"And," Mrs. Grant added, dramatically waving the stack of papers in her hand, "this worksheet needs to be done by tomorrow. Understood?"
Half of the class let out half-hearted yeahs and the other half, me included, scrunched a little further down in their desks trying to find a way to get out of doing the assignment.
I hated English, I hated math, and I was really bad at science. That left speech as the only class I both enjoyed and was decent at, but since I was in it with two ultra-shy kids it was hard to get excited.
Now, slouching in my seat and internally whining about the worksheets that were being passed down the rows, I wasn't so sure I even enjoyed speech. And if the year continued with impossible worksheets, I had a feeling I might end up despising it along with the rest of my classes.
School work, in general, was not my thing. I would easily prefer to go out and do something hands on like learn to drive a forklift or work on my roping or chase calves over writing until my hand went numb about things that would never apply to real life. But I was, along with all of the other high school juniors in the same boat as me, stuck in this hell for another two years. Thankfully, I'd gotten through the first two years, and that gave me at least a teeny bit of confidence that I would manage to graduate and move on to bigger and better things.
I had long since decided that any degree that would take longer than four years to achieve was totally impossible for me. Even those four years would be pushing it, and I knew I needed to look into something that would take closer to two. Depending on how well this speech class actually went, I might look into something in the field of marketing or sales. The semester of early economics I'd taken as a sophomore had been interesting and I sometimes wondered if that wasn't something to check out.
"What did you get for three?" Kellan leaned over to hiss, interrupting my thoughts.
"Um," I stared at my totally blank paper, avoiding the disapproving look I knew would be in his eyes. While I'd inherited my mother's attitude, Kellan had definitely gotten his own mom's ability to give looks that could make a person wilt.
I sat up a little straighter and signed my name at the top with a flourish, looking down at it with satisfaction. One less thing to do.
"Blake," he sighed, annoyed. Not that this was anything new for the two of us.
"I'm working on it," I snapped, hunching over the stupid piece of paper and finally reading the first question. It was something about holding the attention of a room and I quickly circled eye contact.
"Just let me know when you get there." Where his annoyance was a regular occurrence, him asking me for help was definitely out of the ordinary. Had I not been facing a worksheet that I had no desire to complete, I might've reveled in that feeling.
But, I didn't have the time for that. Scanning the next question, I scribbled in something about good posture that me, or anybody else, probably wouldn't be able to read the next day.
"It's definitely a catchy introduction," I informed Kellan, noticing the way Coda's ears perked up and how she hurried to record my answer. Maybe I really was the smart one here.
The bell rang and we filed out with the rest of our junior class. Kellan went to his locker on the end of the hall and traded out some books before he left. Work release was his last class of the day, meaning he literally got credit for going and making money. Coda and I headed off to art, which was a huge, cold room on the other end of the school.
"Are you gonna start that painting yet?" I questioned, letting my heavy backpack fall to the concrete floor with a resounding thud.
Her eyes were thoughtful as she eased herself onto a tall metal stool in front of the drafting table we'd claimed as our own. There was a handful of freshman in the class as well, but we'd gotten first pick as upperclassmen. "I don't know yet. I might do a little more sketching first, just so it's perfect."
I rolled my eyes and pushed the stool I sat on further under the desk, producing an obnoxious scraping noise. "You're such a perfectionist."
It was in this class that I'd first gotten to see how creative Coda was. Her drawings weren't always perfect but they were a hell of a lot better than anything I could do. What really got me was the way she could just pull something out of her head and put it on paper. I was the type that needed a picture to look at, and even then my work was usually subpar. She'd spent the last several days sketching out the massive shaggy head of a highlander bull she'd seen on the way to our last rodeo, and it was already looking amazing.
"There's no point in drawing something you won't like in the end," she said firmly, pulling the decent sized canvas out of her drawer.
I shrugged, carelessly removing my half-assed still life of a coiled rope. Just like pretty much every other class, art wasn't my thing, either.
The loud group of freshmen girls that seemed to think they owned the world stormed in a minute later and I fought hard to keep myself from telling them to shut the hell up. There was one girl in particular that I couldn't stand, and that was mainly because her voice carried and echoed through the art room with such force that I wanted to dig my eardrums out.
"Don't let them get to you," Coda said quietly, her big blue eyes staring at my clenched jaw with a knowing air.
"Trying not to," I ground out. We both knew that the last thing I needed was to get in trouble. According to mama Callie and definitely my mother, I was still walking on thin ice after avoiding royalty tryouts and breaking Brayden Walker's nose with a monkey wrench. Coda, Kellan and I had all agreed that we should lay low for a while.
Spreading the rolled up paper on my desk, I yanked out my rope to position on a corner. "Drawing is hard."
"Why don't you give the still life a break for a while?" Coda suggested, carefully tracing the graceful curve of her bull's left horn.
"And do what?"
She shrugged. "I don't know. Sketch something."
That being said, I pulled out my phone and began scrolling aimlessly through my Pinterest feed, which was loaded heavily with Western décor ideas, examples of senior pictures with horses, boots I couldn't afford to buy, and some fun rodeo pictures.
"How about you try drawing a rodeo scene? You said you can do it if you have a picture to go off of."
I nodded, giving the idea some thought and then tapping the icon for my rodeo board. Anything and everything even remotely rodeo related got linked to this board so I had a pretty good selection to choose from. Coda momentarily put down her pencil to look over my shoulder.
"How about that one?" She stopped my scrolling by tapping on the photo that caught her eye.
Eyebrows lifted, I glanced up at my best friend. "This one?"
She giggled a little and shrugged. "Why not?"
I brought the phone up for a closer look. The picture was obviously taken from behind the chutes during one of the more 'masculine events'. It featured the back ends of six different guys in Wrangler jeans, all sitting on top of a fence. The light caught on their spurs and it was neat to see all the different kinds of boots these cowboys wore, resting on a lower rail of the wooden fence. "It's a cool picture."
"Yeah. Why don't you try your hand at sketching it?"
I shot Coda a half skeptical, half amused look and glanced back down to my phone. "Maybe I will."
By the time the final bell rang, I'd gotten a rough outline of each toned backside and was feeling kind of proud of my work.
"Are you enjoying yourself?" Coda giggled, slinging her backpack a little higher on her shoulder as we exploded out the glass front doors, ready to get the hell out of there.
I shrugged, sending her a crooked grin. "Yeah, kinda. And I never would've pictured you as the kind of girl who admires the Wrangler butts."
Pink tinted her otherwise pale cheeks, but for the most part, she stayed pretty calm. "Well, yeah. I mean, if they're right there, you might as well do some looking."
I burst into laughter, only sobering up to harass her some more. "Then why in the hell are you dating Wyatt? He has absolutely no ass."
Now, her face turned a flaming red that went all the way up to the roots of her hair and touched her neck in splotches. "We aren't dating."
"Oh, really?" I quirked an eyebrow. "Because from what Wyatt says, you told him you'd give him a chance."
If it was even possible, she blushed harder. "Yeah, I did."
"So how does that mean not dating?" I exclaimed, slapping her arm a few times.
"Technically he hasn't asked me to be his girlfriend," she defended lamely, making me laugh more.
"Alright, Coda bear. Whatever you say."
We rolled up to the house at three-thirty and went out to catch our horses after making a dozen cookies disappear.
"So, are we hauling horses to Caldwell, or are we using your parent's?" Coda questioned, all traces of humor from earlier gone as she tightened her cinch.
"We're hauling. Technically these were all my dad's at one point. He trains colts."
"Oh, really?"
I nodded, feeling pride for my father swell.
"Wow. He didn't train Winston, though." She patted her horse's blue tinted shoulder affectionately.
"Nope," I popped the P, dropping my stirrup in preparation to mount up. "That was all Kellan. He was one of his first, actually."
She nodded, staring at the animal with a kind of reverence. "I love him."
"Well, that horse seems to love you, too," I grinned, swinging into the saddle with practiced ease. "What do you say we take a pleasure ride instead of roping tonight?"
Coda's big eyes lit up and she hopped on Winston's back with just a touch less grace than me. "I'm game! But what about the rodeo next week?"
I waved a hand, brushing off her concerns. "The competition leaves a lot to be desired so we should be fine. Besides, we still have a couple days to practice. Might as well do some fun riding before the weather gets crappy."