The Admiration Project

Chapter 2

"I'm going to pull names out of a hat so that none of you think I'm fucking with you if I accidentally give you your admiration person," Stan explained as he shuffled little scraps of paper around in a baseball cap.

It'd been three weeks since the first day of school, and Stan was a tad bit pissed off that the class hadn't become "family" yet. He claimed it was 'too small of a class for you idiots not to talk to each other.'

In an attempt to get the class to be friendly with each other, Stan moved the desks into pairs so that every student had someone to sit next to. Louis lost his seat in the back of the class, and he now sat next to Mia, who was alright occasionally. She had a habit of never keeping her opinions to herself, regardless of how absurd or rude they were. Just yesterday she told him that his socks didn't match his shirt. He'd taken slight offence to her observation. Who matched their socks with their shirt on purpose?

Stan began listing off names in pairs. Mia was partnered with a boy in the back of the class, and she didn't even try to conceal her excitement about it.

"Harry and Louis."

"Of fucking course," Louis muttered under his breath. Harry turned around to Louis, who made no attempt to move to Harry. With that, Harry stood and walked over to the now empty seat next to him.

"Hey, Lewis." Louis rolled his eyes.

"Hello, Harold."

They waited in silence as Stan finished listing pairs. Niall got paired with a girl up front who Louis had honestly forgotten was in the class. Niall must not have forgotten, though, if one were to go by the victory punch he threw towards Harry. Students started talking around them, so Louis took that as his cue to look at Harry and begin talking. He found Harry already staring at him.

"So what are we supposed to do?" Louis asked. Harry snorted.

"You weren't listening, I guess?" Louis shook his head shamelessly. "We have to pick a poem from this list and annotate it. He said we're doing something with it on Monday."

"He sure likes to keep us on our toes, huh?"

"That he does."

Louis leaned over and snatched the list from Harry's desk. He started reading, and when he looked over he had to do a double take. Harry is pouting in protest, eyes widened, bottom lip stuck out absurdly.

"What?" Louis questioned, perhaps a bit too harsh.

"You're mean," Harry replied, but the slight quirk of his lips gave his act away.

"Oh hush up, Curly. I'll pick the poem, you annotate, and I'll give some of my genius input as you go." Harry looked at him incredulously.

"How about we pick the poem and both annotate it?" Stupid Harry and his studiousness.

Louis narrowed his eyes at him, but looked back down at the paper when Harry gave him another pleading puppy-dog look. Yuck. Ew. Gross. There was no way he was giving into that.

"Fine, we'll do it your way. But only because I'm feeling generous today." What the fuck, Louis? Harry was beaming when Louis slid the paper to where their desks met so that they both could see it. So dramatic.

They read silently for a minute before Harry pointed to one. Well, Harry read while Louis stared at the paper and retained no information whatsoever.

"I like that one." He looked at Louis for approval.

"Okay, then let's do that one." Harry smiled and pulled out a sheet of lined paper and a pencil. Louis took that time to actually read the poem Harry picked out.