JAY-JAY POV
"What the fuck are you doing here, Jason?"
The voice was cold, sharp, and hit the air like a gunshot. I didn't even have to look back to know that the King of Assholes himself had arrived.
Keifer stepped out of the car, his face a mask of pure, unadulterated rage. He didn't just walk toward us—he marched, looking like he was ready to settle a debt with interest. He came straight to my side, his presence alone turning the street into a literal battleground.
I rolled my eyes so hard I'm surprised they didn't get stuck in the back of my head. Seriously? My life was already a dumpster fire, and now Keifer decided to bring his own gasoline.
"Oh, great," I muttered under my breath, my voice dripping with sarcasm. "The main lead has entered the chat. Someone get the cameras, we're filming the season finale of My Messed Up Life."
I looked from Jason, the ghost from my past, to Keifer, the nightmare of my present. I felt like a prize in a game I never asked to play.
There's another one, I thought, letting out a groan that came from the very depths of my soul.
Was I invisible?
Did I have a sign on my back that said 'Please come here and start a fight over me'?
Because I'm pretty sure I didn't.
I just wanted to go home, eat my dinner in peace, and ignore the fact that my hand was in a cast. But no. The universe decided that Jay-Jay's night wasn't complete without a high-stakes standoff in the middle of the road.
"Jay, I heard a little rumor that you're actually dating Keifer," Jason said, his tone way too casual for someone standing in front of a human ticking time bomb.
I scoffed, shaking my head. "Then your information is dead wrong," I shot back. "Actually, it's not just wrong, it's practically hallucinating. Better check your sources next time."
Dating Keifer? As if my life wasn't already a walking disaster movie. I didn't need to add a "Property of the King" tag to my forehead.
Jason's eyes lit up, and that smug, annoying smirk returned to his face like a recurring nightmare. "Is that so? So... that means I still have a chance with you?"
The silence that followed was so heavy you could have sliced it with a knife.
I glanced at Keifer, and my breath hitched. He was standing there, his body vibrating with a rage he was barely keeping under control. His fists were clenched so tight his knuckles had turned a ghostly, bone-white. He looked like he was one second away from launching himself at Jason and ending this conversation—permanently.
My heart did a weird, frantic little skip, and for once, it wasn't because of the drama.
Why the hell does he look like that?
Why did he care? Why was he acting like Jason had just insulted his entire bloodline? I stared at Keifer's profile, my brain feeling like it was short-circuiting for the hundredth time today.
I thought this was all just a game to him. I thought I was just some piece of entertainment to keep the King of Section E from getting bored. A pawn. A toy. A girl he could tease whenever he felt like it.
But the way he was looking at Jason right now... that wasn't part of a game. That was something else. Something dark, intense, and way too complicated for my tired brain to handle.
Leche. Seriously, someone needs to give me a manual for these people, because I am officially lost in my own life.
"What the fuck, Jason?" Keifer's voice was dangerously low, the kind of sound that usually precedes a natural disaster. If looks could kill, Jason would have been buried six feet under right then and there.
But Jason? He didn't even flinch. He just leaned back, a mocking glint in his eyes as he pointed a finger directly at me.
"Oh? Didn't she tell you?" Jason asked, his voice filled with a sickening kind of pride. "I'm her first boyfriend."
I felt the air leave my lungs. Oh, shit.
It was like watching a live broadcast of my own execution. I wanted to disappear, to melt into the pavement, to be anywhere but here. My past was literally standing in the middle of the street, shouting out secrets I had buried deep.
"Her first kiss..." Jason continued, his smirk growing wider, more smug, more unbearable. He was enjoying this. He was feeding the fire. "...and maybe her first in everything. And believe me, she was my first in everything, too."
The world went silent for a split second. I could hear my own heart thudding in my ears. I didn't even dare to breathe. That one sentence was like dropping a lit match into a room full of gunpowder.
I looked at Keifer. His face wasn't just white anymore—it was a mask of cold, murderous intent.
He didn't scream. He didn't argue. He didn't even give Jason a chance to finish his next breath.
WHAM!
The sound of Keifer's fist connecting with Jason's jaw echoed through the quiet street. It was a brutal, bone-crushing strike—the kind of punch that only comes from someone who has completely lost their grip on restraint.
Jason's head snapped to the side, his body recoiling from the force.
My hands flew to my mouth, my heart leaping into my throat. Leche. It officially happened. The King of Assholes just detonated, and I was standing right at ground zero.
"Shut your damn mouth," Keifer hissed.
His voice didn't even sound human anymore. it sounded like it had crawled straight out of the depths of hell and was dragging the rest of us down with it. The air around him was so suffocatingly thick with rage that I could barely draw a breath.
Then, those icy, murderous eyes snapped toward me.
"WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING HERE?!" he hollered, his voice echoing off the houses. He looked like he was about to burst a blood vessel just by looking at me.
"None of your business! Why do you even care?!" I screamed back. My heart was thudding so hard against my ribs I thought it would leave a bruise, but I wasn't about to let him win. "You think you're my bodyguard or something?! Go away!"
But then I looked down.
Jason was still sprawled out on the pavement. He wasn't moving. He looked like a statue. A very pale, very punched statue.
"Jason?" my voice went up an octave. I dropped to my knees beside him, my casted hand clunking awkwardly on the cement. "Hey, Jason! Don't do this! Wake up!"
No response. I started to sweat. My brain, which was already fried from a long day, suddenly went into full-blown disaster mode. What if he's not just knocked out? What if Keifer's fist is actually a lethal weapon?
I reached out with my shaking fingers to check his pulse. My hands were vibrating so much I could barely feel my own skin, let alone his. I pressed my fingers against his neck—somewhere near his jaw? Or was it his ear? I didn't know! I wasn't a nurse!
I waited for the thump-thump.
One second. Two seconds.
Nothing.
I moved my fingers slightly to the left. Still nothing. I tried the other side of his neck. Silence.
The world literally spiraled. My eyes went wide, and my lungs felt like they had been stuffed with cotton. My imagination—the most dramatic part of my entire body—immediately took the wheel and drove us straight off a cliff.
"No way..." I whispered, my voice trembling. I turned my head to look at Keifer, my face a mask of pure, horrified shock. "No way..."
"What?" Keifer snapped, still looking like he wanted to punch something else.
"YOU KILLED HIM!" I shrieked, jumping to my feet and pointing a finger at him like a prosecutor in a soap opera. "You fucking asshole! You're a murderer! He doesn't have a pulse, Keifer! HE'S GONE! HE'S MET HIS MAKER!"
Keifer's expression shifted from rage to utter confusion. "What the hell are you talking about—"
"I CHECKED!" I wailed, hot tears already blurring my vision. "I checked it like they do in the movies and there was NOTHING! You killed my first boyfriend with one punch! You're a cold-blooded killer! Police! Someone call the police! You're going to jail!"
I was practically hyperventilating, clutching my head and pacing back and forth like a crazy person. In my head, I was already imagining the funeral and Keifer's life in a jumpsuit.
"Move," Keifer growled.
He didn't just say it; he practically shoved me aside with one hand, treating me like an annoying obstacle in his path. I stumbled back, nearly tripping over my own feet, my mouth still hanging open in a silent scream of "Murderer!"
"How can you be so heartless?!" I wailed, clutching my chest. "The man is literally meeting his ancestors and you're still acting like a—"
"Shut up, Jay. I know he's not that weak," he interrupted, his voice flat and bored. He looked at Jason's limp body with a mix of disgust and impatience, as if Jason was personally offending him by being unconscious.
Keifer crouched down, his movements slow and deliberate. He didn't look like a man worried about going to prison. He looked like a man who was about to finish a job. He reached out and pressed two fingers against Jason's neck—right where I had been poking around like a confused toddler earlier.
He stayed like that for a second, his face unreadable. I held my breath, waiting for him to realize the "tragic truth."
"He's alive, you idiot," Keifer muttered, rolling his eyes as he stood back up.
My jaw dropped. "Wait... what? But I checked! There was nothing! No thump-thump! No nothing!"
Keifer didn't even look at me. He just glared down at Jason, his eyes narrowing into two dangerous slits. He reached out and gave Jason's shoulder a rough, unsympathetic shake—the kind that probably added a few more bruises to the guy's collection.
"Asshole, wake up," Keifer hissed, his voice dropping into that terrifyingly low registers that made my hair stand on end. It wasn't a request. It was a command from the depths of the underworld. "Wake up right now... before I decide to actually finish what I started and really kill you."
I froze. Leche.
One second I was mourning a "dead" body, and the next, I was watching Keifer threaten a semi-conscious guy back to life. I felt a heat crawl up my neck as I realized I had just spent five minutes screaming "Murderer!" at the top of my lungs for literally no reason.
I looked at Jason, who was now let out a very audible, very much alive groan of pain.
Oh.
I blinked, slowly lowering my pointing finger. My face felt like it was on fire. I wanted to disappear. I wanted to crawl into a hole and stay there until I graduated high school.
"Well..." I whispered, tucking a lock of hair behind my ear and looking anywhere but at Keifer's smug, terrifying face. "He could have at least coughed or something. How was I supposed to know?"
But Keifer wasn't listening to my excuses. He was too busy looking like he was ready to give Jason a second, more permanent round. Shit. My life really is a comedy, and I'm definitely the punchline.
Just as I was preparing my mental defense for the trial of the century, the "corpse" actually decided to join the land of the living. Jason let out a long, pathetic groan—the kind that sounds like a rusty gate opening—and slowly, painfully, his eyes fluttered open.
He blinked a few times, looking completely dazed, until his gaze finally landed on my face. And then, because the universe absolutely thrives on my humiliation, he reached out a hand and gave me this weak, watery smile.
"Jay..." he wheezed, his voice sounding like he'd been swallowing gravel. "I heard you... you were crying for me. You really do care, don't you?"
My heart, which had been doing a frantic thump-thump for his life ten seconds ago, suddenly hit the brakes and shifted straight into "Leche" mode. The embarrassment of my world-class freakout hit me like a physical slap. I could feel the heat rising in my cheeks, and it wasn't because of the romantic tension. It was because I was mortified.
"Care about you?!" I barked, jumping to my feet so fast I nearly gave myself whiplash. My pity evaporated faster than water on a hot stove.
I glared down at him, my arms crossed tightly over my chest. "In your dreams, Jason! Don't get it twisted. Asshole, I wasn't crying because I care about your life. I was crying because I didn't want to go to jail for being an accomplice to your murder!"
I flicked a glance at Keifer, who was still standing there like a dark, judgmental statue.
"Do you have any idea how much of a hassle it is to visit someone in prison?" I continued, my voice going up an octave as I tried to mask my embarrassment with pure sass. "I'm way too busy with school to be spending my weekends in a visitation room! So don't go acting like this was some 'Love Story' moment, you feelingero!"
Jason just blinked at me, looking even more confused than when he was unconscious. Meanwhile, Keifer let out a huff that sounded suspiciously like a laugh—or a growl. I couldn't tell.
I turned away, huffing and trying to regain some shred of my dignity. This was officially the peak of my humiliation. If there was a sinkhole nearby, I would have gladly jumped in and stayed there until graduation. My life is a joke, and apparently, I'm the only one not laughing.
I didn't wait for Jason to give me a thank-you speech, and I certainly didn't wait for Keifer to finish his "King of the World" glare session. I turned on my heel and started walking away, my feet hitting the pavement with enough force to show exactly how done I was with this entire night.
I was halfway down the block when Keifer's voice boomed behind me, sounding more like a demand than a question.
"And where the hell do you think you're going, Jay?!"
I stopped dead in my tracks. I could practically feel the heat of his gaze burning a hole through my back. My patience, which was already at 1% battery, officially died. Slowly, I turned my head just enough to give him a look that was 100% pure, concentrated salt.
"To my husband's house," I shot back, my voice dripping with so much sarcasm it was a wonder I didn't choke on it. "Why? You want to join us? Should I set a plate for you, or are you just going to stand there and look like an angry gargoyle?"
The silence that followed was glorious.
I saw Keifer's face shift from "annoyed" to "about to commit a felony" in record time. His jaw tightened so hard I thought I heard his teeth crack. Behind him, Jason looked like he'd just been punched a second time, but this time by my words.
Husband.
Of course, I didn't actually have a husband—unless you counted my bed and my pillows—but seeing the way Keifer's eyes flared with that dangerous, possessive fire was worth the lie. If he was going to act like he owned me, I was going to act like I was already off the market.
"JAY-JAY!" he barked, taking a step toward me.
"Bye, Keifer! Bye, Jason!" I waved my un-casted hand over my shoulder without looking back. "Don't wait up! We have big plans involving Netflix and me not being yelled at!"
I picked up my pace, my heart doing a weird little victory dance. I knew I was playing with fire, and knowing Keifer, he was probably going to make me pay for that comment later. But for right now? Seeing him that speechless was better than any dessert.