No Reservations (A Romantic Comedy)

Chapter 3

1995

I first met Ryan Thorne on the first day of my third year in high school.

I remember feeling disorganised and in a rush that day as I had slept in, too excited to sleep properly for most of the night. I really loved school. Enjoyed learning new things. I couldn't wait to study the subjects I had chosen.

Of course, there were subjects I had to do. Like English (good). Maths (bad). French (meh). A science (physics in my case. Blurgh). But drama, art, computing, and geography? All my own choices. The rest I would tolerate. And ultimately, ace.

I hurried from my registration class to the first class of the day . . . Computing. Of course, my reg class was probably the furthest anywhere could probably be from the computing department. And I had no idea who would be in the class, if I would even know anyone, so I was extra nervous.

The very first thing I noticed was that the boys outnumbered the girls considerably. I wasn't that bothered about boys yet, though. I'd started to notice them that summer when I'd been at my gran's place, but I hadn't really had a crush on anyone at that point. Well, apart from maybe Zack from "Saved By The Bell", but he didn't really count, being a TV character and all.

My second observation was that there was only one spare computer left, so I dashed over to it and dropped into the chair before I could draw any attention to myself. Luckily, the teacher didn't seem to be in the room yet; I quickly discovered Miss Ryder was usually late because she was usually half-stoned, and I didn't need to hurry after that.

As I started pulling my belongings from my bag, I heard a muttered "shit" from beside me. I couldn't help but giggle - swearing did that to me back then. I glanced around at the source of the profanity and met the rueful eyes of the boy beside me.

"Sorry," he said wryly. "I just realised I forgot a pen. You don't have one I can borrow, do you?"

I was happy to help. I also had a mass of pens at my disposal. I loved stationery and spent most of my pocket money on it. "Sure, what's your poison?" I asked, unloading the contents of my pencil case on the desk between us. "Blue, black, multicoloured, ballpoint, fineliner? I can even do you a freshly sharpened pencil if you're so inclined."

"Wow." The boy looked at my pile of pens in awe. "I think I'll settle for a standard blue ballpoint if that's okay."

I plucked one out of my selection and passed it over to him. "Yeah, you don't want to go too hard too fast."

He laughed. He was cute, I noticed, in a slightly nerdy way. Floppy dark blond hair, a sweet smile complete with dimples. His eyes were such a vivid blue that they couldn't even be concealed behind the lenses of the wire rimmed glasses perched on his nose. "Thanks," he said. "You're a life saver. I can't believe of all the things I forgot to pack this morning, it was a pen. What an idiot!"

"You can keep that one," I replied, unable to help grinning at him. "As you can see, I have a more than adequate supply."

"That's a bit of an understatement - you could start your own pen store," he joked. We were still giggling when the teacher walked in and started taking the register.

I don't ever remember introducing myself to anyone back in school. Maybe we did, but I don't think so. You just kinda got to know people's names. So I didn't know this boy. Our school was big. I'd never seen him before. I was waiting for his name to be called out so I could learn it.

"Iona Stewart?" As Miss Ryder shouted my name, I half-held my hand up in acknowledgement and called out "here." She nodded and moved on, but I saw the boy next to me smile to himself, and he mouthed something that looked like my first name. A warm feeling tingled inside me, one I didn't quite understand.