Page 34 of Broken Beauty

“How about you mind your own business Jace? This doesn't concern you.”

I have known Jace for a while now. I met him when I was visiting a few summers ago with my dad and long story short, my father and Jace's father were partners for some business and after we met we just started hanging out more.

I like Jace, even though he can sometimes piss me off a lot.

“It does if you plan on hurting my friend. I'm serious, Ash. Ariella's dad will fucking destroy you,” Jace says and I look away from him and instead look at Ariella who is waving bye to the girl at the same time Bridgette walks over and smiles at the girl while she leaves.

Ariella and Bridgette talk while they are both smiling softly at one another.

I feel like sometimes when I look at Ariella, she is just faking her smile so that she doesn't worry Bridgette.

Bridgette is a good friend and I know that if Ariella were to tear down that stupid wall of hers and show it to Bridgette, Bridgette would do anything in her power to make Ariella feel like she is on top of the world.

Ariella tore down those walls with me once, she told me about her mom and how she still thinks about her all the time and wishes that her mother was still in her life instead of her dad.

She told me about all of the things she wished she could change about herself and how she would do anything to make herself perfect in other people's eyes.

She also told me that she would rather live in a book than reality because reality was too fake and negative.

At the time I told her that was because all she read was romance books and everything in romance books turns out okay, most of the time at least.

That night, we talked a lot. I felt bad not telling her about myself but at the same time I know that if I told her about the real me, she would run away and never look back.

Ariella's head turns towards me, and her smile drops. She is completely ignoring every word that Bridgette is saying and all of her attention is focused on me.

The sudden urge to smile at her fills my veins.

She doesn’t know that I am the one who fixed her car and I’m not going to tell her either.

Sure, what I did was stupid and probably a douche thing, but I just needed to tease her a little bit.

It was an easy fix and I just decided to wash her car and clean the inside.

Sometimes I find myself wishing things between us could go back to normal, but I know it never can because of our dads.

“Ariella! Bridgette!” Jace calls them over.

Bridgette looks at Jace and frowns while Ariella looks away from me and has the fucking audacity to smile at Jace.

That fucking brat.

Ariella grabs Bridgette's elbow and they walk towards us. Ariella keeps her eyes on Jace while I stare her down, trying to make her look at me.

“Hey, Jace.”

“Ariella.” Jace smiles and then he looks at Bridgette. “Bridge.” He smirks, trailing his eyes down her figure. “Are you guys busy tonight? Ash and I were thinking about going to the new club downtown.”

I furrow my eyebrows and look at Jace. “I didn't know you made these plans.”

“Wow, is Ash turning down a chance to pick up girls at the club? Shocking,” Ariella says while rolling her eyes.

Now all I want to do is wrap her hair around my fist and shove her against the lockers to show her how shocking I can fucking be.

Or maybe slap her ass until it's fucking red and she is aching.

“Don't be a brat.”

She glares at me. “I'm not being a brat. Just saying how shocking it would be that you are turning down the chance to get your dick wet.”