The Big, Bad Badboy

Chapter 37 - Bargaining

It's the weekend! Yayyyy! Happy belated May the fourth (be with you).

~D
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"Good luck for tonight!" I yell to Jeremy as we go back to our form classrooms for afternoon registration.

Together, we had planned a casual but cute first date. Jeremy was going to take Lottie to a fairly posh restaurant, then they would take a walk by the river and, if Lottie felt up to it, they would go to a nearby park and lie in the grass, stargazing together. Lottie was secretly a huge fan of astronomy, so I hoped the last part of the date would work well and that maybe, while the two of them were sharing such an intimate moment, they might kiss. 

I really shipped them. 

Registration was the same old, same old. Mrs Cooper was as grumpy as usual, shouting at us for leaving the classroom in a mess. Well, if she actually cared about exacting punishment on the culprits, she should've investigated further. There had been a club in our classroom during lunch, that's why it was so messy. I internally rolled my eyes at her pointless chiding.

"Oh my, the vein is doing a new thing." Dee whispered under her breath. I observed Mrs Cooper's forehead and realised Dee was right. It wasn't throbbing, but moving from one side of her forehead to the other. It looked like a trapped worm. I cringed at the sight of it. 

"Ew." I muttered, trying my best not to look at it. 

Dee chuckled at my reaction. 

Once Mrs Cooper had finished her rant, Dee inquired into Jeremy's plans for the date. I filled her in and she looked impressed.

"Wow Emma. I never knew you could be romantic."

I laughed at her words. I wasn't being romantic. The date had been the result of the compiliation of generic ideas I found online. Then I'd added a dollop of Lottie's personal interests and voila, the perfect date was created.

My eyes flitted to the clock. I had Maths in five minutes.

"Gotta go to my next lesson now, see you in an hour!"

***

"If you could be a number, any number, what number would you be?"

My head turned to see Timothy Silver, talking to Viola Groves. His face was a little pink as he asked her the question, and it didn't take me long to work out why he was asking it.

Timothy liked Viola! But poor guy, she wasn't going to be wooed by his talk of mathematics.

Viola raised her head to look at him.

"Uhhhh probably the number one." She replied, looking disinterested.

Timothy didn't read her body language and continued the conversation enthusiastically.

"One is a great number! It's a prime number, it's a square number, used in binary..." He rambled on and Viola stared out of the window, her eyes closing.

I felt sorry for Timothy. Someone needed to guide him along the process of hitting on a girl.

"Well hello there, Emerald."

Grey sat down in his chair and turned to me, a grin plastered on his face, as usual.

"Timothy likes Viola." I blurt out, and Grey raises his eyebrows in surprise.

"Damn. Poor guy. She's a toughie to crack." He commented, clicking with his tongue.

Mrs Jenkins had arrived now, and she had put some work up on the board. I wrote down a question but no matter how hard I tried to do it, I kept failing. I dropped my pen onto my desk, groaning in frustration.

Grey leaned over to look at my work.

"I know where you went wrong..." He sang in a childish voice. My eyes narrowed at his smug face. Since when did the badboy get good at maths?

"You hate maths, how do you know anything?" I challenged, as Grey looked away shyly. Shyly? I know, it sounds impossible, but it's honestly the way he looks!

"I started revising." He admitted with difficulty before looking back at my work.

"Do you want to know how to work it out or not?"

I nodded frantically.

"Ok, but in return you have to do something for me." Grey wiggled his eyebrows and came a little closer to me.

I rolled my eyes. Was he being serious? I would owe a favour to Grey Black, just for the sake of a maths question?

"No thanks." I stuck my tongue out at him before looking back at my work. Maybe it was time to ask Mrs Jenkins.

I thrust my hand up and Mrs Jenkins walked over, looking disinterested.

"Yes?" She stood by my desk and and pointed to the question.

"I don't understand." I told her bluntly. Her eyes fell on Grey, who was scribbling away eagerly. I hoped she wasn't about to do what I thought she was.

"Grey, do you understand question 1?" Mrs Jenkins asked the smug idiot, who looked up and nodded, a smirk forming on his face.

"Ask Grey." She told me, before walking away. My eyes were wide with disbelief. What kind of teacher does that?

Grey leaned over towards me.

"So, do you still not want my help?"

Before I could answer, a loud shriek was heard from behind me.

"Timothy, I don't care about all the good things about the number one!" She yelled, standing up from her chair and placing her hands on her head in frustration.

Timothy said nothing but looked back at his work, his eyes glazed over in misery. Poor guy, he didn't realise how annoying he was being.

Mrs Jenkins decided to be a teacher for once and interfered.

"Miss Groves, what is the meaning of this!?" She was throwing her hands up in the air like she was playing hot potato.

Violet sighed, looking at Timothy regretfully.

"I'm sorry, Timothy. I didn't mean to be so horrid. I'm just not really interested in maths..." She apologised, before sitting back down.

Timothy gave her a half smile to indicate that it was alright.

I looked back to my work to see a foreign handwriting scribbled over it. Grey had written out the answer for me.

"Ahhhh!" I came to the sudden realisation of my mistake.

"Ok," I turned to Grey, "what do you want?"