All Chapters of Filling in the Boyfriend spot: Chapter 51 - Chapter 60

He bowed his head. “Thank you.”“So who plays Oscar?”“Just another guy in my class.”“Is he as good as you?”He met my eyes with a smile. “How am I supposed to answer that? If I say no, I sound conceited. If I say yes, you’ll think I’m nothing special.”I stirred my spoon around my empty cup. “I wish I could go watch the scene.”“You’d be bored.”“No, I wouldn’t.”“Do you like to watch live theater?”“I don’t know. I’ve never been.”“Really?”“Really.”Hayden put his hand over his heart. “I’m shocked, tia. I don’t know if we can be friends.”Just as I was about to laugh, I heard a voice from behind me that stopped me cold.“tia?”I closed my eyes for a beat then turned around to see mea. “Hi.”

Wow. That sounded awful. I couldn’t imagine my mom picking up and moving every time there was trouble. I felt bad. “I’m sorry.” I remembered her saying something about how much her mom dated. Usually horrible men.Her eyes snapped up to mine and hardened. “It’s no big deal. Claire said I could move in with her for a few weeks if that happened.”“Oh. Well, good. That will help. I just wanted to see if you were okay.”Her gaze went over my shoulder to where I’d left Hayden sitting. “Are you pretending to care because you’re worried about me or worried about what I know?”“What?”She smirked. “Watch your back, tia, I’m getting warmer.” She started to walk away then over her shoulder said, “Ninety days.”Mea had killed the mood, and seeing as how I had avoided home for four hours now, I knew I had to face my parents. So I told Hayden I’d better g

“tia. What are you doing here?”“I’m angry.”“Okay . . .”“I need someone to let me be angry.”She gave me a little smile. “Well, that’s my specialty. Come on.” She led me back to her room and pointed at the desk chair. “Sit. Start your rant whenever you’re ready. I will be here to egg you on.” She plopped down on her bed then she stood up again. “Hold on. I feel like we need some angry music as our background.” She pulled out her phone, scrolled through a few screens, then pushed Play. Music poured through some wireless speakers on the bookshelf. She adjusted the volume so it wasn’t too loud.I laughed.“Laughing and anger do not go together.”“Stop trying to make me laugh, then.”“I’m not. I’m totally with you on this. What are we angry about again?”“My brother.”She raised her fist

My head snapped up. The accusations mea had made of how big a flirt I was, the angry look Bec had given me when I first met her, all came to my mind.Bec caught my eye. “Oh, please. Not you.”“I didn’t think it was me.”She rolled her eyes. “You totally thought it was you.”My cheeks went hot from the accusation.“Whatever. You were right to think it because you do represent the type of girl he likes. It’s why I hated you at first. Well, that and you crushed his band.”“That was his band?”“He’s the drummer.”I sat back in her desk chair. “Maybe you should scream that.”“That I hate you?”“No, that Nate is clueless.”“Nate, you’re clueless!”“You have the most awesome girl standing right in front of you and you’re busy being blind!” I screamed.

Hayden honked the horn and an old man came out of the dilapidated house and called to the dogs. They all barreled toward him. He locked them behind a gate and then went back in the house with a grumpy face that seemed to say he really didn’t want us here.“He’s in a good mood today,” Bec said.“That was his good mood?”“Normally he makes us lock up the dogs and it’s not as easy as he made it look.”“If he doesn’t like you coming here, why does he let you?”Hayden turned off the car and grabbed the bucket of baseballs from the backseat. “He loves us.”“He loves our money,” Bec said, holding up a twenty. “I’ll go pay him.”“That was the saddest attempt to throw a baseball that I’ve ever seen,” Hayden said after my . . . sad attempt to throw a baseball. It didn’t even shake the windshield let alone put a crack in it.“Just

I took the ball from his hand. “If I don’t break it, I’m going to be really embarrassed.”“You’ll break it.”I angled my body slightly, stepped, then threw. The windshield shattered with a satisfying crack. I smiled. “That was awesome!”“So cathartic, right?” Bec asked.“Yes.” I let out a happy sigh.Bec picked up a few balls from the ground. “I’ll go play fetch with the dogs for a little bit. Be right back.”Hayden started picking up the balls, throwing them back into the bucket. I helped him. “You guys do this a lot?”“Not really.” The amount of broken or cracked windows on the surrounding cars seemed to say the opposite.“Did he recently bring that car in?” I asked, pointing to an equally rusty but completely free-of-damage car that sat by a tree across the yard.“No. We don’t touch that one. It’s a

“You couldn’t have predicted that. It doesn’t mean you’d do the same thing just because you chose him as your friend.”“I know. I just feel like I should be over it already.”I squeezed his hand. “He hurt you. That’s not easy to get over.”He sighed.“What Bec said, about you being different from your friends . . .”“I’m not lonely,” he answered almost too quickly.“But you don’t really relate to them like you want to?”“I like sports and sometimes they come to plays. It works out.”“But you feel left out?”I waited for him to tell me that Bec was wrong again but instead he said, “So did the baseball-throwing experiment help? How are you feeling?”“I had a fun day, and considering everything that happened the last few days, I think that’s a good thing. Thank you for making me laugh.”

I sat at the head of the table, the other members of the student council staring at me, waiting for me to say something. I usually enjoyed leading discussions, but so far I had been useless in this meeting.“tia,” Daniel, the vice president, said, “I think we’re ready to move on to item number two.”“Right.” I looked down at the paper in front of me. Item number two was one I had fought for, an all-night graduation party on the beach. “Did everyone complete their assignments?”“We’re good on permits,” Daniel said.“I haven’t been able to get a band,” Ashley said. “Were there any bands that tried out for prom that would work for this?”“No . . .” I paused, thinking about Nate’s band. “I don’t know, maybe.” The day we had auditioned bands had been a long one. Maybe we weren’t hearing clearly for the last ones. “I’ll find out and let you know. What about the food? Is that

“And you and your friends passed. I think we’ll pass this time.”So he hadn’t forgotten.The other members, even Nate, nodded in agreement and the bass player said, “The sound equipment you guys had set up that day and at prom sucked. Hard. Metallica would’ve sucked playing on your equipment.”“Who’s Metallica?”Marcus grunted. “You’re the person in charge of music? Seriously, what have we done to deserve this form of punishment? How are you qualified to pick a band?”“I’m not. At all.”He opened his mouth as if he were going to argue but then paused before saying, “Exactly.”“But I liked what I heard tonight. Will you play for sober grad night? Please. I came here to personally extend an invite.”He looked me up and down and I wished Nate would say something, stick up for me, but he seemed to be letting Marcus call the

 He let out a growl. “It was a play first.” “Is it scary?” “It’s a fairy-tale mash-up.” The lights went dark and the orchestra started to play. A spotlight lit up the curtains and they parted. Hayden flipped my hand palm up on his knee and began running a slow finger up and down each of my fingers. My nerves were so heightened that the hairs on the back of my neck stood on end. I laid my head on his shoulder. He smelled amazing—like body spray and laundry detergent. If he was trying to make it impossible to watch the show he had brought me to, he was doing a really good job of it. By the time intermission had rolled around I was so caught up in the moment of being here with Hayden that I’d almost forgotten other people were watching the show with us. The loud applause brought me out of my daze. When the house lights came on, I sat up.