Halfway There | COMPLETE ✔ + Sequel

Chapter 18 - A Date

 "Are you kidding me?" Liam scoffed. "You can't honestly believe that?"

Kendall turned to look at her boyfriend and smiled while Bella went on with the story she was telling her. We were all seated at a table near a food cart for lunch.

Will smiled and shrugged from the seat across his friend,"I'm just saying that good guys don't always finish last."

Liam slammed his hand down on the table dramatically. "You tried to get with Dani and look where that ended up!" He argued. I snapped my head in his direction and shot him daggers.

"What?" Liam asked defensively.

"Dani and I are good friends, that's it." All I could do was shake my head in that moment. Suddenly, there was a soft hand on my shoulder. I tilted my head back to be greeted with dazzling blue eyes. I smiled and brought my hand up to my shoulder to give his a light squeeze.

"Hey." I smiled. Nova flashed me a quick wink before taking a seat next to me.

"Ryder!" Liam called, "Tell me, as a fellow bad boy-" I couldn't stop myself from rolling my eyes and I could hear Bella and Kendall stop their conversation to scoff at him as well. He squinted his eyes in our direction but ignored us all the same.

"As a fellow bad boy, wouldn't you agree that nice guys always finish last?" Nova opened his mouth to reply, no doubt something sarcastic, but was interrupted.

"Who gave you the bad boy title?" Kendall shouted.

"Yeah!" Agreed Bella.

"Come on, baby! Don't be like that." Liam whined at Kendall, reaching for her hand.

I shook my head and smiled in disbelief. I turned my gaze up to look at Nova. He was smiling with me, finding this just as amusing as I was.

The days following, Nova and I practically announcing to the world that we were "together" were difficult to get through. It got easier as the days progressed but it was still probably one of the most difficult things I have ever done. I had to make it through the small period of people getting used to Nova and I actually being together. And had it not been for the most recent piece of gossip to take the attention off me I might have just dropped out of college, changed my name, dyed my hair black and just left town altogether.

A couple days after everyone found out about Nova and I, Bella had her heart set on finding a boyfriend so that she wouldn't feel left out. And one night, when she left her phone down in the lounge, she didn't come back until almost 3 in the morning, she came barging into our room and woke Kendall and I up.

"What the hell, Bells?" Kendall groaned as Bella turned on all the lights.

"Guys, you'll never guess who I just spent the last 6 hours with." I rubbed my eyes as I waited for her to just tell us.

"Bella, I have plans tomorrow morning. Can you just tell us?" Kendall said irritated.

"Thomas Connors!"

This caught Kendall's attention, "Shut up?!"

"I know! Can you believe it?!" Bella threw herself onto Kendall's bed and squealed.

All we heard for days after was how incredible Thomas is, her giggling into the night about things that he texted her and how she thinks "this time she really thinks he's going to ask her out".

It was really sweet to see how happy she was but one day Bella invited Thomas to sit with us during one of our breaks, and Nova acted more strange than usual. He was tenser than I'd ever seen him before.