There were two things I was certain about.

One; Reece Carter's my neighbor.

And two; I'm locked outside my house.

~*~

I pushed the gate of my backyard open in hope that the back door was miraculously left unlocked for me.

It wasn't.

I sat on the pavement, feeling gloomy. Out of his dog kennel, my gorgeous German Shepherd, Oscar, came running towards me and began licking my face.

"Eww Oscar, nice to see you too boy." Oscar was my present for my thirteenth birthday. I opened the wrapper to a big red box and there he was, wagging his tail and licking my face. Love at first sight.

Around five minutes later, it began raining.

"I guess it's just you and me until mum and dad come home."

About two minutes later, Oscar went inside the house through the doggy door.

"Okay; I guess it's just me then."

~*~

After many mental debates with myself, I rang the doorbell to Reece's house.

One minute and thirty-seven seconds later; he opened the door.

Wearing nothing but a white towel around his waist.

Somewhere in the back of my mind, I thought this would be a picture perfect moment.

Click!

So what do you see? You see Reece, looking sexy as ever, wet hair, droplets falling across his face, down his neck and along his six packs. Yes, six packs.

And me?

A girl with damp hair – not sexy wet hair – freezing because of the cold and eyes that couldn't stop roaming around the body of a God.

"Are you done checking me out?"

No, not really.

I walked past him and into his house "You wish."

He chuckled "So do you normally get locked out of your house? Or locked in school? Honestly when I first realized I thought - "

"- wow, she's a loser." I finished. He held back a smile.

"Exactly."

~*~

"Can you please put a shirt on?"

"Why? Is my six pack bothering you?"

"No."

"Is it distracting you?"

Silence.

He sighed, "It's tough being such a sex symbol."

~*~

"I'm hungry."

"I'm Reece."

"Ha ha." I replied in a tone farfetched from humorous. I grabbed the phone from the nearby table and began dialing.

A girl should always memorize four phone numbers.

- Your own

- Your mum's

- Your best friends' (in my case it's Charlie's)

- And finally, the Chinese Takeaway Shop

After ordering noodles and steamed Dim Sims, I hung up and looked around his house. There were paintings and pictures of his family on the walls. I noticed he was an only child, like me.

"By all means, make yourself feel at home." I noted his sarcasm, but I ignored it.

"Do you have any movies to watch?"

Reece jumped up in excitement, "Like, chick flicks and romantic comedies?!"

"Yeah?"

"Hell no."

"Okay fine, what do you have?"

"Movies that might be a little too scary for you."

"Bring it on Carter."

~*~

I really shouldn't have challenged Reece.

We were currently both sitting on his couch. I was pushing myself the furthest I could into the couch – hoping that it would somehow protect me from the characters that will haunt me in my nightmares.

A cloaked guy – they're always cloaked – was chasing after a girl with a knife – it's always a knife - then the girl goes inside the house to seek refuge but the phone doesn't work – it never does – then she pulls the blinds open the guy is there.

And I am moments away from wetting my pants.

Every time I scream, Reece laughs. I give him a death glare, he stops. We watch the movie and it starts all over again.

In the movie, the doorbell rings.

"No! Don't open the door you dumb bimbo!"

She opens the door and the guy kills her.

Suddenly, Reece's doorbell rings.

We look at each other; he must have noticed my scared expression because he winked at me.

"Don't worry Chloe, I'll protect you." My heart did a little flip. What the heck was that?

The brave idiot opened the door and revealed...the Chinese delivery guy.

~*~

I twisted my fork around my noodles, "So, who used to live in the house before us?"

Reece took a bite out of his dumpling and smiled as if he remembered a good memory.

 "An old couple."

"So why did they leave?"

"I don't know."

I gave him a skeptical look.

"Okay, so might have had to do with my music being on too loud at night,"

"I see."

"Or because I like to ride my motorbike at three in the morning,"

"Oh."

"Or because I - "

"– I get it, you're a badass." This made him smile. Did I mention his smile is adorable?

My phone vibrated.

Hey Chloe,

I was wondering, is it okay for a girl to make the first move?

Becca

I quickly texted her back.

Hey yourself Bec,

Confidence is highly attractive to boys, did you know more than half of them WANT girls to make the first move? Go for it!

XOXO

CA

"So is it true?"

My head snapped back up. "What is?"

"That you're some kind of relationship shrink."

"I'm not a shrink. I just give advice."

"So, who's the guy?"

"What do you mean?"

"Who's the Jackass that made you who you are? The guy who must have broken your heart and made you teach yourself who to and not to date? How to get the guy etcetera, etcetera..."

He looked so comfortable talking about this subject; it was like he was talking about the weather.

But me? I felt like I was choking, the freezing weather had no impact on how stuffy I felt. I felt like I was going to faint. No one had ever thought there would be a guy behind all this.

 No one knew about Ashton De Ville.

 ~*~

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