Page 85 of Forbidden Billionaires: Vol. 11

God, why had I highlighted my baker’s dozen? I slammed the lid of the laptop closed. “Axel, you’re already here late. Can we please just focus on our project instead of something I’m doing for another class?”

“Sure. Ready to brainstorm?” He sat down on my bed like he used to do when we were still kids. My dad had made a rule several years ago about no boys upstairs. But Axel had sat exactly there a million times before we became teenagers. Never without a shirt looking like that though.

I swallowed hard.

“What?” he asked.

“Nothing,” I quickly said and sat down next to him.

He moved one of my pillows and leaned so that his back was propped up against the wall. “So what concept were you thinking?”

“I don’t know. I haven’t really thought much about it. I’ve never really wanted to make a videogame. They’re not really my thing.”

“We used to play videogames all the time when we were little.”

“Yeah, like a million years ago.”

He smiled. “Not that long ago.”

It felt like a lifetime ago. He used to come over after school with Sophie and Jacob. But that had pretty much stopped since he started football. Even when it wasn’t football season. I assumed Axel always hung out with his girlfriends after school during the off-season.

Axel put his hands behind his head and just stared at me.

I awkwardly tucked a loose strand of hair behind my ear.

And he just kept staring.

“Why are you looking at me like that?”

He smiled. “I was just thinking about how you use to make me play Pretty Pretty Princess with you all the time.”

I laughed. “That was my favorite.” But probably not for the reason he thought. I enjoyed the game. But I was never dead-set on winning. I actually preferred to lose. Because then Axel would always tell me I was still the prettiest princess he’d ever seen.

I looked away from him. We weren’t kids anymore. Feelings changed. At least, his did. I looked down at my phone.

“We could do something with a princess then,” he said.

“Like a Prince Charming or knight in shining armor kind of thing?”

“If you’d like.”

I shrugged. “I don’t know. Aren’t there plenty of games like that already?

Besides, knights in shining armor don’t really exist.” I glanced at my phone again.

The closest I’d ever gotten to a knight in shining armor was a kiss thief.

A kiss thief that ignored me half the time. And that hardly seemed knightly.

“Why do you keep looking at your phone?”

“I’m not.”

Axel laughed. “You are.”

I pushed it to the side. “I’m not.”

“Are you waiting for a text from Jacob?”

“No.”

“Someone else then?” He raised his eyebrow.

I’d already said too much. “No. You have my undivided attention.” I forced myself to keep my eyes glued to his face instead of his abs.

“Good,” he said. He leaned toward me.

My heart started racing. Was he about to kiss me? He kept leaning forward. And then he reached around me and grabbed one of the framed photos off my nightstand.

I forced my heart to calm down.

“Did you cut Sarah out of this?” He held it up and laughed.

“Who?”

“The girl I was dating that summer.” He pointed to where I’d cut the photo.

I grabbed the frame from him. “This was a forever kind of photo. And she wasn’t a forever kind of person.”

“Of course she wasn’t. It was just a summer fling.”

He said it so casually. Like it was normal to have them. Like it meant nothing. But it had meant a lot to me. I’d cried so much that summer. I put the photo back.

I cleared my throat. “Actually, let’s do the princess idea for the game.”

“Yeah?”

I nodded.

“Great. It’ll be fun. We can figure out a way to make it unique.”

Maybe we could make it about a knight that only kissed the princess in dark closets. That would be more realistic and definitely unique. But I kept my mouth shut.

“When was the last time we had a sleepover?” Axel asked.

My heart started racing again. Was he asking to sleep over right now? “I don’t know...since we were like ten or something?”

“It feels like forever since I’ve seen you in pajamas.”

I looked down at the tank top and pajama bottoms I’d changed into. And I realized that my old top was practically see through. Had Axel been looking at my top?

“I remember your pjs being...baggier.”

I quickly folded my arms across my chest. I was practically as exposed as he was.

And even though he hadn’t said it, it seemed like maybe he preferred when my pjs were baggier.

Like how he suddenly preferred when I wore glasses.

“It’s late and you need to get out of here before my dad catches you in here.

..” my voice trailed off when there was a knock on the door.

“Pumpkin?” my dad said.

God, what were the odds?!

Axel sighed. “I think it’s too late for that.” He sounded so casual. Why was he not freaking out?

Because I was definitely freaking out. I’d only just gotten ungrounded. “Hide!” I hissed.

“There’s nowhere to hide...”

And it didn’t matter.

Because my dad was already opening the door. He took one look at Axel and the smile on my dad’s face fell. “What is going on in here?”

“We were just working on our project,” I said and quickly got off my bed.

“You know there’s no boys allowed in your room. And Axel, what happened to your shirt?”

Axel slid off my bed. “Ice cream accident. Sorry, Uncle James. We had to work up here because we needed the computer. Since it’s the coding project.”

“What are you talking about?” my dad asked. “I didn’t announce the coding project yet.”

I stared at him. I did think it seemed odd that he hadn’t talked about the big project in class at all today. But I figured it was because we already had our task of picking out a concept by Friday.

“Mr. Halifax announced it on Wednesday,” I said.

My dad sighed and ran his fingers through his hair. “That was supposed to be on next week’s lesson plan. And I already had the teams picked out. The two of you aren’t paired up.”

Yeah, that made sense. I’d suspected as much.

“But we already came up with a concept,” Axel said. “And I bet a lot of the other students have too. Mr. Halifax said the concept was due tomorrow.”

“He said what?” My dad sighed again. “Okay. Fine. But no working on it up here again. You can bring the laptop downstairs.”

“Yes, sir,” Axel said. “I guess I’ll get going.” He walked toward the door but stopped at my desk. I thought he was going to grab his varsity jacket, but instead he reached out and touched my old glasses that were sitting there. He looked back at me over his shoulder.

My eyes locked with his. But I had no idea what he was thinking.

“Great, grab your jacket,” my dad said, apparently thinking that’s what Axel was about to do too.

“Nah, I’m good,” Axel said. “That belongs to Scarlett.”

I just stared at him, remembering the words he’d whispered the day he’d given his jacket to me. It looks better on you than it does on me.

And then he strolled out of the room all nonchalant like we hadn’t just been caught in my bed together.

My dad turned back to me. It looked like his head was about to explode. “I better not catch Axel up here again. Or you’ll be grounded for twice as long as last time.”

“I’m sorry. We really were just talking about the project.”

“And what are you wearing?”

I crossed my arms over my chest again. “Nothing.”

“It looks like nothing. Put on a robe or something. Now.”

I grabbed a hoodie and pulled it on.

It finally looked like he was able to breathe again. “I’ll let your mom know that the two of you need to go shopping for new pajamas.”

I shrugged.

He took another deep breath. “Are you sure you don’t want to switch partners? I had you paired up with Soph.”

I figured that. And I thought I’d jump at the chance to change. But...it was Axel. And he’d snuck into my room. And taken off his shirt. And sat with me in bed. And it had kind of felt like old times for a few minutes there.

No, he wasn’t supposed to be part of my fresh start. But I’d been dreaming of that exact scenario for years. And a stupid little piece of my heart wanted it to happen again. Even if I would be grounded for two weeks.

“It’s fine,” I said. “I’m partnered with Sophie for like every other project.”

“Okay. Well...downstairs only.”

I nodded. “Got it.”

“Goodnight, pumpkin.” He sighed again like I was exhausting him, and walked back out of my room.

I sunk down on my bed. Which now smelled like Axel’s cologne. How was I supposed to fall asleep now? Having Axel’s jacket was bad enough. But now he was...everywhere.

I sighed and grabbed my phone. It was blinking with a new text from my kiss thief. I bolted upright. When had that come in? Was it while Axel was still here? I clicked on it.

The message read: “You’re gorgeous.” And it was time stamped from ten minutes ago.

But I wasn’t sure how long I’d been talking to my dad. I didn’t think it had been that long... Was it possible that Axel had sent this? Or not possible at all? God. I could ask RJ to hack our security cameras again but I didn’t want to owe him another favor. One was plenty.

I looked back down at the kiss thief’s text.

“You’re gorgeous.”

I smiled and shook my head. I texted: “You’re supposed to send me a picture back.”

“I wouldn’t look good in a bikini. Too many feathers.”

I laughed. He was ridiculous.

Wait. You’re gorgeous. Jacob had told me that before. When he saw me in my sparkly dress at the party. It was him. It had to be.

My phone buzzed with another text: “Have fun dreaming about me stealing third base next time, baby.”

But Jacob had never called me that. Or spoken to me that way at all really.

My stomach churned. Surveillance of the men’s locker room so far was a bust. I didn’t know how to initiate a kiss with Jacob before the game. And I didn’t want to feel all torn up about this anymore.

Sophie was right. About everything. It was time to solve this once and for all. Operation Kissing Booth was a go.