Romance Collision ✔

ღChapter Eight: A Lunch Date

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"Place down your pencils and pass your quizzes forward, please!"

Mr. Martin had a bad habit of giving 'pop' quizzes at the beginning of each week on whatever his students had learned the week before. So technically, it wasn't a "pop quiz". Nevertheless, he would count it because he wouldn't say at what part of the period the quiz would be given. So usually it would drive Bea up the wall when he did this.

As students were passing their quizzes forward, Mr. Martin was taking small stacks from various directions at the front rows.

"Come on, people, pass 'em up! You should always be studying the material that I—Mr. Jacoby, I highly advise you put your pencil back onto your desk unless you'd like to visit the detention room again."

He was pointing at a student with a stern look on his middle-aged face and raised blond brows. His reading glasses slipped to the tip of his nose when he had tilted his head at the sheepishly grinning boy in the third row.

After a second more of his look, Mr. Martin collected the rest of the papers and headed up the aisle towards his desk. He raised the large stack above his head and waved it, "Anyone else that brings me a quiz after this sentence will receive an automatic zero. That is my final warning."

He dropped the stack onto another large stack of papers that were bound with large rubber bands before looking up at his students.

"Form a group of three and then turn to page one seventy-two. Complete the following exercises by showing your own work and circling your answers," he instructed as he flipped the whiteboard to its opposite side. There was a list of the problems, all even because the back of the math book had all the odd answers, from one side of the board to the next.

The students groaned and started to move. Most were doing so in a sluggish manner. Like Bea. She leaned her head back and sulked her shoulders just staring at the ceiling. She really hated this class. Mr. Martin was the most difficult teacher in her grade and he seemed to take pride in that. The only reason Bea was able to bear this class was because four desk aisles down, Greg was standing up and gathering his books onto top of one another.

Bea was hoping that she could group with him. She noticed he glanced her way, even as Sandra Quail was saying something to him. Trying to act like she wasn't watching him, Bea quickly stood up and turned around searching the room for Eve. When Bea caught sight of her friend, Eve was already pulling desks into a triangle so that when they sit down, they'd all be able to see each other.

But that wasn't what made Bea smile, it was the way Eve would widen her eyes and sneer at Aaron when he kept shifting from one side of her to the other to no doubt to ask if she'd group up with him. Eve stopped and turned around to say something to him but Bea never caught word of it.

Sighing, Bea turned to her left when someone lightly touched her elbow. The tingles immediately shot through her entire being and it was not hard to guess why.

"Bea."

Bea batted her eyes and melted with a smile when she looked into Greg's blue eyes. He smiled widely and sighed, "Hey."

The girl said nothing. She just stared at him, but then she shook her head, breaking from her trance when a few words that he was saying broke through her ear canal.

"—work with Sandy and her group. And---"

"Wait, what?"

Bea gulped, wondering if Sandra had beat her to asking Greg to sit with Eve and herself.