The next day, I woke up after a spectacular sleep. I had fallen asleep listening to Taylor Swift love songs as one does when they have a new crush. I got out of bed, got dressed, did my hair and all that.
After I finished, I checked my phone to see a text from Walker that he had sent late last night I didn't see.
"Heyy Aaliyah! It's Walker" it read.
I replied with a short little "heyyy". He responded immediately and we began a short conversation.
Walker
are you excited for our second day of school?
i guess???
well hopefully it's less boring today
yeah i would think so since all the syllabus
stuff is over
yeah fs
what's your favorite class so far?
probably chemistry tbh
yeah same
ive got a pretty good seatmate 😉
hahaha
I played it off cool, but in reality I was violently screenshotting and sending the picture to Eva.
Eva
attachment: image
is he flirting??
AHHHHH YESS OMGGG
are you sure?
what else would he be doing?
being nice?
ugh you're oblivious
I put my phone in my backpack and went upstairs, as we were going to leave.
"What are you so smiley about?" Inquired my mom, as I climbed into the passengers seat.
"Huh? Oh, n-nothing," I stuttered in response. My mom was a strict enforcer of no dating until I'm 18, so I bet she wouldn't be a fan of a boy flirting with me.
My mom gave me a look, but didn't press any further.
When we got to school, I hopped out of the car at the same time as Walker. I saw him and sped up to reach him and we fell into step.
"Oh hey Aaliyah," he said, grinning his adorable grin.
"Hi Walker," I replied.
He held the door for me as we walked into the building. We walked in comfortable silence through the hallway until we reached our homeroom.
"Good morning you two," greeted Mrs. Tristan, as I walked through the door Walker held for me.
"Morning," we both said.
Eva was at her locker already, trying to hide the fact that she was on her phone. Windsor had a strict no phone policy.
"Who are you texting?" I asked, reading over her shoulder.
"Adam," she replied, smiling. "He texted me as soon as he got home and we talked literally all afternoon."
"Awwww," I said. "What did you guys talk about?"
"We kinda just got to know each other better," she answered. "He plays hockey and just moved from Minnesota."
"Oooh, hockey boys are hot," I giggled.
"Yeah they are," she agreed.
I turned to talk to Walker, but I saw him chatting with one of the other guys in my class, Trevor. They seemed to be hitting it off and I was glad Walker was making more friends.
Later that day, we were in Latin and the stout, annoying Latin teacher (who everyone could tell didn't wear a bra), Dr. Kingston, announced that we would be doing a project with our desk partners.
Fortunately for me, my desk partner was Walker. Our assignment was to match Latin vocabulary to their English meanings so that they all connected to make a puzzle.
"So, I'm not very good at vocab," admitted Walker.
"I wouldn't expect you to be," I said. "You just got to this school anyway."
"Can you help me?" He asked with little puppy dog eyes.
I sighed, as though I were annoyed, but I wasn't. We sped through the puzzle, me doing most of the work, but Walker knew some of the easy words and helped with those.
Once we were done, we were permitted to work on our homework, but I thought I'd rather talk to Walker. He felt the same way.
"So," he said, smirking at me.
"So," I repeated. "You're an actor. What movies have you done?"
"Well, I was in The Adam Project, as your friends noticed," his face fell as he said that.
"Look, if you don't want to talk about it, we don't have to-"
"No no," he interrupted, reaching over to touch my forearm. "Don't feel bad. It's okay, I can talk to you about it." I glanced down to look at where his fingers brushed my arm, but by the time I did, he had already moved them away. "It's a bit of a touchy subject for me, because a bunch of people who I thought were my friends were using me for my fame. My only real friends are co-stars or childhood friends who knew me before I started acting. But honestly, you don't seem fake. You were nice to me before you knew who I was. Thank you for that."
"Yeah, of course," I said, grinning at the compliment. "You seem like so much more than your fame."
"Thanks. That means a lot."
"Also, my friends aren't that bad. They won't be fake if you give them a chance," I told him.
"Oh, it's okay. If I'm gonna be friends with you, I'll have to be friends with them anyway," he said. "They seem fun."
"Haha, they definitely are."
"Back to what we were talking about," said Walker, turning away from the emotional subject. "I've also been in a movie called Secret Headquarters and I was Percy in the new Percy Jackson show."
"What!" I exclaimed, earning a look from Dr. Kingston. "What!" I whisper-yelled. "You were Percy? I love that show!"
"Yep," he said, laughing a bit at my reaction.
"How on Earth did I not recognize you?"
"I look a bit different from when I was 13," he replied.
"It sure seems like it!" I said, still shocked that I was in the presence of the main actor of one of my favorite shows.
"But don't forget what I was just talking about," he warned. "Please don't treat me like Percy or Adam, treat me like Walker."
"Yes, sorry," I said quietly, feeling a bit bad.
"Don't feel bad," he reached over once again to touch my forearm. "I get it, just treat me like me."
"Sorry," I mumbled.
"Do you say sorry a lot?"
"Yeah..."
He laughed lightly. "Don't be."
"Sorry..."
"Dude," he groaned, rubbing his face with his hands.
"Sorry," I said once more. "Ahh, wait, I actually didn't mean to say it that time!"
"Oh my gosh," he removed his hands and looked at me. "You have a problem. And don't say sorry about that."
I smirked before saying, "I apologize."
He just sighed and laughed, looking at me with a weird look in his eyes.
"Why are you looking at me like that?" I asked.
"No reason," he answered.
Dr. Kingston dismissed us from her class at that moment and we went on to our next one.
At lunch, Walker and Adam joined us, as they both had become good friends with each other and I was friends with Walker and Eva was friends with Adam. Eva sat on one side of me and Walker on the other.
I pulled out a plastic bag which I had filled with bread and butter chips pickles. Walker gave me a weird look, but I just held eye contact with him and put one in my mouth. Gosh, they were good.
"Ziploc bag pickles huh," he remarked, pulling out a bag of oreos.
"Ziploc bag oreos huh," I teased, holding my
hand out for him to give me one. As he did, our hands touched for a brief second, but it was long enough to give me butterflies.
Eva reached around me to ask for an oreo too, but Walker refused her one. As she drew her hand back disappointed, she whispered, "he's whipped" in my ear. I rolled my eyes to try to distract from the blush rapidly forming on my face.
"Can I try one of those pickles since I gave you an oreo?" Asked Walker.
"Sure, I guess," I said, trying to seem nonchalant but I knew there was no way I'd be able to deny a request of his. I was already a people pleaser, and he wasn't doing much to help.
Adam and Eva, who seemed to have been planning something, said in unison, "Hey Aaliyah, can we have a pickle?"
I groaned. I knew what they were doing, but I only had two left, which would mean no more for me.
"Sorry guys," I said sheepishly. "I don't have enough left."
Eva and Adam raised their eyebrows at each other but didn't press any further. Eva was already chaotic as is, she and Adam as a couple would be the epitome of chaos.
"It's ok, I did the same thing," Walker assured me, seeing the shadow of embarrassment on my face. "Don't worry about it."
"Thanks Walker," I replied.
At carline that day, we all sat together again. Walker and Adam were arm wrestling. Walker got dominated every time because Adam did weight training and such for hockey. His season wouldn't start until the winter, but he was training a bunch in the off-season. According to a trustworthy source, Adam himself, he was very good at hockey. However, he had no other witnesses to back him up.
Eva was also pretty athletic, as she played volleyball and basketball. She was pretty good at volleyball and she was on the middle school basketball team that won the championship two years ago when she was in eighth grade. She and Adam would be a power sports couple for sure.
While he wasn't doing them competitively, Walker told me that he does do some sports, such as snowboarding, skateboarding, and parkour. My family and I go skiing a lot, and I thought it would be a good idea to go with him sometime. My parents wouldn't be happy if I brought a boy along to our ski trips though.
As for the rest of my friends, Teagan played soccer, but Eloise and Charlotte weren't sports people.
Like I was saying, Walker kept getting dominated in arm wrestling and eventually gave up.
"Wait, Walker let me try against you," suggested Eva and connected their hands. I felt a wave of jealousy as they did. I knew Eva wasn't trying to do anything and that she definitely liked Adam, but I was still jealous.
After getting narrowly beaten in an arm wrestle, Eva glanced over at me and saw the look on my face.
"Hey Aaliyah, now you try," she said.
"No, I'm definitely gonna lose," I assured her.
"You never know," she said, smirking.
Walker looked at me. "Come on Aaliyah, I believe in you," he said, holding up his hand in the ready position.
Butterflies swimming in my stomach, I reached over and grabbed his hand. I looked at our hands a second, and then looked up and saw Walker staring at me. We held eye contact for a second or two, before Eloise interrupted our moment.
"Hey lovebirds, start already!" She exclaimed.
Eva, Adam, Teagan, and Charlotte glared at her for ruining it, but there was no saving it now. Walker counted down and we started our arm wrestle. I got destroyed immediately.
"What did I say?" I groaned.
"Well, I thought you might do better than that," Eva said.
"Gee thanks," I said sarcastically. "That's real nice."
Walker and Adam resorted to thumb wrestling, which Walker might have a better chance in. I turned to Eva and glared at her.
"What?" She exclaimed.
"You knew what you were doing," I scoffed.
"Dude, I made it so you guys would hold hands," she said. "How can you be mad at me?"
"You arm wrestled with him too!"
"That was different."
"Yeah," agreed Charlotte. "You and him had a whole moment."
"Yeah, we saw you two shooting heart eyes at each other," giggled Eloise.
"Yeah, until you interrupted them!" Teagan said, annoyed.
"It was uncomfortable! I was getting flashbacks to Eva and Parker last year," Eloise shot back.
Eva groaned and put her face in her hands. "Don't remind me."
"We weren't that bad," I insisted. "We were just holding eye contact."
"Please never be like me and Parker," begged Eva. "That was such a dumb choice on my part."
"Yeah, especially when Mrs. Niles saw you," giggled Teagan. Eva banged her head on the table.
Just then, my name showed up on the spreadsheet and I grabbed my stuff and left. Once again, the Parker-Eva predicament was a story for another day.