FALLEN

2-Boys

Amy and her brother, Justin, were working together, and seemed to be arguing about their topic. Amy was randomly waving her arms around, as she was wont to do, and Justin shook his long blond hair out of his face every few seconds. Knowing Justin, he was pushing for a perverted topic Amy wouldn't be willing to do. At least they were interacting, unlike me and Faye. My head was back on the desk within the next few seconds.

I managed to lift my head again after hearing Faye's attempts to start a conversation with Oliver. I doubted she could be heard over some of the other girls doing exactly the same thing. I checked the papers, a planning sheet and a checklist, before stuffing them into my bag and leaving the room.

Bree, Sam, and Cass all had classes in a different rotation than Faye and me, so they were in English just then. The halls were empty, leaving no one to question me as I hurried to my room. When I reached it, I found it just as empty as the halls and as I expected.

I dumped my bag between my bag and Cass's, then retrieved a well-worn novel from under my pillow. I'd read Bloodlust Vampire so many times I could recite parts of the story without even glancing at the page. It was a pleasant deviation from the norm of trashy good-guy vampire love stories.

"Hey, Angel?" a voice asked from the door. I looked up to see Cass poking her head into the the room. If she was here, I'd missed not only the end of science but also my math class. Damn, I'd have to get the assignment later. Not exactly something to look forward to.

"Sam and I are going to get a movie for History. Wanna come?" she continued.

An excursion into town? "Count me in," I agreed cheerfully. I stuck my bookmark into Bloodlust Vampire and shoved it back under the pillow before jumping up and following Cass out of the room.

Fifteen minutes later Sam parked one of the slate blue orphanage-issue Hyundai Santa Fe along the curb near the New York City mall. Promising to meet me within the next half-hour, Cass and Sam went to find their movie. I headed up to the bookstore to peruse the shelves in search of a good read. Picking up something about a murder mystery, I headed over to an armchair, curled up, and almost immediately lost myself in the story.

"Is that any good?" asked a familiar voice.

I looked up in surprise to find Cass and Sam standing over me. How much time had passed without my knowledge? "Uh...yeah," I replied, finding my voice.

Unable to resist, I bought the book. My cell phone vibrated in my pocket as I accepted my bag from the cashier. It was a text from Bree, asking where we were. I quickly punched in a reply and left the bookstore with Sam and Cass. We went down to the food court and got smoothies from Handon's. My phone went off again as I began slurping mine down.

It was Bree again, telling me that she and Faye would meet us at the game store in about ten minutes. I sighed heavily before relaying the message to my companions. We wove through thick crowds matching every other location in the city and stumbled into the packed game store four minutes later.

In another eight minutes, Faye and Bree joined us. They shrugged of the time discrepancy and poured over the new arrivals made for the one gaming system the orphanage had. I sighed again and joined them. I seemed to sigh a lot now that Oliver was around.

I hated to admit it to myself, but I think Bree was right. When he'd first come to the orphanage, Bree had jokingly assumed that I liked him. Now, after nearly a week of hearing the constant stream of talk (hell, I even knew his favorite color!), I was beginning to think there was some truth behind it. I'm not going to lie, Oliver was gorgeous. He was also strong of character, or so I assumed from what I had seen. Damn, I needed to get my mind off him!