Settle Down // Irwin

5

"I was busy." Calum shrugs. He closes his locker after taking his AP Physics book out and leans on it. He is keeping his beanie on low today, hiding his thick hair. Jade suspects it might have something to do with his run in with Luke and the other two yesterday.

"With what?" Jade copies Calum's actions, holding her math book to her chest.

"I was tutoring." Calum smiles proudly.

"Oh," Jade rolls her eyes at Calum's cheesy grin. "Because I was tutoring last night, you had to be as well. Since when do you tutor on a Wednesday, anyway?" Calum usually kept his weekdays as free as possible for personal study or time with Jade, which was usually just more studying but less isolated.

"Since yesterday, normally it's a Saturday but it had to be changed for some reason or another. I don't pay attention, as long as it pays." Calum tells Jade, hesitating before saying the last part.

Jade has often argued with Calum that he should tutor because he wants to. Not because his mom says he has to or because he needs money. He should actually tutor because he likes math or science or whatever he was tutoring in last night. He didn't ever listen. He wanted to save for college and go somewhere on the east coast. Somewhere that both him and Jade could study at. Jade and Calum both liked the idea of Harvard. They both liked the idea of Harvard a lot.

"So why didn't you reply this morning?" Jade asks. She understand his excuse for not replying last night but what about this morning. He could have explained all this over a text.

Calum shrugs. "I was running late."

"You were here before me." Jade slaps his arm slightly.

"You walk slow." Calum points out making Jade just roll her eyes.

The bell goes telling all the students to get to their first class of the day. Jade wouldn't be seeing Calum until lunch again today so said a quick goodbye before he stopped her from walking away.

"Can we eat in the library today." Calum looks at the ground when he asks it. Shifting the weight on his feet every now and then. "I want to do some English stuff." It's an obvious lie but Jade doesn't want to question it. He is probably just trying to avoid Luke or Michael or Ashton or all three.

"Sure." Jade tells him, giving him a big smile before going to her class.

~~~

"Okay, again, but slower." Michael was trying to get Jade to explain to him a whole semesters amount of work in the space of ten minutes and even Jade couldn't do that. She doesn't even think Calum could.

"Michael you should come to the after school stuff today." Jade had been trying to convince him all lesson to do this by he would always shake his head and say he had football after school.

"I've told you, I have football." Michael tells Jade for the hundredth time.

"I could ask to keep the place open for a bit longer. I don't think anyone would mind. Football doesn't go on for that long, does it? Isn't the season over?" Jade honestly had no idea. She doesn't really pay attention to the school sports teams. She hasn't even been to one game this year. But she does remember at around November time, most of the football jocks got taken especially out of class for a lot of extra practice and also a lot of congratulating from teachers when they won a trophy or something.

"It is." Michael quickly tells her. "But Luke is a bit of a control freak and decided that because most of the guys on the team are either going to college on a football scholarship or are still waiting to hear back we might as well get back into it now, rather than be out of practice come September." Michael tells me, looking a bit pissed at the extra practice. "He has even went as far as to finding another school that we could play as a practice game. The kid needs to be stopped." Michael sounds very exasperated.