“Can you stop staring at me?” Jack says without looking up from his cereal.
“I was not.”
“Yes, you were.”
“How would you know if I was staring if you weren’t staring back?”
“Ooh,” Nick said, “She’s got you now.”
“So you admit, you were staring at me?”
I blush and glare at him, hard, “No!” I continue eating my toasted bread. Well, in all that’s honest, I was staring at him, only because I was trying to figure out what’s different about him. Yesterday, I saw many sides of Jack I’ve never thought I seen, especially his backside. From what I heard, he played the guitar quite beautifully, and I’m curious to know how long he’s been hiding that. The only other person I knew who could play the guitar like that was Logan.
“I’m going.” Jack gets up from the counter, grabs his bag and exits the dormitory.
“Wow, you’re not even going to wait for us?” Joseph yells after him. No answer, he’s already gone.
“There’s still like, forty minutes until class starts,” Logan says as he smears peanut butter onto his piece of toasted bread, “And he usually doesn’t arrive until the moment the bell rings.”
“Who knows?” Austin says, pouring milk into his cereal.
After we finished breakfast, we decided to go find our classes so we wouldn’t be late getting lost. We went down in the elevator, out the building and towards the school. Joseph and I wave goodbye to the others and went in search of our math class.
“Let’s sit together.” Joseph smiles at me.
“Sure.” I smile back.
We made it to homeroom five minutes prior to the start. We started to make our way to two empty seats but the teacher stopped us.
“Hello, I’m Mr. Donaldson, what are your names?” He greets us.
“Joseph Martinez.” Joseph says.
“Aislynn Taylor, but I prefer Ash.” I say.
“The seating plan is by alphabetical order, so I’m afraid you two cannot sit together,” He looks at the piece of paper he was holding, “Mr. Martinez, your seat is row three, seat four, and Miss Taylors is row four seat one.”
Joseph and I look at each other before going to our seats. Since I got the window seat, I decide to look out. I squint at a tiny figure that was coming towards the school at an alarming speed. I perceive more people as they come in into the classroom and take their seats order by Mr. Donaldson. I took out my water bottle and drank from it before turning back to the window, but the figure was gone. Just then, the bell rings and I could hear the teacher close the door as I’m still looking at the scenery.
“Just in time, mister…” Mr. Donald trails off.
“Jack.” says a familiar voice. I inwardly groan. Damn this class for alphabetical order.
There was silence, so I look over and see the two just staring at each other.
“What?” Jack asks.
“Jack what?” Mr. Donaldson urges.
“You’re looking at me, how should I know what?” The class sniggers and I exchange looks with Joseph. I could see Mr. Donaldson mentally face palm.
“Your name, Jack?” He sighs.
“My name is Jack, you just said it…” He faces the class and rolls his eyes, pointing at Mr. Donaldson. The class laughs even more and I roll my eyes.
“Your last name, Jack.” Mr. Donaldson deadpans.
“Well, why didn’t you say so? Taylor.” Jack says.
“Your seat is row three, seat two.” I watch as Jack mentally counts and I try to cover my face, but he sees me and gives me an evil smirk.
“Well hello, Taylor.” He drops his bag onto the ground and slips into his seat. He was kind of sweaty and his hair was messy. He grabs my water bottle and takes a swig.
“Hey!” I whisper yell and snatch the bottle from him.
“What? I was thirsty.” He shrugs nonchalantly.
“You gave me your germs,” I glare at him.
He leans in real close and grabs my chin and I could feel my heartbeat picking up, “Not really.”
“Mr. and Miss Taylors, would you please get to work on the review package,” Mr. Donaldson interrupts, “And please continue your business after class.”
I flush into a dark shade of red and immediately push Jack away from me and open the review package that was placed on my desk without notice, and got to work.
“Aislynn,” Jack whispers, “Hey, Aislynnnnnnnnn.” He drags out the n. He knew I hate it when people other than adults call me by my full name.
“What?!” I whisper snap at him.
He sticks his hand on top of my work, “Can you pass me a pencil?”
“Why don’t you have your own?”
“So I could borrow yours.”
“Are you serious, is this a pick up line or something?” I slam a pencil into his outstretched hand and he closes his hand around mine.
“Thanks, Aislynn.” He whispers into my right ear and it sends shivers down my back.
“Don’t call me that.” I mutter to no one in particular really. When I look at him, he was focused on his work so I quickly turn back to my own. What was that? I look at my hand; it felt hot where he held it. I blush at the thought of anyone watching us.
When I finish, I decide to look out the window again. I just love watching what’s happening outside and doing nothing else because it seems serene. There were some people outside, probably either ditching or they have a spare period or something. I watch the clouds travel slowly along the blue sky, the wind blowing through the trees and blades of grass, two squirrels chasing each other and –
I yelp and jump in my seat when someone pokes my side. The whole class and the teacher look up at me.
“Is something the matter?” Mr. Donald looks at me with concern.
“No, sorry I uh, thought I saw a, spider?” I say and some of the girls in my class start to shriek.
“No! It’s okay! It went out the window…” I quickly made up.
“Alright, alright, everybody get back to work.” Mr. Donaldson instructs and looks at me like I was a bit wacked before looking back down on his laptop and everybody resumes their work too.
I slowly turn to Jack who was focusing on his work, but I could see the smile slipping onto his face.
“You ass,” I hiss at him, “I’m going to do stuff to you in your sleep tonight.”
“Whoa there,” He looks at me and cocks an eyebrow, “Can I actually be awake for that?”
“Stop being such a pervert!” I groan.
“It’s not being a pervert if you insist on it first.” He wiggles his eyebrows and scoots closer to me.
“Oh my gods no, stop.”
“Is that the safe word?”
“Jack!”
“Jack!” He mimics in a high pitch voice.
“Okay, I do not sound like that.”
“No, I’m pretty sure you do.”
“That was no, no, just stop.”
“You stop first.”
“Stop what? I didn’t even do anything to offend you.”
“Neither did I.”
“Just do your work!” I snap.
I ignore whatever he said next. In my peripheral vision, I could see his left hand slowly making his way towards my ribs. I quickly grab it and use it to hit his own face.
“Hey!” He glares at me.
I smile innocently at him, “What?” He continues looking at me with a daze look on his face.
I frown and try to poke his stomach hard but end up hurting my finger. “Ow.” I inspect his body and try to remember what his torso looked like last night, but since I was trying not to see, I have no clue what it may look like, except his butt. I blush at the memory.
When I sneak back at Jack, he was doodling and I could see his ears red and his cheeks tinted pink. Was he blushing? Why though?
“Miss Taylors,” Mr. Donaldson calls and I look up, “Are you already done?”
“Yes,” I nod, “Since a while ago.”
He looks in me in astonishment, “Wow, that’s amazing, the average time for the booklet is usually the whole class time. Well, may you take the attendance down for me? Also, you can walk around the school if you wish.”
“Yes, sir. Thank you.” I got out of my seat and took the attendance and went out the door and went down to the first floor.
Went I came out of the attendance office, I ran into a boy with tousled jet black hair –literally.
SMACK! Our forehands came in contact and we fell to the ground.
“I’m so sorry! Are you okay? I should’ve been watching where I was going. Please don’t hit me!” He says. I look up and see him a blushing a furious shade of red and hiding behind crossed arms.
I laugh, “It’s okay,” I got up and gave him a help up. “What’s your name?”
“Ryan.” He looks up and smiles shyly.
“I’m Ash,” I smile back, “Well, see you around.”
“Bye.” We part ways.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I was sitting in English class with Nick and Logan and we couldn’t stop cracking up. We are supposed to be doing grammar sheets but we were guessing each other’s drawings, like Draw Something.
“A banana?” I barely made out
“A canoe!” Logan falls out of his seat.
“No!” Nick whines.
“Wait…is it,” Logan breathes as he sits up, “A dick with no balls?” I fell off my chair and went into a seizure of laughter. The other kids were looking at us funny.
“I’m done.” Nick stands up and leaves the room.
“Come back here Nick.” Miss Grace, our English teacher calls out without looking up from her book.
We crack up even more as Nick mopes back into the classroom and to his seat.
“So what was it?” Logan demands after we calmed down.
“A hat.” Logan and I look at each other and burst out laughing again. Nick was certainly not the best artist.
The bell rings. “Okay class, finish the grammar sheet and that’s really all for the first day.” Miss Grace dismisses us.
For lunch, we at met up and walk to a new diner a few blocks over. On the glass was a banner saying GRAND OPENING, a “We’re Hiring” sign and some other things. Jack pauses at the front as we went in.
“Jack, what are you doing?” I ask him, confused.
“Nothing.” He pushes past me. Rude, I roll my eyes and walk in.
“Okay,” Nick says, as we sit down, “Whoever eats the most wins.”
“Alright! I’m ready.” Logan hoots. I laugh because Logan was smallest out of the guys.
“Oh, lord. Count me out.” I roll my eyes.
“If you keep rolling your eyes, they’re going to stay looking into the back of your head.” Jack says from diagonal of me.
“Ew, no. Don’t lie.” But I try to stop anyways.
When we finish eating, Logan was dancing in triumph as it was he who had eaten the most. The bill has just arrived.
“Wow,” I raise my eyebrows, looking at the bill. “Who’s going to pay for all of that?”
“The winner does.” Nick says like it was obvious.
“WHAT? HEY!” Logan glares at Nick.
“Well, you ate the most, so it’s so clear that you should be the one who pays.”
As they continue to argue, I notice Jack get up and go to the counter and talk to one of the workers.
“Hey Ace, what do you think?”
“Huh?” I tear away from looking at Jack.
“Who should pay?”
“Logan only ate like, half a plate more than you, so you guys should both pay.”
They look at each other, “Fine.” Nick gives in and they both take out their wallet. Jack comes back and sits down.
“What were you doing?” I ask him.
“None of your damn business.” He says nonchalantly
“Fine.” I glare at him.
We left and went back to school. As we walk back, I try to think of any reasons why Jack was talking so intently to the employee. Then I realized that it was him who was sprinting towards the school this morning, because he was all sweaty this morning. I also thought of math class and what happened last night. Then I stop. Why was I thinking about Jack? He’s Jack, for crying out loud. We hate each other’s guts for now and forever. He never ever said sorry for what he did to me many years ago. I should be thinking about Austin, now that I realize after all these years that I like him, at least I’m pretty sure I do. I’ve read my fair share of teen romance novels to know that to like your best friend is one of the most common things ever and I think that might be it. And that it’s the best yet worst thing ever, a big risk that is. I’ll just try to figure out if he likes me too, we’ll be like those cliché teen romance novels and everything will be just right.I’m all new to this love stuff since I’ve never had any friends that were girls, and spent my entire life with guys, besides having a sister. I love Clara, and we’re close, but we never talked about boys or anything girly and that’s fine with me because I was never a girly person. Anyways, I’ll figure this out on my own.
Sorry it took so long, I was just trying to figure out what to put in this chapter and make sure it wasn't too filler-like. Please vote and comment! Follow me for updates and news. Thanks. :-)