Chapter 2

Something warm and hard beneath her head, her legs tangled with someone else's, Lulu slowly peaked one eye open to find herself staring at a man's bare chest. Quickly sitting up, she peeled the sheets away from herself, her eyes shooting to her body to see if she had any clothes on. Sighing in relief to see the wrinkled purple fabric of her shirt hugging her upper body and her skin-tight jeans covering her legs, her eyes scanned the room, taking in the unfamiliar surroundings.

The room was spacious and bright, with several different posters decorating the walls. Some were in honor of USC, while others were of various bands and football teams. There was a bookshelf against one wall and a desk against the other, various medical textbooks and binders strewn across it. A large, flat screen TV hung on the wall beside the bed, two leather chairs directly across from it. To Lulu, the room looked more like a bachelor pad than a bedroom.

Shifting her focus away from the room, Lulu turned slightly to observe the man lying next to her. Remembering Johnny from the night before, she wondered how the hell she had wound up in his bed. Although her memory was a little foggy, she remembered dancing with him and insisting he give her a ride home. The last memory she had was of climbing into his car and asking if it could go real fast.

Looking at him, Lulu was amazed at how truly beautiful he was. When she had first laid eyes on him at the bar, she was at a loss for words. In his dark blue jeans and bright green button-down shirt that had hugged his muscles in all the right places, he was the most gorgeous man she had ever seen. His dark hair and chocolate brown eyes only accentuated his handsome face and his body was that of a Greek god. But while she had thought he was extremely attractive the night before, nothing compared to how beautiful he was at that very moment. His hair a mess, the corners of his lips twitching up in a small smile, and his chest rising and falling with each breath he took, he was truly breathtaking.

So lost in her thoughts of him, Lulu didn't notice Johnny stirring beside her.

"What the hell are you doing in my bed?" Johnny asked, frantically sitting up, the sheet falling away from him to expose his naked body from the waist up.

Lulu was momentarily speechless as she took in Johnny's upper half. He was chiseled and toned to perfection, making Lulu want to reach out and run her fingertips along his flawlessly sculpted abs. When Johnny cleared his throat, she tore her eyes away from his chest and moved them back to his face. "I could ask you the same thing," Lulu proclaimed, having no idea how she had got there.

"Well," Johnny started, untangling his legs from hers and getting out of his bed to reveal he was only clothed in a pair of boxers, "you fell asleep in my car and I didn't know where to take you, so, not wanting to wake you, I just came back here. I carried you up here and put you on the couch. As for how you ended up in my bed, with your legs tangled in mine, I have no idea."

"Shit," Lulu muttered.

"What?" Johnny asked, confused.

"I think I got up to use the bathroom in the middle of the night and I subconsciously made my way to your bed somehow," Lulu answered, beginning to remember how she had stumbled around while trying to find the bathroom the night before. "Sorry."

"Oh, well no harm done," Johnny said. "How about you get your things together and I'll give you a ride home before I to take my ex-. Shit, what time is it?" he asked, his eyes flying to his bedside table. "Ten o'clock," he shrieked, "what the hell? I know I set my alarm for six…this cannot be happening."

"Yeah, about that…" Lulu trailed off.

"About what?" Johnny asked, not liking the sound of her voice.

"Your alarm clock," Lulu answered hesitantly, "I think…I think I might have turned it off."

"You what?" Johnny shouted, his face turning red with anger. "What the hell would you do that for?"

"Well, you see, it's kind of a funny story actually." When Johnny didn't say anything, Lulu quickly continued, "Whenever I wake up and my alarm clock hasn't gone off yet, I turn it off cuz I hate the sound of it. I dread that annoying beeping…it's just so loud and ugh…just annoying. It sounds like a bomb that's ready to go off and it always interrupts me from my peaceful dreams-,"

"That's cause its purpose is to wake you up," Johnny interrupted, his voice laced with anger. He was about to explode. If it had been any other day, he wouldn't have cared. But it wasn't any other day and now he'd have to pay the consequences for the rest of his life.

He needed to take that exam. He needed to take it and he needed to pass it in order to have any shot at the future of his dreams. But now that he had missed it, there was no going back. His professor had been very clear; be on time and prepared to take the exam or don't take it at all. There were to be no latecomers, no last minute questions, and most importantly, no excuses. Excuses were not an option.

"I don't get what the big deal is," Lulu said, breaking Johnny out of his thoughts. Crawling out of the bed and coming to stand in from of him, she continued, "I mean, so you woke up a little late. So you're gonna get a late start. Big frickin' deal. Why don't you cry about it a little more?"

Watching Lulu walk out of the bedroom and into the living room, Johnny had to refrain himself from grabbing the nearest breakable object and hurling it at her retreating form. He couldn't believe the nerve of that girl. First, she had fallen asleep in his car, forcing him to carry her up the five flights of stairs it took to get to his apartment, and then she had somehow climbed into his bed, burrowing her way into his arms. He had been able to tolerate that…he even found it kind of cute. But turning his alarm off and mouthing off about it when he got angry was the last straw.

Barging into the living room and seeing Lulu relaxing on his couch, casually flipping through a magazine, Johnny yelled, "Who the hell do you think you are? You get drunk and ask me to dance, practically throwing yourself at me-,"

"Throwing myself at you?" Lulu asked incredulously. "You must be delusional, because I did not throw myself at you," she said, her voice growing louder with each word she spoke. "In fact, I would never even think about getting involved with a self-centered jerk like you!"

Ignoring the comment about him being self-centered, Johnny replied, "Oh yeah? What do you call trying to unbutton my shirt on the middle of the dance floor? You were so hot for me, you couldn't even wait til we were alone. And then, you ask me to take you for a ride sometime so we can go real fast-,"

Slamming the magazine she was reading shut, Lulu stood up and interrupted, "Ok, first of all, I just did that because I was slightly liquored up and that song was playing and you wouldn't let me take my belt off. And then when you put my belt back on for me, your hands were all over me-," she stopped mid-rant at hearing a door slam and someone whistling behind her.

Turning around, she recognized the guy from the club the night before…the guy her friend had been so desperate to get her hands on. He abruptly stopped his whistling at seeing Lulu and Johnny for the first time, his gaze going from her to Johnny, who was still only in his boxers, and back to her again. Unsure of what to say or do, Lulu raised her arm and gave him a little wave, her lips forming a hesitant smile before saying, "Uh, hi."

"Well, hello," Seth said, his voice cheerful. He could feel the tension between Johnny and Lulu, his eyes once again going from Lulu to Johnny and back to Lulu again. His face broke out in a wide smile before he continued," It seems like my boy finally got some. If I had known, I would've refrained from coming home for a little while so you two could continue…whatever it was that you were doing-,"

"This is not what it looks like," Johnny said through gritted teeth.

"Yeah," Lulu piped in, her eyes shooting daggers at Johnny, "I wouldn't sleep with him if he were the last guy on this planet."

"Don't worry, Seth, Big Mouth here was just leaving," Johnny retorted, picking up Lulu's purse off the coffee table and shoving it into her hands. "You know the way to the door."

"You know Seth, Hot Shot over there only wishes he could have shown me how much of a hot shot he could be in bed…but I would never give him the satisfaction. Have a nice life," Lulu said, stalking up to the door.

"Don't let the door hit you on the way out," Johnny called behind her.

At hearing the door slam, Seth let out a loud whistle and said, "Nice try at covering bro, but you don't have to deny that you slept with her. I told you I owe you big for coming with me last night and you know I always deliver. So I'll repay you by not telling the Maxster about your little tryst with Ms. Sweet Thang."

"Pay attention Seth," Johnny yelled in frustration. "I didn't sleep with her. Her friend left with you, leaving her stranded at the club. So I gave her a ride and she fell asleep without telling me where to go, so I just brought her back here. I was nice enough to do that for her and how does she repay me? She turns off my alarm clock, making me sleep through my exam and then she mouths off about it when I get pissed at her-,"

"So, you did sleep with her?" Seth asked at hearing Johnny slip that she turned off his alarm clock.

"What did I just tell you?" Johnny asked exasperated. "I repeat, I did not sleep with her."

"So she didn't sleep in your bed then, right?" Seth inquired.

Finally realizing what he let slip, he tried to explain, "No, she did, but it was an accident-,"

"Let me guess. You just accidentally put her in your bed, before the two of you accidentally ripped each others clothes off, before your dick accidentally-,"

"I did not have sex with her," Johnny yelled. "She climbed in bed with me in the middle of the night and then-,"

"If that's what you need to tell yourself in order to not feel guilty, who am I to stop you?" Seth interrupted.

"There is nothing to feel guilty about because nothing happened," Johnny said truthfully, his hands clenching at his sides.

"Sure, I believe you," Seth said, still not convinced. "So if you didn't have sex with her, then why are you so damn upset? Seriously bro, you look like a predator ready to attack its prey."

"Have you been paying attention to anything I've told you? She turned off my alarm clock, meaning it didn't go off, meaning I didn't make it to my exam, meaning the rest of my life is over."

"You should be in theater," Seth said plopping down on the couch and earning a glare from Johnny. "You're always so dramatic. Missing and failing one exam is not the end of the world."

"It is for me," Johnny sighed, walking back into his bedroom. No one understood what this meant to him. He didn't want to become like his father. He wanted a different life than the one his father had paved for him. And the only way to accomplish that was by showing his father that he could do it. That he could make a life for himself and be successful on his own terms. He had made a deal with his father that if he proved he could do it, proved that he could be happy and successful with the life that he chose for himself, his father would accept it and not force him into a life he didn't want. And he was on his way. He was on his way to escaping his father's shadow and forcing his father to accept the choices he had made. But failing that exam changed everything. Failing that exam meant going back to the cruel and unforgiving life he didn't want any part of. Failing that exam meant he had failed in his father's eyes, forcing him to respond to his father's every beck and call. Failing that exam meant living a life in hell.
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