Rock Prodigy

Chapter 26

He shook his head quickly and moved to the edge of the bed, standing up and wrapping an arm around my shoulders, placing a bright smile on his face as he leaned close to me, our noses almost touching. “So you can’t sleep without me, right?”

“Of course I can,” I lied, stiffening my spine as I moved away from him towards the door, my cheeks turning red.

Before I made it out of the room, he gripped my arm and pulled me against his chest, wrapping one arm around me as his other hand slipped across my cheek and sunk into my hair. “I can’t sleep without you either,” he whispered before his lips were on mine and I was melting into him, losing my train of thought completely.

Mac was being weird. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it but I would feel his gaze on me and whenever I looked over at him, he had a frown on his face and a slightly glazed over look in his eyes. I would give him a questioning look and he would just smile then look away. I was so focused on Mac’s strange behaviour during calculus class that I didn’t hear the bell ring.

“Rose,” Mr. Johnson said sharply, snapping me out of my reverie. I glanced around the room, shocked to see that it was completely empty.

“Where is everyone?”

He raised an eyebrow at me and I saw his lips twitch slightly. “The bell rang, Rose.”

“Oh,” I replied, gathering my books and slipping them into my bag.

“Now that you’re here, there was something I wanted to discuss with you.”

“Okay,” I said nervously, shifting from foot to foot wondering if I’d missed an assignment.

“Your terrible at calculus.”

I raised an eyebrow at him. “Really?” I asked, feeling my lips twitch slightly. “I’ll try harder, I promise.”

“I’ll fail you if you don’t improve your grades.”

I froze with my hand on the door knob, my eyes narrowing on the painted wood in front of me before I slowly turned around to look at Mr. Johnson. “You’re going to fail me?” I asked, incredulous.

“I won’t have a choice,” he said firmly, crossing his arms over his chest. “At this rate, you’re not going to pass the exam.” He sighed, dropping his arms to his sides. “Listen Rose, I know you already have a good idea of what you’re going to do when you graduate but you need to graduate first.” He gave me a tentative smile and a slight pink blush formed on his cheeks. “I um, heard your song on the radio today. Speak to Me, was it?” I nodded, raising my eyebrows at him, feeling like I was in an alternate reality. “Well, I really enjoyed it and I can tell that you’ve been busy with the band and music but that doesn’t mean you can slack off in calculus. Just try harder, okay? And um, maybe you can give me an autograph sometime before you’re too famous?”

“Okay,” I said, my voice sounding a little dazed. I nodded and turned around slowly, opening the door and walking towards my locker without really paying attention. I jumped when someone flung their arm around my shoulders. “Jeez, Dan,” I muttered, putting a hand to my chest where my heart was threatening to jump out of my body. “You scared me.”

He chuckled and squeezed my shoulders a little, making me smile. “You were walking around like a total zombie. Is it the hangover?” he asked, looking down at me with a hint of concern in his eyes. “Do you need an aspirin?”

I shook my head letting out a light chuckle, thinking about the strange conversation I’d just had with my calculus teacher. “No, my hangover’s pretty much gone now.” I chuckled lightly, grinning up at Dan. “I think we have a fan.”