Angelo's POV.
With how cold it was this morning, I was slightly surprised my breath didn't come out as steam whenever I sighed.
Another surprising thing was how I managed to get myself out of the hotel an hour before school was meant to start.
My subconscious was barely awake at this time, but here I was, buying a large coffee at Starbucks and telling them to make it just as Violet liked it.
Desperate. My subconscious murmured, rousing from the short nap he took after keeping me up all night with intrusive thoughts.
Was I desperate? For her attention, and her time, and her touch, and that smile that I seemed to be able to make appear on her face?
Yes, I was.
Which is why I found myself going to the school an hour early, just because she was always early too.
All this for someone who may not love you back, my subconscious reminded me, he had all of my fears and held on fast, making sure I would never forget them.
Anyways, all I was getting was coffee, not a grand gesture proclaiming my undying love so I didn't really have much to lose...
"Hmm." I murmured as I pulled out my phone to search for different grand gestures to proclaim undying love to a woman.
A few minutes later, I had arrived at the school... except with a half gone cup of coffee.
Why couldn't I get even this one thing right? Would it make sense to give her this now?
The school was practically deserted as I pulled up in the empty parking lot.
I had to head straight to the principal's office to discuss my several absences and how to make up for them.
Unfortunately for me, this man took his time arranging his sentences in his head before speaking slowly. So there I was for quite a while, wondering if Violet was around yet which meant I occasionally zoned out which then led to the principal repeating himself... slowly.
Even when I was done, he saw me off to the door and then made me stay there, too enthusiastic for my brain to handle this morning.
Every other moment, I had to remind myself that I couldn't walk out on this... jolly, butt kissing, middle aged man who was also my principal.
"Ah, there's Miss Adams, she's punctual as always." The man said and I immediately turned to look.
Letty? My subconscious was wide awake now.
"Anyway, as I was saying..."
She was only just approaching the main doors which I could see clearly from here, her hair was tied up and she had on her favorite purple sneakers along with a big overcoat, all serious as she tried to push the doors open with her shoulder since her hands were busy carrying random stuff.
Only a moment later, that brown haired boy hurried to help her, and I raised an eyebrow at the ridiculous smile he sent her way. The only thing I could remember about him for now was that he shared a chemistry class with Violet and that he was probably head over heels in love with her.
I dug my free hand in my pocket and looked at the Principal who was still talking about something I didn't care about.
Did Dad ever say be respectful to all elders or was it just a false memory? The principal wasn't technically an elder though...
"Whoa, I'm gonna need you to tone all that energy down, Connor...." I heard Violet say with a slight chuckle and I turned to look again.
Her voice... Why did she sound so tired?
"Sorry. What's up today? You're usually a morning person..." The brown haired boy said, nudging her slightly so that she winced a bit. "Not that I...watch you a lot or anything like that..." He added with a nervous laugh.
I could have rolled my eyes. He was actually so amusing at times.
Violet, the kind not to tell someone to screw off, nodded and smiled slightly. "I get it, I know, I'm just having an off day is all, not really in the mood for...y'know."
"I totally understand." The kid replied and you'd think he actually got the memo.
"But you know what I think would help?"
This guy.
He proceeded to bring out a flask from his bag, showing it to Violet with another smile.
"Oh." Violet said, sounding quite underwhelmed, not that he noticed.
"It's Expresso! It'll wake you right up."
"Oh... Connor you shouldn't have."
"It's nothing, really." The guy said and rubbed the back of his neck. "If you want we could even...share?"
I didn't realize I walked out on the school principal while he was mid sentence till I found myself at Violet's side, facing the brown haired boy who really thought he had a shot with her.
"No, she actually means you shouldn't have." I said, factually. He needed an intense lesson on taking hints.
"Angelo, hey man!" He said, surprised while Violet looked up at me with a small smile.
Letty! My subconscious said, doing a little dance with sparklers in each hand.
There was no way I could let that show on my face.
"Someone's early." She said and I sent her a wink.
"Thought I'd give it a try," I replied and handed her the cup of coffee I'd been holding all morning. "I got you this."
"Thanks so much it's...." She paused and opened the half empty cup. "Really Angelo?"
"Hmm? Yeah I may have... drank a bit on the way here."
Shaking her head, she giggled in that way that gave me a sudden surge of energy.
"I can't with you sometimes, you know?" She sighed before turning to the brunette kid who didn't immediately leave for some reason.
"Thanks a lot Connor, but I already uh..." She pointed at the cup awkwardly.
"That's fine," He replied, lightly. He looked like he could suddenly start wagging a tail or something. "There's other times."
"Very unlikely." I cut in, dryly.
"Alright." Violet sighed, turning around to leave. "Let's go. Bye Connor."
Oh I wasn't about to let him go just yet. I had a few words for this kid.
"Go ahead?" I asked her before turning to stare right at him. "I just want to talk to him for a second..."
Then I felt a small yank on the cuff of my jacket sleeve which made me look over my shoulder.
"Talk later." Violet said, a bit of need in her tired voice. "Come on."
I never knew I could follow orders so fast.
I didn't miss the way she rubbed under her eyes as she sipped from the coffee cup. "Your first class for today is next to mine right?"
"Yeah."
"That's perfect." Violet replied and her shoulder bumped lightly against me as we walked. Watching her closely, I wondered what could have caused her so much stress.
"Did you sleep late?" I asked, my hand moving on its own accord to caress the nape of her neck, playing with the soft wisps of hair there which she didn't seem to mind. In fact she let out another yawn and blinked slowly.
"Sort of, I was so restless and stressed that I basically tossed and turned all night."
"Why didn't you call me?" I asked before I even thought about it. Calling was our thing, wasn't it? Or did I just assume it was?
"Um..." Violet murmured, raising the cup to take a long sip as an attempt to evade my question. I wasn't going to just let this go though.
With a small sigh, I made her look up at me by pulling gently but firmly on the back of her head.
"Oh come on! It was the middle of the night!" She giggled and I frowned slightly. That was it?
"Everyone's asleep by then, Angie." She added, staring up at me with those mesmerizing, golden eyes of hers.
One thing Violet probably didn't know was how much I'd come to know her, and I just knew she didn't want to admit that she felt she'd be bothering someone with her problems.
"So what?" I asked, "I have my phone on ring because of you."
She blinked, glancing away shyly. "You do?"
Of course! I'd hate myself if I ever missed a call from her, no matter how unimportant. It has somehow become a thing to look forward to.
"Bother me." I said.
"Okay." She smiled.
"Call me."
"I will."
"This honestly isn't even supposed to be a conversation, you know?"
"Yeah yeah, thanks for the coffee though." She made that happy giggling sound again and I could have...melted or something, especially when she raised herself on tiptoes to put her arms around my neck.
"Angelo Frances!"
I'd never changed moods so hard.
Violet backed away, blushing before giving me a small, apologetic smile.
I turned to glare at whoever just prevented me from getting a kiss this morning, my subconscious silently sharpening a knife.
"...or should I say, Angelo Frances-Sullivan? Son of possibly one of the greatest women in the business world?!"
It was that girl from the newspaper club, the one with the shiny lips.
Violet gasped and we exchanged a small glance.
Violet's POV
"We should run." Angelo pointed out.
I could only blink in confusion as the newspaper club quickly closed in on us, someone with a camera up to Angelo's face and Miss Lipgloss along with a few more of her teammates holding up their phones to his face as recorders only to bombard him with questions.
"Was it your intention to bear your cousin's name?"
"Do you have a particular reason for keeping your name a secret?"
"Does this make you the heir to the Feather dynasty?"
"How long were you intending to hide your identity, Angelo?"
Even as they spoke, my phone started buzzing with hundreds of notifications and people were filing into the hallway like crazy!
It took me a moment too late to realize I had been somehow pushed to the back of the crowd.
"Hey leave him alone!" I said, pulling at some random kid who was trying to get to the center of the crowd. "You guys are crazy."
The guy just squinted at me for a second before widening his eyes and pointing. "Hey, you're the chick who's always all over him! You know stuff!"
"What?" I took a step back.
"I could pay you for information on him..." He said and grabbed both my shoulders.
Under the influence of adrenaline, I drew a foot back and kicked him in the shins, splashing the rest of my coffee over him the moment he let go. "Get the hell away from...!"
"Violet!" A familiar voice called behind me over the yowling of this guy and I spun around to face my friend who was panting hard.
"Susan!" I gasped and hugged her for a moment. "They're going crazy!"
"I came here as fast as I could to capture everything!" She said, bending over to catch her breath, camera at the ready.
This girl was actually still in her green, two piece pajamas with a small bag that could barely carry a book slung over her shoulder.
"You're meant to help Angelo you dummy, not take pictures!" I said, swinging my arm out in a frustrated gesture and nearly punching off some random person's jaw in the process.
"Ow!" I hissed in pain. And it was my cast hand too.
"Woman, I was occupied for ten seconds." Angelo's voice said before he casually took my hand in his to inspect it.
Great, now the crazy was getting to me too.
"H-how did you...?" My head whipped back and forth between the struggling crowd and the person they were meant to be struggling over, hunched over my injured fingers with a baseball hat covering his hair.
"Dude, you're literally magic!" Susan cackled.
"I have his textbook!" Someone yelled and the shouting increased some more.
"I told you we had to run." Angelo said to me and I nodded.
"Yeah, we should get you out of here." I said and pulled the hat lower over his head.
"I'll help." Susan winked and cupped both her hands over her mouth "Hey everyone, Angelo's on his way to the boys locker room! Let's catch him and take his shoes!!"
More screams erupted and the noise travelled down the hall.
Then I realized how many girls where in the new Angelo Sullivan fanclub.
Great.
"What the heck was that?" I asked, aloud as we walked briskly to the exit.
Immediately we reached the doors, Angelo turned around, backing me up against the nearest locker, just in time for a group of excited students to rush past.
"It's going to be a long day." I heard him murmur under his breath, his hand resting on the metal behind me.
"What are you going to do about all this?" I asked and he looked down at me, the fact that I could almost see his thought process made me smile a bit.
"Well, I don't know." He admitted, as quietly as ever. "I've never thought of her as.... She was just my mom. So I never prepared for things like this."
"Says the guy who escaped a crowd and immediately disguised himself like a pro." I said, "whose hat is that anyways?"
"Someone random." He replied before letting a sigh leave his lips. "This isn't serious. I'm sure it'll all blow over by the end of today, everyone is just...bored."
"Right, let's see." I raised my hands to count off my fingers. "You're famous with famous parents, rich, young and last but definitely not least, incredibly pretty so yeah, you're quite the eligible bachelor."
His eyebrows rose for a moment at the deliberate 'pretty' comment and his free hand came to hold me by my chin as I smiled.
"You know what you're doing." He said, then I gasped in surprise when he leaned down to place a kiss on my cheek.
"Angie!" I gasped and quickly peeked over his arm to check if anyone had seen that.
"Relax, everyone has something going on at the moment, remember?" Angelo reminded me and I leaned back against the locker, fighting a smile by biting on my lower lip.
His head tilted slightly and he seemed to wonder aloud.
"Would it be so bad if they saw, though?" He asked, his voice dropping a few notes as he reached up to pull lightly on my lower lip with his thumb.
My heart must have skipped a few beats as I stood there, lips tingling, staring up at him and wondering if tiredness was making me hear things.
With a small nervous laugh, I reached up to play with my hair, "You really want to add that to the stuff you've got going on right now?"
Maybe it was the tremble in my voice as a result of how hard my heart was beating at the moment, but my answer seemed to make his eyes soften, a small smile pulling on his lips.
"You're right, darling. First things first." He said.
"Do you still want to talk about your trouble sleeping last night? I never asked."
"Oh, that..." I said. "Well, after you left yesterday..."
Before I could even conclude my sentence, the bell went for first period.
Angelo leaned back, eyebrows furrowed. "Already?"
I chuckled lightly, "Time flies when you're being mobbed by crazed fans."
Sighing in displeasure, Angelo stuffed his hands in his pockets. "This morning definitely didn't go as I'd hoped."
"Sorry." I said, shrugging. "I'd say it could get better, but I have a strong feeling it won't."
"I have a strong feeling you should move away from my locker!" A very pissed off voice said and we both turned to see a girl holding her books, a scowl on her face...that was until she recognized Angelo's face.
"Hey...wait!" she gasped and immediately dropped her books to look for her phone. "Angelo, I have questions!"
"That's my cue." He whispered and gave me a wink before putting his hat on my head and disappearing into the crowd. By the time the girl looked up, I was gone too.