chapter 2
He clears his throat again as I reply, "Um, hi."
He doesn't respond, but instead nods his head, gesturing behind me as I stand there looking confused. I look behind me and see the bookshelf, then look to his hands and I find that he has two books in each of his veiny hands and then I put the puzzle pieces together.
"Oh! Right, you want to get to the bookshelf behind me," I blush, moving out if his way, "Sorry."
I step aside, as he crouches down to put the books back to where they belong. I watch his strong arms and his face looking intently at the shelf as he replies without looking up at me, "No worries." He pauses, turns his head up to look at me after a moment, looks back down to the books he just returned, pulls one of them back out, runs a hand through his messy brown hair, stands up and faces me and looks me into my eyes, making my hands start to sweat. "Hold out your hand," he commands.
I raise up my somewhat shaking hand, my palm facing the ceiling. He pushes a book down on my hand and says, "If you're looking for a book to read, read this."
I look down to the obviously used book; the cover was taped and stapled together and it was tattered, along with coffee stains on the pages. I look back up at him. "The Hobbit?"
"Yep," he replies amused.
I raise my eyebrow. "Why?"
"Because it's fucking fantastic?"
"Um..."
"You know what, don't read it. I didn't think you would read it anyways," he interrupts and takes the book from my hand and puts it back on the shelf.
He turns back around to walk away and I can't help but stare. His hair is perfectly imperfect. His jeans show off his butt wonderfully. The way he combs his hands through his hair and then shoves them in his pocket make my heart flutter. His eyes- his eyes. His eyes are beyond gorgeous. Almost too gorgeous.
Once he's gone back to the librarian's desk where he can't see me, I turn back around quickly and snatch "The Hobbit" from it's place on the shelf, and pace over to the couch that Blair is sitting on. She raises her head from the book she was consumed in and shot me a puzzling glare when she notices the book I'm reading. I don't usually read old books or adventure books or classic books, or whatever the hell type of book this is, so it must be weird seeing me with a different book than my sappy romance novels that I usually read.
I ignore Blair's raised eyebrow and open the tattered cover to the first page and see six tally marks. Not sure what it means, I continue on and come across a map with lettering that I have never seen before, and then I flip to the first chapter and begin reading, "In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit..."
Before I knew it, the bell rang loudly, signalling the end of my free period and now it's time for me to go to art class. I say my goodbyes to Blair and Smith and walk across the school to the art wing. I noticed that a couple students ahead of me was Brandon Fearnley, headed in the direction that I was headed to.
I followed him all the way to our art class that I now know we have together. It's making me sweat because I'm a loser who's hopelessly crushing on the curly-haired, green-eyed, already popular, cool, hot, Brandon Fearnley.
The young art teacher comes into the classroom with a high stack of notebooks in her arms and shouts, "Students, welcome! I have already assigned seats for you all to make things less difficult, so please find where your name is at the tables!"
We all look for our names written on nametags on the tables like we are kindergarteners. I find my table near the windows and see that a boy named Elliot is sitting next to me, and a girl named Pippa is sitting across from me. I bend over the table to read who sits diagonal to me and read the recurring name, 'Brandon Fearnley''. Of fucking course he sits at my table.
