Accidentally on Purpose

Bonus Chapter #2

It made him feel so much better. About the coldness on his chest, the damn iPod, the broken heater in his house, and the cat poop incident, and the Macbook he had to buy. It took a lot of frustration out of his system, and he almost felt the need to thank the girl for giving him the opportunity to get rid of a bit of that frustration.

He felt like an asshole afterwards, but that still didn't make him turn around to apologize. Jonah Gibbs wasn't an asshole, contrary to popular belief, but the stickiness on his chest was starting to get irritating, and he wouldn't mind being an asshole for a day. So he left the lunch room, found a spare shirt from his locker to replace the half-wet undershirt he had had on, and continued the sucky day like he always continued his other sucky days, without so much of a second thought about the blonde girl whose name was Hannah Taylors. (Yeah. Guess he remembered anyway.)

On the way home, he picked up his mom's order from a diner in town, and his eyes fell upon a small notice on the front window. Only two words, but that finally, finally brought a smile to his face.

WE'RE HIRING.

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He would never actually pour hot coffee all over her. He was bluffing. He knew how hot that coffee was, and how painful it would feel on her skin. Hell, that kind of pain wasn't the kind of pain he would even wish upon his worst enemy.

But she was just so—UNGGGFFFFGH—and Jonah just wanted her to shut up for a second. Here she was, the girl who poured soda on him days ago, showing up at the very place he was working at, the place he was just starting to love, and she already was ruining another day of his.

Her name was Hannah Taylors, he remembered, but her hair was a shade of orangey-red instead of pale blonde that he remembered.

Not that it mattered much, anyway.

And then her dad walked in. Her dad, his boss, the exact same guy, Mr. Taylors. Jonah Gibbs wasn't stupid, so how could he have missed this? There was a smug look on her face, one that he wanted to wipe off so badly, but he was tongue-tied as long as the bigger man was still here.

Then she went and told him something like, ooh, don't you ever dare pour hot coffee all over me because I'll call up my dad and get him to cut your salary in half because I can or whatever, and he almost believed that she actually would, but when she turned around and make her grand exit, the realization that struck him made him relax a little bit.

She was bluffing. Just like he was.

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The days that followed were a whirlwind of bizarre happenings.

There was a weird new assignment from a weird new teacher that involved fake marriage and fake babies—don't even ask—and then the weirder thing happened, which was him getting reassigned with that same girl that poured soda on his chest days ago, the same girl whose dad was his boss, Hannah Taylors. All because they got falsely accused of playing footsie together in class.

He didn't hate her—hate is a really, really strong word and he doesn't use that, unless it involves a female cat named Grace—but there were a lot of things that she did that annoyed him, the soda incident involved. There was just something... off about the way she looked at him, and he didn't know what to think of that.

But now they were stuck together doing what sounded like the worst school project ever, and he was gritting his teeth as she turned to him in Mr. Herberg's classroom and started to speak.

Jonah took the earphones out of his pocket and put them in his ears. Her voice next to him was nothing but a fading noise in the background.

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