now she wanted to bury herself somewhere. On the other hand, Jake had his mood improved, and turned to his painting as if nothing happened. "That wasn't the revenge I was talking about by the way." The low pitch and somehow hoarse voice sent shivers down her spine. "Jerk," Ryder muttered at him, touching her lips. Jake only smiled even more and kept painting. "Humph!" Ryder scoffed and sat back on the bed. Trying to ignore the intense blush on her face, she brought Jake's laptop on her lap. "Can I use your laptop?" "Yeah." Ryder opened the screen of it and frowned for a second. It seemed that the last time Jake had used it, he was writing something, for the first thing that appeared once the screen turned on was a document on Microsoft Word.
After Aiden went home that afternoon, what awaited him was a pissed-off father, with hands resting on his hips and a rather fierce look in his eyes. Mathew scolded Aiden for five hours straight, his voice not even going hoarse from all the talking, but Aiden's ears had gone numb and felt like they would bleed if he listened to his father's vicious scolding even for one more minute. His head was boiling from all that speech to the point he even felt like fainting, but all Aiden could do, was sit and patiently listen with his head lowered, bearing with this humiliating state. This happened four weeks ago. After that long ass scolding, Aiden didn't dare to say half a bad word to Jake, but that didn't stop him from glaring at his brother and Ryder every time he saw the two of them. As the days passed, the glares softened a bit, but the atmosphere between the three of them was anything but good. Still, Ryder didn't care at all. Ever since she and Jake became a pair, the unrestricted Mathe
Before he left in the morning, Ryder finally got his phone number. Because of some certain grudges from the past she also wanted Jake to give her his email and any other social media he was on, only to remember that she wasn't on any social media herself. In the end, she could only add him on WhatsApp. He had promised to pick her up from school, so the two of them could go out for a walk."Why are you smiling like a fool?" Jasmine asked her."Huh? What?" Ryder put her phone back in her coat pocket."Why were you smiling at the phone like a fool?" Jasmine repeated, her dark eyes narrowing at Ryder. Only now did she notice that this friend of hers looked kind of strange today. Her eyes were way too... sparkling... And her cheeks were a rosy red... and her smile was a bit too bright...WHAT THE FUCK!WHAT HAPPENED YESTERDAY?!!!Jasmine turned around, looking around the classroom. As her eyes fell on Aiden, she felt both relieved and disappointed at the same time. In the end, she clicked
"Did you go out in the garden? There were footprints on the snow." Henry asked before stuffing almost half of the toast that was in front of him in his mouth. Michelle looked at his vile way of eating as if he had been starved and clicked her tongue. Her upper lip curled up and her nose drew up and wrinkled as she shook her head, yet she still put more toasts in front of her husband. Gotta feed him well."I did," Ryder answered slowly, not sure if it was the right answer or not. There was no way her father had seen Jake sneaking out of her room, right? He would have grabbed his homemade sword and chased after him. Right?"Oh. Why?""I wanted to play with snow."Henry looked at his daughter as if she had grown a second head. Facing such a gaze, Ryder smiled foolishly. "It has been so long since I last saw snow...""Oh..." Henry said again. He didn't ponder over it too much though, as Michelle stuffed what was left from his toast in his mouth."Eat more, speak less."Having been fed by
As the kiss landed on his hair, Jake realized that Ryder had kissed him twice on the lips yesterday. He had been so immersed in his worries and fear, in that rollercoaster of emotions that he let such an important thing slide.Closing his eyes, Jake hesitantly asked. "Ry.""Mm.""Did you tell me... that you like me?"In just one second all the sleepiness vanished, and now Ryder was fully awake. Awake and blushing. Yet she still tried to remain calm, her eyes closed as if the fast heartbeat wasn't betraying her at all. "I did."If it weren't for the fact that Jake could hear her heart beating faster, he would have thought she was either sleepily admitting it or she was just that cool about her feelings. The corner of his lips lifted and an unexplainable joy warmed his body from inside, spreading from his fast-beating heart to every inch of his being."I like you too."Ryder smiled. "Mhmm. I know.""Can I be your boyfriend then? I promise I will be good and will never hurt you."Ryder c
Jake pouted. His arms wrapped tightly around Ryder's waist as a strange urge to bite into her neck overwhelmed him. "Don't make fun of me. It was embarrassing."Ryder chuckled twice, her shoulders shaking slightly. "I thought it was cute." The grip around her waist tightened even more. For a second she stopped and put herself in Jake's shoes and sighed. It truly must have been too embarrassing for him. That was the first time they met in broad daylight with no hoodies or whatever to cover his face. It was the first time they met in such a close range face to face and what happened? He was half naked looking like a kindergarten child's drawing. And he was spurting nonsense.Ryder bit the inside of her cheek and her face flushed red. He has a good body.... However, she did not dare to say that at loud. Instead, her lips pressed lightly against his cheek. "Let's go inside. It's too cold out here. You will catch a cold."Jake nodded once and stood up from the ground. Even though the air a
Soft and hesitant footsteps sounded from behind the fence. The warm cognac eyes looked away from the cold snow and fell at a certain someone who was walking towards the fence. She saw Midnight approaching the fence with hesitant steps before jumping over it. He stopped to look up at the window of her room. The light was left on, but he was biting his lip, nervously standing in front of the fence for a few minutes, not daring to go any closer.Midnight hadn't noticed Ryder in the swing seat. He was battling himself, not knowing if he should go to her room or just leave. His cold hands were trembling slightly and his lip hurt from all the biting, yet he didn't want to stay and didn't want to leave. In the end, Midnight simply remained frozen in place.Seeing him not having any intentions of coming to meet her, Ryder could only smile sadly. She raised her knees to her chest and wrapped her arms around them, before speaking. "Aren't you going to see me tonight?"The voice was low and tend
After Ryder came back home, she was completely in a daze. What happened back in Aiden's house had left her muddled. Even though she didn't show it back then, or on the way home, for she was that kind of person who would be able to calmly react to unexpected situations, like the night she first met Midnight proves, after everything was over and she was far away from the said situation, Ryder felt like her head would explode.She opened the front door slowly as if she had no power left, which almost scared Henry shitless. The strong reactions her father had seemed to have brought her back to reality and Ryder stared at her worried parents. During her whole life, there were times when she would feel lucky to have them but never had she felt it as strongly as now."I'm okay. I'm just tired." Ryder sighed and went upstairs to her room after giving both Henry and Michelle a warm smile that instead of putting them at ease, worried them to death. Once Ryder was in her room, Henry turned to his