"We're closing in about ten minutes," I say to Dylan Blakewell, the most popular and hottest guy at my school.
He looks up at me from his books and then to the clock on the wall above me. His eyebrows furrow in confusion. "I thought Starbucks closes at 10pm on a Sunday?" he asks.
"Oh, it does. Today though we are shutting at 6pm due to the music festival that starts in an hour. There is a notice on the door. Didn't you see it when you walked in?"
He looks to the door then back at me. "No, I didn't. I just tried to get in here as quickly as possible."
"Because of the rush hour?" I ask, but never get a reply from Dylan. Instead, he just looks down towards his books on the table, which I suddenly realise are school books. Dylan Blakewell studying? That's something I thought would never happen. Actually, everyone thought that would never happen. Most people believed that Dylan Blakewell was going to fail in life when others thought that he would pass with flying colours because of his good looks and charms. "Studying for the Maths test on Tuesday?"
He looks back up at me with embarrassment written all over his face, which kind of makes me feel guilty. I wish I would have kept my mouth shut and never asked anything.
He brings his hand to the back of his neck and rubs it while probably trying to come up with a good enough excuse to why he's studying. "Yeah," he responds.
I find myself wanting my jaw to drop to the ground in shock. That was not the answer I thought he was going to give me, I thought he was going to make up some excuse.
"Only because my parents said if I don't get a C on the test I'll be grounded and I won't be seeing my phone until I do get that C." Well, I'm not surprised that my shock lasted all but two seconds with Dylan. I just knew it was too good to be true. Bad boys don't study. Bad boys don't get good grades.
"Well, if you wouldn't mind packing up and going someplace else so I can lock up and go do some studying myself, I would much appreciate it," I say with a smile.
"Yeah, sure," he says. I watch him as he grabs his math book, notepad and a pen and just stuffs it into his backpack. If I was him I would be afraid to get them out. They're all probably damaged now. But that's me, a little bit of a control freak, nothing that Dylan will ever be.
Just as Dylan makes it to the door he turns back around to face me. "What time does Starbucks open tomorrow?" he asks.
"It will be closed all week due to the music festival," I reply.
"Oh..." In this moment I see the bad boy appearance just crumble apart. Right now I stare at Dylan Blakewell, a guy trying to impress his parent and probably finish High School with good grades.
"Is everything alright?" I quickly ask as I see him about to leave the coffee shop.
"Yeah, of course. Well, bye." And then he left.
I immediately went over what just happened and the same thing kept repeating over and over in my head. I wasn't sure if I was right or not but I sure wanted to find out.
Grabbing my stuff from the little cubby-hole in the staff room and making sure everything was shut off and all the windows were shut, I swiftly made my way out of Starbucks and locked the door. I look in the direction I saw Dylan walking and move as fastly as I can down that road.
Rounding the corner of the street I saw him about to cross the road. I quicken my pace towards him shouting his name to get his attention. At first, he doesn't seem to see me but I shout his name again when I get closer to him. This time, he does see me.
"Why were you shouting my name?" he asks.
"To get your attention. I was wondering if you wanted help studying?"
At first, I see the glint of relief and happiness in his eyes, but they suddenly turn into hard stone. "I don't want help. I don't care if I fail the stupid Maths test anyway," he snaps.
I'm taken back by his sudden change of tone, but I shake myself out of it when I know that he does care. If he didn't he wouldn't have bothered to have gone to a semi-quite coffee shop to focus on studying.
"Of course you do, Dylan. If you didn't you wouldn't have given a second thought about studying, and yet you turned up to Starbucks to do just that," I say. "I want to help you because I saw in there how much you were trying to understand those Maths equations. I bet if you would just put the time and effort into Maths you would be great at it."
"Really?" he asks with doubtfulness laced in his tone. I smile at him and nod at him to confirm to question. "Okay, but we only have two days until the test, do you think I could get a C by then?"
I scrunch my nose up until it wrinkles. "Maybe not for this upcoming test." I then put on a big smile and nod enthusiastically. "But for the next one, I'm sure of it."
"I would like and appreciate the help then."
"Great. Um, so, do you want to study at mine or yours? I don't mind."
"I sort of have a big family, so it's always loud over there."
"Well it's just my mom and me, and she's at work until maybe ten or eleven, so we can go over to mine and have a nice and quiet environment."
"Okay, cool. I just need to get my car. Do you need a ride?"
I smile. "Yes, that you be nice, thank you. This way I can also give you directions to my house.
❀❀❀
Giving Dylan the directions to my house we made it there just under ten minutes.
The car ride to my house wasn't too awkward, thank god, but it wasn't exactly comfortable either. We asked each other simple conversation starter questions like how are you doing and how is school and doing anything exciting this weekend. but that was it. Nothing more was said.
Walking inside my house I slipped my shoes off. "Could you take your shoes off, please. Mum's rules," I say, even though I knew my mum wouldn't be back until long after Dylan would have to leave, but knowing my mum, she would somehow tell that someone would've been traipsing in the house with shoes on.
Dylan gives a small nod. Almost shy like. And by doing so I somehow felt like the alpha. I felt like I was superior to him.
He takes off his shoes and puts them next to mine. He then stands there and lets his gaze wonder. Looking piercingly at everything.
"Would the kitchen be an okay place for the tutoring to take place?" I ask.
He looks at me and shrugs. "Whatever."
Well okay then.
I make my way into the kitchen with a surprisingly quite Dylan following behind.
I sit down at the kitchen table and gesture to Dylan to take a seat next to me. Once he does he starts getting out his math book, notepad, and pens while I roll my bottom lip between my teeth out of nervousness, as well as fiddle with my thumbs. These sort of things have always been one of my habits that I've never been able to break.
❀❀❀
Two hours pass and Dylan finally starts to get the hang of Algebra. He's not as good as Albert Einstein, but he's good enough that he's on his way to getting a C in Maths.
"Okay, answer question 5 and that will be all for today," I say with a smile.
I watch as Dylan reads the question. His face is concentrated as he tries to understand what it's saying. When he has an idea of what to do he starts to write the equations in his notebook.
He scribbles some stuff and then crosses it out and re-writes it again. He then expands that and comes up with an answer.
"Does x equal 3.5?" he asks.
I look at the working out he's done and mentally check it over. "Yes. That's your third question right. If you keep this up you might just pass any upcoming exams."
A smile starts to form on his lips but then it falls. "What's wrong?" I ask.
"I won't be able to pass Tuesday's exam."
"Well, we don't know. If the exam had mostly algebra questions on then I think you might have a shot at passing." I try to stay as enthusiastic as I can for Dylan's sake.
"But what if the exam has only a couple of Algebra questions? Then I'm screwed. Goodbye, my social life."
"You have to stay optimistic."
"Screw staying optimistic. I know I'm failing," Dylan says with a frown and slumps into the kitchen chair.
"So what if you don't have a social life," I grumble. "I don't have one and look at me, I'm fine."
"Oh really?! You're a loner, you have no friends because nobody wants to be friends with a goodie-two-shoes-slash-nerd! How can you be fine?!" he shouts.
Ouch!
Just when I thought Dylan Blakewell was actually a decent guy. Someone who was way better than all the other idiots he hangs around with he goes and hurts me with his vicious and cruel words.
I bite back the tears that threaten to flow out of my eyes and down onto my cheeks.
I say nothing to him. All I do is run off into the nearest bathroom and lock myself in there.
I sit on the floor in the bathroom for what feels like hours when really it's only been five minutes. All I've been doing is crying, which has now turned to quiet whimpers.
There's a faint knock at the bathroom door. "Hunter? Are you okay? Well, I know you're not okay, but I just wanted to say that I didn't mean what I said and that I'm sorry for saying it."
After a few seconds of silence, I decide to give him some peace and answer. "I'm surprised you know my name," I croak.
"It's on your name tag on your shirt," he replies.
I look down at my shirt and see the name tag. I sigh then respond to him. "There's no need to be sorry. You were right, I am a loner. We go to the same school and you didn't even know my name without my name tag."
"I don't even know the names of most of the guys that hang around with me, and I don't even know my friends girlfriends names, or the majority of the girls that constantly flirt with me," he says thinking it will make me feel better, but it doesn't.
"What you're saying now just proves what I'm thinking."
"And what's that?" he asks.
"That you're an idiot."
I hear him chuckle. "You're right." He sighs. "Can you please come out?"
I think about what he asks me for about a minute and decide to come out of the bathroom.
As I open the door my eyes come into contact with Dylan's. The look of sorrow is deep in his eyes. He genuinely meant he was sorry.
"I'm kind of hungry. Do you want anything? I have frozen pizza's in the freezer, I can put one in?"
He smiles and shrugs. "Sure."
I walk back into the kitchen and go straight to the oven and turn it on. I then walk over to the freezer and grab a cheese pizza to put in the oven.
After I put the cheese pizza in the oven I walk over to the kitchen table where Dylan is putting all his school stuff away into his backpack.
He looks up at me when he notices me walking over to him. "I'm sorry, again," Dylan says. "I never meant to make you cry."
"Forgive and forget."
The pizza finishes cooking so I take it out of the oven. I place it on the kitchen table as well as two glasses full of Coca-Cola.
Dylan and I get to know each other a bit better as we eat the pizza and drink the Coca-Cola. He apologises for several more times for his upsetting words. I tell him I'm fine now and to let it go, which he eventually does.
AUTHORS NOTE
Hello everyone, I hope you all enjoyed reading the first chapter of the first Wattpad novel I created. Tell me what you thought of it, good or bad (but I hope mostly good).