The Badboy's Steamy Book

CHAPTER ONE

LUCIA

The awful sound of the alarm finally stopped when my mom turns it off and start yelling at me to get out of the bed , I think I would prefer the alarm's sounds over my mom's ear - piercing yells , but , as always , I do as I am told and go straight to the bathroom to shower , brush my teeth and comb my hair which has proven to be a really difficult task this morning. 

I have long and thick brown hair , and today my hair has decided to be a tangled mess , so I give up trying to untangle it and just put it on a high bun , and then I wear my most comfortable jeans , my favorite Mafalda t - shirt and pair them with black converse , I know , 2010 called and wants its clothes back , but there is not much I can do about that , the little money my mom and I make goes in its majority to pay for my little brother's treatment and our necessities , so there is not much left to buy the latest fashion trends.

But don't get me wrong , I am okay with that , I actually like what I wear , our trips to our local thrift shop are one of my favorite things to do with my mom , and you will be surprised by all the beautiful things you can find in there , of course , that´s only after hours of searching through a bunch of garbage , but I guess it's a pretty accurate description of life , isn't it ? Sometimes you have to really dig into the dirt to find something or someone that is worth it.

My mom's yells startled me :

“ Lu hurry up ! I have to get to the manor earlier today ! ”

Ugh , the Arlington's Manor , I roll my eyes at that humongous place , it's as if a castle and a plantation house had a baby , the weirdest yet greatest baby. That's where my mom has worked for the past ten years , she is a maid there and it's specially assigned to Mrs. Arlington's needs , most of the people who live in that place are awful , arrogant , and so full of themselves , but Mrs. Arlington is the exception to that unwritten rule of rich people being snob bastards , she is actually pretty nice , and generous , she has always treated my mom with kindness and I honestly still can't wrap my head around the fact that she is married to Edward Arlington , the state governor and probably the worst person I have ever met in my entire life , that is if we don't count his son Joshua or his daughter Zara. 

As I said , Olivia Arlington was the exception to that rule , if it weren't for her and the Arlington's Foundation , which she created , along with their signature scholarships program “ Arlington's young and exceptional citizens ” I would not be able to go to the University and follow my dream of becoming a Veterinarian.

“ Why do you have to be there so early? ” I ask my mom , while I finish gulping my breakfast , coffee of course , and some toast.

“ Today is the arrival of young master Joshua , I need to get there quickly to make sure all the arrangements are ready for him ” she answers while she finishes packing my little brother's lunch.

“ Do you really have to call him ‘ young master ’ ? it's not like they are here listening! you could easily call him ´ the young asshole ´ and no one would find out , well , I would but I promise I won't tell ” I tell her while winking an eye which makes Benjamin laughs.

“ Lucia ! Don't say those things in front of Ben , he is too young for your bitterness ! Besides , I have to show respect to the Arlington family , they have been really good to all of us , don't forget that the reason you are getting ready to go to study today is because of their generosity ” she answers while frowning at me.

“ That is an only half true mom , yes I am getting their help but because Mrs. Arlington saw my excellent grades at high school and offered me the scholarship , so it's technically half my doing, ” I say with confidence and walk out of the kitchen before my mom continues her lecture , and I think I see a flint of pride on her eyes when I remind her of my academic achievements.

I know it's useless to argue with my mom about the Arlington family , she is completely loyal to them and I know it's not only because of her job or my scholarship , but also for the help she got from them , - well from Mrs. Arlington at least - when Ben got his cancer diagnostic , they paid for a part of the treatment and lend her the rest , so pretty much her entire salary goes to pay for that , and what I make working at the local country club goes to pay for the rest of our expenses. 

Thankfully we don't have to pay rent because we live on the Arlington property , along with the rest of the staff members on these little cabins , and since the property is really big , it's still a 10 - minute walk from our house to the manor , as I said , it's humongous.

I walk with my mom and Ben until we reach the back of the house where we said goodbye and I took Ben's little hand while he waves at our mom who's walking towards the service door. We then walk to the bus station and I take Ben to his school before heading to the campus , it breaks my heart a little every time I have to drop him off , he always seems to hesitate and I watch him take a deep breath before he starts walking inside , and every single time he turns around when he is right at the door and smiles at me , you may think he does it to make me believe that he is fine , but I know he does that because he sees how sad I get and wants to comfort me , which ends up making it harder for me to leave him for all those hours.

Yes , I know I'm not his mom and it's not supposed to be like that with siblings , we are supposed to tease each other and fight with each other , right ? But when Ben was diagnosed with leukemia when he was just three years old , everything changed , our whole lives took a 180 degrees turn. 

We used to live in our own house before , with both of my parents, my so - called dad is a construction worker , or he was , I don't know anymore , because he left us when Ben got sick and the medical bills started to pile up , so my mom told Mrs. Arlington that she was going to resign and go back to Colombia , to where my parents are from , but she wasn't okay with that because she had grown fond of my mother and also of us , so she offered all the help she could give and the help my mom was willing to accept , because my mom it's a proud woman and hates to ask others for help , so that's when we moved to the Arlington's property.

It's been three years since then and we both have joggled to work, and in my case study too , while looking after Ben and taking him to all his doctors' appointments and treatments , so of course all my high school experience consisted of me going to classes or been called out of classes when Ben got ill and then compensating that by studying all night , but still , I managed to get a 4.0 gpas , and parallel to that a 0.0 social life.

Now that Ben is on remission and he is doing so much better I have had a little more time for myself and my social life , which it's useless now that I'm solely focused on doing great at college , although I did make one friend on my first week of classes , her name is Mia and she is a bit of a weirdo , which it's exactly why I liked her in the first place , that and our obsession to Harry Potter it's what brought us together. When she saw my t - shirt of Dumbledore's army she went straight to me and asked “ after all this time? ” at first I was shocked and when she gave me a disappointed look and was about to turn around to leave , I responded “ always ”, so of course , she immediately started jumping up and down while clapping her hands and exclaimed, “ thank god ! I thought you were just another muggle who bought a cool t - shirt ”.

I spot Mia at the campus gates looking up to a tree completely oblivious to the fact that she is standing in the middle of the way and is getting nasty looks from every person who has to go around her , I rush to her and put her aside quickly but she squints and starts saying:

“ dude , what the f ... oh it's you ! Hey Lu , how's your morning so far? ”

“ Well , my mom woke me up earlier because the asshole's older son, asshole jr, it's coming back home , so I barely got to eat something before been pushed out of the house, but Ben it's doing better with each passing day , so I guess it's pretty fine so far , what about you? ” I ask deliberately leaving outside her previous weird three watching behavior because we are already late to class and I don't think we have time for an hour - long explanation about some weird conspiracy theory about robot pigeons or whatever it is she was doing.

“ Wow , wait a second , first of all , I am so happy about Ben , he is the sweetest boy in the world and deserves the best … and second , who is this asshole jr and why you hate him so much? I thought you were incapable of such ill feelings ” she says while dramatically putting a hand on her heart and pouting.

“ Well … ” I said unsure of how to even begin to describe Joshua Arlington.