I'm The Geek Who Slapped A Football Player.

43 - T-Rex

I will admit (as painful as it is!) that his melted the cold shoulder I'd donned for Sebastian, just a teensy teensy bit. The fact that he can be sweet with even the most terrorizing of little beasts (and Nibbles proved his name full well, constantly, which was funny hehe), is damned adorable. Which actually is annoying because that makes him better, and I prefer to have reason to hate him (curse you for being gorgeous, and good with animals. CURSE YOU).

Due to his niceness to Nibbles, I allowed myself to relent (a smidge, just a smidge) and be polite to him and compliment him on his work. And I actually was kind of impressed with that too, he'd done more than half of the (made up, of course) inventory all on his own, and managed the utility stuff way faster than I would have managed (I attest this to his father being in the construction business). 

He'd still seemed a little sour with me, but at least talked to me and didn't tell Nibbles any more 'Quick and Efficient Ways to Kill a Person in their Sleep' (like what the hell Sebastian, how the fuck do you know that to begin with?!). 

It was close to ten thirty by the time we'd finished (my Dad had texted me 'Kind of quiet up there...' more than once and I nearly went downstairs to choke him!!), and Sebastian had stood up, stretched (Dear Lord Almighty *drool*), muttering something about having to wash his clothes because of Nibbles for his mom and her cat allergy or something. He'd gathered up his stuff, and I'd walked with him downstairs (because like hell was I leaving him alone with my parents).

He shook hands with my Dad, said goodbye to my Mom (who still looked like she was never going to sleep again), and then lumbered to the door, about stepped out, and then gave me a dour smile over his shoulder, and said, "See ya tomorrow, Clarisse."

Now, I'm on my way to English, glad that I've somehow not had to see the idiot yet today. As I troop up the stairs with everyone else, I think about lunch. I'd met Scarlett earlier today, and she'd said that if we finished early enough, we could go to the bathroom to try on the dress she'd brought for me. She said it will probably be a little too big (her sister was taller and busiter than me, and that's not surprising. There were probably fourteen-year-olds bustier than me), and the purple may not be my kind of purple, but I said I'd give it a shot. If it saves me from going on a shopping trip with my mom, please!

"...Clarisse?"

I hear the voice and my head snaps up, and I nearly trip up the stairs. A light hand grabs my arm to steady me. I turn to the side to meet a pair of blue eyes.

"Oh, hey Be- Simon." Jeezus. One of these days I'm going to slip up and call him Beagle out loud...

"Hey," He says, smiling tentatively. "You mustn't have heard me before. I asked if you were ok Clarisse."

"Huh?" I say, brilliantly. I guess I'd been to focused on my thoughts before. "Oh, sorry. I'm fine, why do you ask?" Do I not look ok? I mean I guess ok is how I ever look, if I don't look ok I have to look bad (not that I care!).

Simon Beagle gives me a cute little shrug, the backpack shifting a bit on his thin shoulders. "You just look...I don't know, real deep in thought or something."

"Oh." I guess I had been. Though thinking about Sebastian probably doesn't require deep thought, so much as trying to contain to anger that it brings with it...

We both climb the stairs, following with the flow up people. After a couple more steps, he says, "I, um, like your shirt. You did a good job on it."

I glance down at my ductaped polo. I know I did a good job, because even if I didn't want to do it I was going to make sure it looked alright! Frankly it just made the shirt feel stupid heavy and balloon off my body weirdly, but oh well. I notice that his shirt is kind of ductaped. Looks like he just made a stripe pattern of green and orange tape down the front and back. "Thanks. Yours looks good too."