chapter 2
772 Words
Hadyn Michaels wasted no time making my room his own space.
"Got any roommates, Lexi?" he asked.
I stiffened. "Don't call me that."
Hadyn stared at me, confused. He seemed pretty confused a lot of the time. "Okay," he agreed, as if nothing had happened. "But do you?"
"No. I don't. Now did you say you needed my phone? And don't sit on the bed like that with shoes. Jesus."
He listened and tugged off his gold Nikes. "Yeah, a phone would be great."
I unlocked my phone and handed it to him. I stood above him with my arms crossed over my chest as he typed something in. He paused, frowning. "Gigi says that you forgot your keys at work," he read, his eyes squinting. He then looked at me with a normal face. "Where do you work?"
"No," I replied. "No backstory, no small talk. You just use my phone and my bed, apparently. Then you give me the money and you leave."
Hadyn gave me a dazzling smile, which probably would have impregnated the girls that were chasing him. "It's going to be awfully awkward if we can't talk."
"Make the call, idiot."
He gave me a wink and went back to my cell phone. Within seconds I heard the dial tone and he was standing up.
After a few moments, Hadyn closed his eyes. "Damn it." he muttered. Wordlessly, he tossed my phone on the bed, ignoring my deathly glare.
"Mommy can't come to the rescue?" I taunted.
Hadyn shook his head and took a deep breath. Within seconds, he was his animated, happy, go-lucky self again. "Nope!" he exclaimed. "But that's fine. I'll get a cab tomorrow morning."
I frowned. "That was seriously strange."
"What?" he asked.
I gestured to his face. "Changing your emotions like that. So quickly. That was worse than a sales associate dealing with a white mother asking for the manager."
Hadyn laughed. "It's the first thing they taught us in PR. Always be positive in front of fans and interviewers."
"Well, I'm neither of those," I said. "So, no need to pretend."
"You knew me, though."
I wrinkled my nose. "Doesn't mean I'm your fan. Your face is all over my **, magazines, and my YouTube recommended!"
He winced. "Valid statement." He drummed his fingers against his thigh and looked around. "You're in school?"
"Yeah," I responded with hesitance. "The college is a few blocks away. I'm a freshman."
Hadyn smiled, but there was a weird sadness to it. "I would have been a junior in college."
"What would you have studied?" I asked, allowing curiosity to lace my tone.
He looked at me, as if trying to detect sarcasm or ingenuity. "Probably CJ."
That definitely wasn't what I was expecting from Mr. Perfect. I would have guessed medicine or music or law. Something with big alpha energy.
"What're you studying, Lex?"
I ignored his stupid nickname. "I'm studying history. I want to teach back in my hometown."
He nodded. "Which is where?"
"Up your-" I stopped. He was only asking to make conversation, not because he actually cared. In a few days, he would forget that I ever existed and this would be a cool story to tell my friends. What was the harm in indulging him? "Boston. Right outside of it."
Hadyn grinned when he realized I was finally cooperating. "And you live in New York City. Boston has good schools. Why aren't you there?"
"The colleges over here gave me more of a scholarship," I answered.
He nodded, as if he understood my financial struggles.
"Why are you running away from your fans? That's kind of a d**k move," I said.
Hadyn let out a sigh. "I love them, really. Without them, I wouldn't have everything I have now. My girlfriend, my car, my houses," he began. His girlfriend was Macy Hawthorne, a swimsuit model who was pretty well known. In my feminist theory class, I'm pretty sure we had to dissect what parts of her body were photoshopped and what part was real.
"But they can be a lot sometimes. I mean, they think they own me, which in a sense, they do. But I'm more like a piece of meat to them than a person." He let out a sigh and looked at me with a sheepish grin. "You're the only person I've ever admitted that to. Besides my therapist."
I raised a brow. "Not even Macy?"
He laughed. "God, no. She loves the fame. And I guess it's for some people, not others."
I glanced at the clock. 12:55am. We had a long night to go.
- Writer
