Being Not Good: as opposed to being bad Read online

  [Bad Boy’s Guide to…] Book 1

  Being Not Good

  ALSO BY ELIZABETH STEVENS

  unvamped

  Netherfield Prep

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  Lady in Training

  Three of a Kind

  Some Proposal

  The Collection (Parts 1-4)

  [Bad Boy’s Guide to…] Book 1

  Being Not Good

  Elizabeth Stevens

  Sleeping Dragon Books

  Being Not Good

  by Elizabeth Stevens

  Digital ISBN: 978-0648438182

  Print ISBN: 978-0648438199

  Cover art by: Izzie Duffield

  Copyright 2018 Elizabeth Stevens

  Worldwide Electronic & Digital Rights

  Worldwide English Language Print Rights

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned or distributed in any form, including digital and electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the prior written consent of the Publisher, except for brief quotes for use in reviews. This book is a work of fiction. Characters, names, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  To all the YA romance that came before,

  without you, I’d have a realistic view of teen relationships.

  Contents

  Prologue

  One: Avery

  Two: Davin

  Three: Avery

  Four: Davin

  Five: Avery

  Six: Davin

  Seven: Avery

  Eight: Davin

  Nine: Avery

  Ten: Davin

  Eleven: Avery

  Twelve: Davin

  Thirteen: Avery

  Fourteen: Davin

  Fifteen: Avery

  Sixteen: Davin

  Seventeen: Avery

  Eighteen: Davin

  Nineteen: Avery

  Twenty: Davin

  Twenty-One: Avery

  Twenty-Two: Davin

  Twenty-Three: Avery

  Twenty-Four: Davin

  Twenty-Five: Avery

  Twenty-Six: Davin

  Epilogue

  Please be aware this book is set in Australia and therefore uses Australian English spelling and syntax.

  Prologue

  Avery

  I am a morning-person – always had been. As soon as the first rays of sun were peeking through the gauzy curtains on my window, my music started and I woke up among my pillows and throws, excited to start the day.

  I just couldn’t help it, there was so much to look forward to: friends, family, rainbows, baby animals. Life was worth living and it was worth living loud and proud.

  I sang along as I showered, got my makeup exactly right so the teachers couldn’t definitively say it was there but no spots were showing, and made sure every curl sat in perfect formation. I sang as I got ready for school, adding the absolute maximum pops of colour to my uniform I knew I could get away with. I sang on my way past Ebony’s room as my little sister burrowed into her pillows for ‘five more minutes’, and was still there twenty minutes later. And I was still singing as I danced down the stairs to start on breakfast for my family, to be joined by my parents a few minutes later.

  Dad let me pretend I was helping with his crossword as I went over colour swatches with Mum for her interior design customers and I tried to get my previous nights’ homework finished. I kissed my sister’s head as she finally blinked her way into the kitchen and sat her down with her breakfast with mere minutes before we had to leave.

  Dad and I bundled Ebony into the car and I talked to him about my upcoming day as he drove us to school and Ebs denied falling asleep in the back seat. I was the first one out of the car with a wave to Dad before I hurried into the building at quarter past eight, with plenty of time to catch up with my friends before first lesson.

  And, even though I’d been up for hours and I got to school plenty early, I was somehow still only getting to class as the last bell rang every morning.

  Davin

  I’m not even a person-person. There was no sort of person that accurately described me. I couldn’t remember if I’d always been like that or if I’d once been different.

  And I didn’t much care what people thought about that. I had two people I considered irreplaceable, and I lived without one fifty percent of the time anyway.

  Even the sun knew better than to fuck with me at any time of the day, let alone when my alarm was going off yet again at eight-fifteen in the goddamned morning. I groaned and pressed snooze ‘just one more time’. The days my dad was home, he gave a cursory knock on my door. The days he wasn’t, ‘just one more time’ became at least five and I was falling out of bed at twenty to nine.

  In the blessed dark – thank you, blackout curtains – I pulled on the first pieces of uniform I could find and was only awake enough to hope I’d put my shirt on the right way round but never decided it was worth actually checking. Two minutes later, I had my bag and I was stumbling out to the car with my clothes still mostly undone and my usual hatred for the world.

  I finished doing up my buttons and my tie as I drove to school and promised myself that would be the last morning I didn’t get up in time to at least make coffee. Coffee at least made humanity bearable. But then people seemed to go out of their way to avoid me, so that made them slightly more bearable to begin with.

  Finding a park wasn’t difficult. There was always one park free, the one I’d parked in since I’d got my license. I didn’t know if everyone else left it free because they thought I’d retaliate somehow – if I could be bothered – or if it was because it was the furthest from the school building and no one else wanted it.

  And I managed to skid into my classroom just before the last bell rang most mornings.

  One: Avery

  “Rundown!” I giggled as my best friend and I walked to first lesson, our arms linked as usual.

  “Aye aye, captain!” Blair answered as people in the hallway called hello to us as we passed. “So we meet at ten on Saturday which will give us plenty of time for–”

  “Best friends’ day shenanigans!” I chorused with her excitedly.

  She grinned as she finished, “–before we have to get you ready for the big one!”

  I squeezed her arm and gave her a smile.

  Blair and I had been BFFs since forever and we’d risen to the top of the Mitchell College hierarchy side-by-side. Unlike me, she was tall, leggy, and slim. Her hair was black and she had these gorgeous big brown eyes like melted dark chocolate. Like me, she was always smiling and loved life.

  We’d made up Best Friends’ Day when we were twelve and it always fell on the first Saturday after Valentine’s Day. Unless Valentine’s Day was on the weekend, then it was the day Valentine’s Day wasn’t. Each year we spent the whole day together and no one else was allowed.

  But this year presented a slight problem in that Miles, the best boyfriend in the whole world, had planned months ago for our first anniversary celebration to be that night. Our anniversary was actually the week after
but, after discussing it with Blair, we decided that I could totally do Best Friends’ Day and an anniversary celebration on the same day.

  I sighed happily. “I can’t believe it’s been a year already!”

  Blair nodded enthusiastically as the door to our classroom came in sight, which was good because the last bell had just rung. “I know, right. A whole year! It feels like forever. But at the same time, how has a whole year already gone past?”

  I nodded back. “I know.”

  An unrealistically tall body crashed into us with an annoyed grunt, his hair hanging over his face as always. Blair and I stifled giggles to each other as we paused to watch him slouch to his chair at the back of the room and drop into it unenthusiastically.

  “Quickly class,” the teacher called as we traipsed in.

  “God. You are so lucky to have Miles,” Blair said wistfully.

  I smiled as I looked at Miles talking to his best mate Becker.

  Miles with his light brown hair swept off his face, those flashing hazel eyes, that hunky grin. The perfect boyfriend. He was sweet and kind and funny and totally popular. Everyone said we were the perfect couple. Fairy-tale perfect. We’d won Mitchell College’s Perfect Couple award the year before and it was never awarded to a Year 11 couple, it was always awarded to a Year 12 couple. I was totally lucky to have Miles.

  Sure he’d cheated on me about a month back, but it had just been a drunken kiss. I figured everyone was allowed one mistake and what we had was worth more than one stupid mistake.

  I didn’t think I was supposed to know about Cindy Porter – no one talked about it and nothing about either of them suggested that there was anything more going on between them than that one mistake. So when I’d overheard Becker and another of their friends talking about it once, I’d put the hurt aside and told myself that that was Miles' chance. I’d forgive him – he’d get that ONE mistake – and we’d move on.

  Blair and I sat down and, as the teacher finished getting himself ready for the lesson, I watched as Miles talked with Becker. I never really paid much attention to them when they were talking because it was usually about sports and teams I knew nothing about. But I liked to watch the way Miles laughed and how excited he got about things that mattered to him while I waited to say hi to him.

  Usually now was the time he turned to kiss me between his conversations with Becker. But that morning he didn’t. He didn’t even seem to notice I was there until Mr Richards called for our attention again and Miles gave me a weird nod and not even a half-smile before opening his books. I was left confused, but assumed he wasn’t snubbing me on purpose. Because Miles didn’t do that.

  I shared a look with Blair, whose eyebrows crinkled in confusion. But we didn’t have a chance to talk about it until we were on our way to our next lesson.

  “He did it again!” Blair whispered to me harshly.

  I watched as Miles walked away with Becker without even looking at me.

  Becker threw me a look over his shoulder, but I couldn’t really tell what it meant. I wasn’t sure if it was sympathy, confusion of his own, or if he knew something I didn’t and couldn’t wait for me to find out.

  “Did I do something wrong?” I asked, completely baffled.

  “You never do anything wrong,” Blair reminded me and I nodded vaguely.

  “No. No, of course not.”

  “They’re playing their biggest rivals for their first game of the season on Saturday,” Blair said thoughtfully. “I’m sure they’re just wrapped up in that.

  I nodded. Of course they were. Miles took his sport very seriously and I was very proud of him for that. So the matter was off my mind for the rest of the lesson as I got totally engrossed in Miss Nithin enthusiastically going over the diagram she’d put up on the board.

  Except, when I went to find Miles at his locker as usual at the start of Recess, I started to suspect the cold shoulder he’d shown me didn’t have anything to do with that weekend’s sport match at all.

  “Hi,” I said as I leant up to kiss him. But he pulled away quickly.

  “Hi Avery…” he said slowly, looking around the crowded hallway carefully.

  He seemed tense, so the only solution was for me to be my usual upbeat self to cheer him up.

  “How are things? I was thinking… If you’re – I dunno – worried about Saturday, Blair and I could come past for a bit and cheer you on? I’ve got my big ‘Go Miles’ sign from last year. I saved it especially for this year. I was going to keep it for–”

  Miles cleared his throat and I hurtled to a stop. “Look. Avery, I don’t need you to come to my games anymore. Okay?”

  I blinked at him, my smile firmly in place despite not really understanding him. “This weekend’s just an outlier. I’m sure Blair won’t mind if–”

  “That’s not what I meant…” he said slowly, waiting for me to catch up.

  And catch up I did as my heart thudded heavily in my chest and my stomach churned. I suddenly felt like up was down and down was up and I was sitting sideways.

  “You’re…breaking up with me?” I asked slowly, trying to put it together in my head.

  Miles had the decency to look like it was a hardship. “Yeah.”

  “Um… Okay.” I looked around and saw that the kids, who had previously been going about the usual business of swapping books in lockers and heading out from lessons, slowed and stopped around us. I was suddenly feeling an odd sense of…detachment. No thoughts. No feelings. Even my heartbeat felt like it had paused. “Can I ask why?”

  He shrugged, those big hazel eyes looking anywhere but my face as he ran his hand through his hair. “We’re going in different directions. We had our fun, you know? But now it’s time to move on.”

  “Right.” I took a deep breath as some emotion returned, but I wasn’t sure yet what it was. Nothing was really registering past shock and a sudden thudding of my heart. “And does this have anything to do with Cindy?” I asked, my voice even. There was no anger, no accusation. It was just a question. Something I needed to know.

  The now-formed crowd muttered among themselves. Although I wasn’t sure if everyone else knew about Cindy and had thought I was oblivious, or if they were surprised at my question.

  “It’s not what you think, Avery.”

  It never was. “Isn’t it?”

  Miles looked at me then and I saw the briefest flicker of guilt. I suddenly got the impression that he hadn’t been wrong. It wasn’t what I thought. Was it worse?

  “It… It wasn’t just a kiss. Was it?” I stuttered, my throat feeling very tight, and his expression pinched. I nodded slowly. “Ah. It wasn’t…” I nodded again. “When Becker said you ‘hooked up’, he didn’t mean…” I waggled my head. “He meant…” I took a deep breath. “I see.”

  He shook his head like his explanation was going to make it all make sense, like I’d forgive him once I knew why he’d done it, like it was all in aid of world peace or something, the greater good, even. “You’re just so… You’re too good.”

  “Too good? How is that even a thing?” Even the kids in the crowd didn’t seem to think that was a decent excuse based on their facial expressions – although I didn’t hear them disagreeing out loud. “What?”

  Miles shrugged almost apologetically. “Good. You’re so sweet and pure and innocent and…such a good girl, you know?”

  “We’ve had sex.” And now the whole school knew. Brilliant. Although we’d been sleeping together for almost six months, so the bets were it wasn’t all that much of a secret anyway. Even still, my cheeks heated a little as I fought to remain on the positive side of neutral.

  He shrugged again and I could see me giving up my virginity to him had made a lasting impression. Not. “I just…” He shrugged again.

  I think I got where this was going. “Ah. You want the girl who wears the pretty swing dress to meet your grandma and then lets you do her dirty in your car after, huh?”

&nbs
p; There was a small gasp of shock from the gathered watchers at my unusual display.

  No. That wasn’t something Miles and I had talked about doing, but I could guess what he wanted if I was too good. Blair called it Gryffindor in the streets and Slytherin in the sheets. Miles liked the fact that I presented well, that his family liked me – he’d essentially told me on numerous occasions – but pretending our sex life wasn’t as vanilla as it came would be overly optimistic. Even for me.

  A strange series of looks crossed Miles’ face. He looked sorry that what I’d said was true. Then he looked surprised I’d said something like that out loud. Then he looked like he was beginning to wonder if he was making a terrible mistake all of a sudden by dumping me. But he could second-guess himself all he liked. I wasn’t wasting another minute on a guy who’d dump me the day before Valentine’s Day, a week shy of our first anniversary for a girl like Cindy Porter just because she was (I assumed) better in bed than me. Not even if he regretted it, or changed his mind, or whatever he was likely to do.

  I nodded.

  “I mean…” He winced. “It’s everything. It’s not just the sex, Avery–”

  I didn’t need nor want to hear more. “No. I get it, Miles. I wish you and Cindy all the best.” Before I turned to walk away, I decided to go right out on that limb and say one more thing totally out of character for me. “By the way…” If he was going for the girl who’d let him do her dirty in his car, he might need one more thing. “I have the number of an excellent cleaner. Specialises in stains. You know… If you ever wanted to sell your car…”

  The crowd around us all burst into laughter as Miles looked around self-consciously. I smiled at them all sweetly as I pushed my way through and started heading for my locker down the hall. And, as I did, I started recognising what I was feeling. It was anger. It was foreign, but I knew it was anger.