"I swear, my life is being controlled by a three-year-old kid in the sky who thinks it's entertaining to turn my life upside-down," Ember murmured to nobody in particular while she adjusted the goggles over her eyes.
It was Chemistry and apparently they were going to blow up something. If what little she managed to catch from the teacher was correct since Ember had been too busy grumbling about her joke of a life.
Right after Mr. Pompous Arse left class, she had her Chemistry books in her arms and fled the class to the lab as inconspicuously as possible, taking advantage of her honed ninja skills. She breathed out a sigh of relief when she successfully made it out of the class without anyone taking much notice of her. Well, much notice because she was positive Jaden had been watching her throughout Mr. Pompous Arse's lesson and also while she made her escape to the lab.
Ha! And Max said I failed ninja school.
Shaking out her childish thoughts, Ember flipped through her Chemistry book. Her lab partner hadn't shown up for school today so she was flying solo for this experiment. Which wasn't much of a difference especially when afore mentioned partner was usually slumped over the table, fast asleep or being disgustingly obvious in trying to peek up a girl's skirt when they were bent over their experiments.
Guess being rich didn't excuse one from being an class-A prick.
"Hey teach, I'm partner-less here," she heard someone call out.
Ember didn't catch whatever the teacher replied in that annoyingly high-pitched tone of hers. It reminded her too much of dragging nails on a chalkboard. A certain redhead seated diagonally from her caught her eye --purely coincidence, mind you-- as he laughed at something his partner had said. Jaden's partner flipped her long blonde ponytail over her shoulder and sidled closer to him. Although she could clearly see that his partner was merely pointing out something in the textbook they were both bent over, it didn't stop the twinge in her heart that stole Ember's breath right out of her lungs. It only got worse when he smiled her favourite smile.
Cut it out, Em! Since when did it become your smile?
Annoyed that she had become some sort of possessive cavewoman, she absorbed herself in the procedures of the experiment when she vaguely heard the stool beside her scraping on the floor and the hush of the room following that. She ignored it, thinking someone must've thought she would get freaked out by taking a stool she wasn't using. Hello, she might've been indifferent --maybe unfriendly-- to them but she wasn't socially challenged. Reading another long-winded procedure, she felt the right side of her body seem to gradually warm up.
Wait, what?
She snapped her head to the right and a pair of chocolate brown eyes framed by dark, sooty lashes were staring back at her. Those slightly uptilted eyes were prominent on a canvas consisting of sharp, defined features most girls would fall head over heels over. His full lips were tilted in a crooked smile that reminded her of a mischievous kid who could sweet-talk his way out of any kind of trouble. But honestly, the only thing that caught her attention was a shock of blue hair styled in a very impressive mohawk-like cut.
She blinked a couple of times to make sure she was actually seeing right. Wow, it really was blue. Or turquoise really but most people wouldn't dare point that out because he was Dave Jenkins, one of Jesse's best friends and another influential person in school hence, the blue hair.
Ember realised she was openly gawking at his hair while he was patiently waiting for her to say something. With a flitting thought that she might be socially challenged after all, she cleared her throat and uttered a bemused, "May I help you?"
"We haven't been formally introduced yet. I'm Dave." He stuck out his hand with a wide grin and she shook it with reasonable wariness in her eye. The teacher had long ago fussed at the students to get along with their work and ignored whatever was happening between her and Dave.
"Hi, Dave. I suppose you already know me." An eyebrow raised, she peered at him suspiciously while adjusting her goggles once again. Damned things were suffocating her eyes.
Apparently, there was some sort of Jesse virus spreading since the smirk Dave shot her was exactly like the one Ember saw not too long ago on the culprit himself. Lord help her if there really was a city named Jessetopia.
She was the epitome of cool, calm and collected when she interrupted whatever Dave was about to say. "If you're going to be my lab partner for today, I suggest you put on your goggles instead of hanging them around your neck and make it oh-so tempting for me to wring your neck when you decide to mess up the experiment because you were too busy chatting me up."
She was all business when it came to her work and she wasn't about to let another arrogant testosterone-fueled ape ruin it. Dave responded with similar calmness in his tone. "And what if I don't plan on doing the experiment?"
"Then I suggest you stop talking to me and take up counseling to work on your teamwork issues. Sadly, I'm quite allergic to narcissism and irresponsibility so I won't be of much help." That said, she effectively shut him out by turning back to her book. It was probably unwise of her to possibly incur the wrath of another so-called big boss of the school but... Yeah, it was a bad idea. Period.
She sighed inwardly. She hoped the three-year-kid who was her puppeteer was really having a ball with ruining her life.
So imagine her shock when Dave, instead of presenting her with an ultimatum to make her school life living hell, started laughing and didn't stop until the teacher reprimanded him in a shrill voice.
He swiped the back of his hand over his eyes to remove his tears of mirth. "You are really funny. I didn't think it was true when Jesse mentioned it. You always looked like you had a major stick up your arse."
Flabbergasted, Ember stuttered out some unintelligible things.
"Don't get your panties in a bunch. I see you in a different perspective now. You probably have Jesse to thank for that though. Because I have my moments when I'm not above making a girl cry." He winked and ambled off.
If he'd given her the kiss-off, he would have been dealing with a whole load of pissed-off woman but he'd just gone to the shelves to retrieve parts of the apparatus.
She shook her head to clear some of the bewilderment Dave had caused to her poor brain. Her footing on her calm composure seemed to all but disintegrate when she came in contact with these handful of cocky and overbearing guys. Trying to assemble that indifference which was her shield, she double-checked the book to make sure she got the procedures down pat to avoid embarrassing herself any further while Dave got to work on setting up the experiment. "Curious question, why were you so reluctant about dancing with the school team?" Dave asked out of the blue while dripping a green-ish liquid into a test tube.
She was trying to figure out what to tell him when she realised she could tell him exactly what she told Jaden. "I'm a private kind of girl. I don't like people watching me dance but unfortunately, dancing with Jesse doesn't exactly let me hang back in the shadows."
"Why would that matter when you already dance at a clu--"
She cut him off with a killer glare then hurriedly looked around in discreet to see if anybody might've overheard him. Everyone was busy with their own work although a few girls up front were glancing back at them every two seconds as if they might start making out in public.
"Do you people have no sense of confidentiality at all?" she hissed.
He lifted his shoulders in an innocent shrug. "We're guys. Did you really expect anything more?"
She actually face-palmed herself this time. "Curse the day testosterone was first created," she muttered darkly.
He was holding the test tube not more than three inches to his face as to make sure he got the exact amount of solution but she could still see the roll of his eyes. "You get riled up easily don't you?"
"It was a rhetorical question," came out of his mouth before she could utter a word. He told her that in a 'I thought that was obvious' tone.
She stilled for a heartbeat then her cheeks went up in flames. "I knew that."
So his warm, chocolate eyes were perceptive as well. The corner of his mouth quirked to form a smirk. "Sure you did."
Thinking she'd probably reached her quota of the day in completely making a fool out of herself, she turned to the safety of the lines of formulas and chemicals in her book. Things she wasn't really in the mood for.
Her skin was prickling like it was being rubbed the wrong way, and her feet were restless. She was so ready for school to end so she could get to The Pulse and start dancing. Her stress meter was off the charts and her blood pressure had probably gone up with it. Gah, she was going to blow a gasket if she had to deal with anymore surprises today. All she needed to do was survive through another five more long, treacherous hours then she'd shout --on the inside, of course-- for joy at the arrival of the long-awaited summer holidays.
Then she felt the familiar prickling of staring eyes and turned to see that Dave was looking at her again. Exasperated, she said, "Do I reach your standards, Mr. Jenkins, or would you like to stare at me for the entire period?"
He was silent... and still staring at her. His brown eyes covered by the clear goggles were flitting to every feature on her face and she already felt her cheeks heating up again. "You don't recognise me, do you?"
She raised an eyebrow. "Of course I do. You're one of Jesse's friends. We just met like last week or something together with your other friends when--"
She stopped when Dave shook his head, her gaze glued to his bright blue --ahem, turquoise-- hair that was practically defying the laws of gravity. "No, I mean waaay before that." The syllables of way were stretched so long, she'd have thought they met in the stone-age. He waved to his hair. "Before this. I can't exactly remember what my hair was like then. Purple, I think? No wait, that was last month."
Her eyes narrowed at him as she tried to place where she would have bumped into Dave with his multi-coloured hair and short-term memory. She had known of Dave because he was one of the people she needed to stay a five-mile radius away from but she knew she'd never actually spoken to him until today. Even with her three-digit IQ level and slight eidetic memory, she had a tendency to forget things that had no importance to her. Like maybe a conversation with a popular person she wanted to avoid.
"I only started school here last year. And I haven't exactly been socially active... until now," she muttered out the last part since she wasn't sure if she was happy or burdened with all this new attention.
He just shook his head again. "Think back." There was an edge to his tone, like it was peril if she couldn't remember.
She did, racking her brain and sifting through a year's worth of good memories and the equally bad ones. Face after face, image after image flipped behind her eyes until it landed on a pair of warm, chocolate brown eyes on a face with statuesque features and sun-kissed skin. Only this time, it was framed by a mop of dark brown hair so unkempt, it practically covered half of his face.
Her eyes widened as she realised who she was talking to. "Oh my gosh. Are you... Woody?"
They widened even more when his cheeks stained red a little. She actually made a guy blush! He harrumphed. "Yeah, it was a phase I had back then. I asked people to call me Woody because I was a little bit of a Woody Harrelson fanatic."
"A little? Boy, you never could go one sentence without relating it to a Woody Harrelson movie or actually quoting a line from them," she laughed. He slapped a hand over her mouth and shushed her. She pushed it away but she still couldn't stop laughing. Eyes turned her way and she managed to catch those obsidian dark ones as well. She ignored them because she couldn't believe she had actually talked to Dave or back then, one Woody Jenkins. And he was not this hunk of male bravado with the awesome hair and lady-killer charms.
"So did a girl break your heart or something? This is a serious 180 degree change," she chuckled.
He shrugged and leaned forward on the table to wink at the couple of girls in front. They giggled and waved at him with some odd finger wiggle then shot her killer glares afterwards. He grinned and the girls returned to their regular drooling hormonal state. "Just thought it was time for a change. Actually, that was the longest I've stuck to one hairstyle."
"The shaggy and hobo-confusing one?" she smirked.
"Yeah, smart-ass." He nudged her with his shoulder as they shared wide grins.
"Hey, if I remember correctly which of course I do, you beat me at the annual examination that time which makes you the smart-ass. I would've been scared shitless at losing my scholarship if I didn't know that I only needed to ace it to keep my scholarship. Why would you even need a scholarship anyway?"
"No harm in being a bit thrifty here and there. I could keep up my good grades and if I can save cash on that, why not?," he shrugged then grinned a thousand-watt grin. She felt like putting on a pair of shades from that alone. "But yeah, those were one of my great Einstein moments. Heck, I was better than Einstein. Just call me super genius."
"Oh, now I see where the Jesse part comes in."
His grin got impossibly wider. "Trust me, this--," he gestured at himself, "has nothing to do with Jesse. Nothing wrong with being confident in yourself. And no, he stole that line from me," he pointed out when she was about to say something.
"How'd you know he said that to me?" she asked confused.
Please, not the mind thing again. I've had enough of that already!
"It was written all over your face," he said drolly. She was tempted to put a mirror nearby so she could observe her reactions. Her calm façade needed work. "Plus," he added. "He told me everything in Spanish class earlier. Don't worry, it was just to me and not the other guys so your pride is still in tact." Again with the wink.
She rolled her eyes. "Thank you very much, oh super genius," she said sarcastically but the effect was ruined by the grin on her face.
They quickly got back to the experiment when their teacher walked past and nodded at their work so far which was pretty excellent to what Ember would have accomplished alone. Dave--Woody... God, what was she supposed to call him now?
Shaking the test tube to displace the solids at the bottom, she said, "I'm calling you Woody now. I'm going to have at least some satisfaction if you're making the girls in this school gang up on me."
His eyes went wide. "No. Absolutely not. I'm never going to live it down. Enough as it is, Jesse and I had to bribe every person in this school to stop calling me Woody after Friends With Benefits came out. I almost went broke!"
Ember broke out in a sinister grin. She felt an evil genius laugh bubbling up in her throat. "So that's why they stopped calling you Woody and explains the major attitude change too. You know, some people say if you're afraid of something, it's usually because you're hiding something. Got enough of hiding in that closet yet?"
"I am not gay!" he yelled loud enough that everyone had turned their heads and started snickering.
"I'm serious here! I am one hundred percent straight." His face went red and she bit her lip to stop from laughing. Students laughed and a few girls had the gall to purr things to him she would definitely not repeat as to avoid from hurling out her breakfast.
Some more laughs and screeches from the teacher later, Ember was satisfied. No need in humiliating the poor guy any further though it was rather tempting.
She patted him on the shoulder. "There, there. Don't cry, wittle baby," she cooed in baby talk but her eyes were already tearing up from the laughs she was holding in.
His eyes flashed with a promise of retribution. "Ha ha. You are definitely going to get it."
"Ooh, I'm scared," she shuddered dramatically before rolling her eyes and nudging Woody to get back to work.
"So you and Jesse have a special relationship?" she implied with a wiggle of eyebrows.
"I am not gay," he gritted out. She chuckled behind her hand. "And if you must know, Jesse and I were childhood friends since we were four. We met the other guys when we were about eleven. Our parents were friends and often went on trips together. We would get into the absolute worst troubles and always get away with it." He grinned at the fond memories.
"Ah, evil geniuses from young," she tsked.
Then on went their conversation of Woody and the other four's 'adventures' when they were kids. Including one where they had somehow crashed a snow lift at one of Woody's father's ski resorts in Aspen, armed with only snowboards and a pair of scissors. Thankfully, it was closed so there were no casualties but they still couldn't find the culprits to this very day.
Their conversation went on and on until they had almost set the lab on fire. She blamed her goggles, damned things were seriously too tight. But at least they got an A for managing to carry out the procedures correctly.
The bell rang and she took off her white lab coat and the too-tight goggles. "Thanks for helping out with the experiment today."
He shrugged. "Hey, I actually enjoyed it this time. Usually my partner is too busy flirting with me and clinging onto my arm that it's hard to get anything done." He sighed with a fist pressed to his chest. "The things I go through for the ladies."
She punched him in the arm and was about to return her smart aleck comment when she noticed Jaden and his partner walking out of the lab, arm in arm. Her fists clenched unconsciously and her eyes narrowed at the offending limb wrapped around Jaden's arm. She tried to snap out of the furious haze she was trapped in but it was too much. The jealousy, the anger, the heart-wrenching pain to see him smiling that smile at someone else.
She remembered the completely magical kiss they shared in the garden and the way she ran away from him after that without an explanation. Then today when she had avoided him like a plague. She sighed desolately. Guess she deserved it.
Woody pulled on her arm. "Hey Ember, you okay?" he asked with a worried expression.
She pulled away from him and gathered her things. "I'm just peachy," she said in an overly chipper tone but she didn't care anymore. She just wanted to mope for little while.
"I'll see you around," she murmured and left Woody standing there, utterly confused for once.
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Hello loves! Ohmy, I'm so sorry if you think I'm pretty inconsistent which I think I am. XD SO SORRY! But the ideas for this chapter kept flowing and flowing until I actually thought I had to cut it short. Which I did but I hope this is enough to whet your appetites. Will proofread later. Thank you for supporting me! Comment & vote. And by the way, the pic in the sidebar is Woody's AWESOME hair. Turquoise is now my favourite colour. 8D <3 cherylxo