His Feisty Mafia Princess

Weird Italians

"It's okay, girls, I understand. And I love you both very much," I walk over to them and hug them tightly, one with each arm. "You’re the best friends in the whole world. And... how about having lunch today with Judas and his friends? Just to hang out.”

"Absolutely not, under any circumstances," Yamin replies, "I think you know what I'm like, I couldn't sit at the same table with that jerk without yelling a couple of unfriendly things at him."

"Yes. The last time we talked to him she almost gouged his eyes out," Nedi laughs, letting go of me. And before I can ask them when was the last time they talked to Judas, the doorbell makes us jump and we reluctantly say goodbye.

I go all the way to my classroom bitterly because I hate being in a different classroom than the twins, and I also hate the fact that everyone in my classroom watches me like I'm an experiment, but they don't talk to me. No one comes near me, as if they think I have some disease.

That has never happened to me before. It has always been (before coming to Rome) extremely easy for me to make friends. I don't understand how I managed to earn the contempt of the whole classroom just by existing.

I reach my chair trying to ignore the stares at me and sit down, thinking about how much I miss Graham sitting next to me at my old school saying silly things to make me laugh and, the last few months, stealing kisses from me whenever the teacher turned away.

As more people arrive in the room the soft silence begins to be eclipsed by their stupid conversations and then two people stand in front of me. The two main girls who always whisper things to each other about me when they see me.

Are they coming to tease me like we're in kindergarten? Because I'm not letting them, if that’s the case.

"Hi, Alissa... how did you meet Judas?" one of them asks, sounding desperate for information. For a couple of refined Italians who look down their noses at me and do nothing but criticize me for being less than them, they lack manners.

"For starters, back up a little," I blurt out with a tone of voice a little more aggressive than I needed to defend myself. The two girls step back with terror in their eyes as if they think I'm going to hit them or something.

"Sorry!" The blonder one of them apologizes. I think her name is Tara. She holds up her hands in surrender, "We just want to know how you're friends with him. Judas Sinclair is not someone who has a lot of friends."

"Outside of his common circle. The last name Ferreira isn't part of the Sinclair circle, is it?" the other one asks and her words confuse me so much that I just stare at her with a frown. I have no fücking idea what she's talking about.

"What the fück are you talking about?" I ask, starting to feel stressed out by these weird girls. I get up from my seat so I'm no longer sitting while they're standing and they both back up again, in fear. I can feel the noise stop at that moment and when I turn around, I see that everyone is watching us with big eyes full of curiosity. I still don't understand what is going on, is this a new kind of bullying? Acting like you are afraid of the person but still want to get information out of them? "All I can say is that Judas and I are good friends. His family knows my dad and we have dinner together almost every night."

A slight exaggeration, but who cares?

That creates an atmosphere of disbelief throughout the room. The girls in front of me widen their eyes in shock and the rest of the room starts whispering about me. I'm going to lose my mind if no one explains to me what the hell is going on.

"And are you guys like...dating or something?" asks Tara once she pulls herself together from the news.

"Nah, Jude's not that lucky," I snort crossing my arms across my chest. The girls are about to lose their eyes if they open them a thousandth more. Maybe they're just teasing me, but I feel like a celebrity with all this attention, so I make up some more drama to add excitement, "That doesn't mean he's not dying to go out with me, from what he's told me."

The girls' mouths drop open and I only stop myself from laughing because the door opens again.

"Hey, guys. Good morning," Freddy greets us as he enters the room. I smile openly at him and ignore the girls who go back to their chairs without changing their shocked expressions. Freddy is looking very handsome today. He's not wearing his usual button down shirt and khaki pants. He's wearing dark jeans, a loose T-shirt with some words in Italian that I don’t understand and some expensive-looking sneakers, "Have a seat, please. I have something important to tell you. I won't be able to be here with you today, I have to go out with several other teachers to a board meeting. Therefore, you will have the day off..."

The shouts of excitement echo throughout the room interrupting him from his beautiful speech and I have to cover my ears like an old lady.

Instead of being happy about it, I'm annoyed. I don't want Freddy to leave for the whole day, he's the only thing I like about this classroom.

"And tomorrow you’ll be back?" I ask loudly over the shouts of my classmates. Freddy laughs and moves closer to my chair.

"Maybe," he answers half smiling, inches away from my face. And his eyes look so green it seems unreal, "Do you want me to come back or would you rather have another day off?"

"Well, don't tell my classmates," I lower my voice and then, ignoring that it's not cool at all to do this, I move until I'm as close to him as possible and squeeze my arms together to make my breasts stand out before saying, "I'd rather you came. I will miss you today."

Freddy turns away from me, looking back at the rest of the class for a second with his red cheeks. My heart thunders loudly but I feel proud about making him blush like that.

"So, um, guys. Guys!" he yells and suddenly everyone goes quiet, "I'm going to go and I hope you don't do anything bad, okay? I have a lot of extra homework for whoever asks for it."

"We're going to be good, Professor. Don't worry," replies someone I don't know.

"I hope so. So I guess I'll see you... tomorrow," he concludes, looking over to me at the end and smiling.

After Freddy leaves the room, taking my heart with him, everyone in the room starts chatting and getting up from their chairs, which makes me anxious. I don't want them to approach me again to interrogate me, so I get up too, but to leave.

I'd rather wander the halls of the school than stay there.

I start walking as if I have somewhere to go, taking advantage of the walk to get to know the English section.

"Alessia!" someone somewhere shouts. I turn on myself looking for the voice, and when he shouts again I see him. It's Judas, he's sitting on a giant planter next to two boys, "Come here!"

I smile with relief and start to almost run towards him, happy to have been saved from walking around alone like a loser.

I flatten my skirt on my way to him because his intense eyes on me suddenly make me a little nervous. When I'm less than three feet away from them, the boys accompanying him stand up.

"Hi," I blurt towards them, trying not to notice that there’s something odd in their eyes.

"Hello again," Judas says from the planter still, looking up at me with a straight face. To be honest, his serious face is creepy, and not exactly sexy-creepy. "Guys, this is Alessia Ferreira. Alessia, this is Ronny and Chandler Helix."

"Nice to meet you, miss," Chandler greets me with a big warm smile, comes over to me and kisses both my cheeks, then Ronny comes over to do the same, only he has a more cautious smile.

And then the weirdest thing happens. Jude gets up from the planter, puts a hand on my arm and kisses both my cheeks too, but... but they were different kisses. Chandler and Ronny just stuck their cheeks to mine in a cautious way, Judas touches my cheeks completely with his lips, and my stomach does a thousand somersaults at that.

And when he moved from one cheek to the other, I could almost swear our lips touched.