J A K E
•
"He deserved it," was all I said as I leaned back in the uncomfortable chair. The principal looked back at me unimpressed, but I just shrugged to reconfirm my words.
"I'm sure he did," he replied, not quite believing me, "but regardless, fighting on school grounds is prohibited."
"He hurt someone."
"And you hurt him. Doesn't that make you just as bad?" He tried to wise-ass me, but I just rolled my eyes. "Listen, Jake. Given your home situation, you've behaved exceptionally over these past few years-"
"And what exactly is my 'home situation'?" I cut him off, maintaining my calm demeanor.
"Well, you know," he started to explain, realizing he might have struck a wrong chord, "what you've been through, with your parents and all. We would usually expect for you to be causing a lot more problems than you have been, and that pays off in situations like this where you need those extra brownie points." He tired to finish on a positive note, but my jaw clenched and unclenched as I held back my building anger.
"Sir, with all due respect, this isn't a therapy session. So just tell me what I'm in for and I'll get back to class," I sighed, and he narrowed his eyes at me.
"You're lucky I don't have you suspended, you know," he told me, and I shrugged.
"Why wouldn't you? I unapologetically beat someone up in the middle of the hall, and I'd gladly do it again," I added, not sure what I wanted him to reply with. I didn't really care at this point, to be honest.
"What game are you playing here, Jake?" He crossed his arms, and I sat up taller.
"None, I'm just being honest. Would you rather me lie and say I'm sorry?" I cocked my head to the side, and he narrowed his eyes again a little with a sigh.
"Three weeks detention. And if you so much as look at another student wrong during this time, you will be suspended until further notice. Understood?" He told me, and I shrugged uninterestedly.
"Anything to help you guys keep up the support system you've built for bullies," I sarcastically smiled and stood up, slinging my backpack over my shoulder again. "Is that all?"
"Yes. Your first D-hall is after school today in room 122."
"I'm driving someone home, I can't today," I told him plainly.
"Well then make different arrangements for them. You should have thought about that before you talked back to me," he gave me a smug smile, and I shook my head as I left without a goodbye.
Short story short, I saw Bruce shove Connor with his shoulder ever-so-slightly in the hall. And, well, let's just say he hadn't been aware that I was in the hall with them when he did so. He certainly knew now, though. They made me clean his blood up from the hallway's white tile before Principal V dragged me to his office.
I made my way to the cafeteria, knowing that it was in the middle of my lunch. When I walked in, a lot of people looked over at me, but thankfully none of the room's loud noise died down- I didn't like attention too much. I was a few yards from my table when my teammates finally looked up and saw me.
"Well damn J," Max grinned, "I heard you beat Bruce black-and-blue," he added when I sat down.
"He deserved it," I shrugged, "I got D-hall for three weeks, though."
"Thats tough," another one of my teammates, James, chimed in with a wince.
"Whatever, it was worth it," I replied, looking around the room for Connor. I needed to tell him about his ride-situation. When I finally found him, I saw that he was sitting with Jen and Tom. I liked them two, they seemed like good friends. "I'll catch you guys later," I said to my table and got up again, making my way over to them.
"Hey," Connor looked up as I approached, and I greeted the three of them as I sat.
"Hey, so uh, how would you feel about driving yourself home today?" I smiled cheekily at him, and he rolled his eyes.
"I've already forgotten which is the break and which us the gas," he answered.
"That can be figured out pretty quickly through trial and error, though," I brushed it off, only half-kidding.
"You have detention I'm guessing?" He questioned, and I nodded, "you didn't have to beat him up, you know. I was fine." I could tell he felt a little bad.
"I wanted to, that's all. I know you didn't need me to," I assured him, "so do you want the keys? Or..." I asked again, and he shot me an incredulous look.
"Yes, Jake. I'd love to illegally drive myself home today without even knowing how to in the first place," he deadpanned, and I chuckled. He picked up Crystal's sarcasm, that's for sure.
Crystal and my brother got married a few years ago, and Connor is her nephew. But her mom also adopted him, so she sort of went from being his grandmother to being his mom, and that's what he calls her, but I don't know if that made Connor and Crystal siblings or not... regardless, we were related to each other in one way or another. I just had no goddamn idea what the two of us would be called.
"I'll just have my mom pick me up today," he told me, and I nodded. Jen and Tom got up to throw away their food, and I smirked as I leaned forward on the table, staring at Connor mischievously.
"So where is he?" I asked, and Connor almost instantly blushed, shooting me an angry look.
"Shh, don't say stuff like that out loud," he looked around a little, and I chuckled to myself knowing that nobody could have possible heard. Connor had come out to me and some of his friends, but technically not the rest of the school. I only waited for Tom and Jen to leave because I didn't think he had told them about his little thing for the new kid yet.
"He's at that vending machine right now," he admitted, casually pointing behind me. I probably could have been a bit more subtle as I turned to look, my eyes immediately landing on a tall, brown-haired boy who stood there with his back to us.
"He looks older than you," I turned back around to face Connor, who shrugged.
"Only by a year. And you've only seen the back of him," he defended, and I put my hands up in fake-surrender.
"Ooo, you should ask him for a ride today. Work your magic," I suggested, but he just laughed.
"Yeah, good one," he chuckled and I saw that the other two were coming back.
"Do you want me to ask Max to drive you home?" I offered, knowing his answer would be a definite 'no'. Connor hated Max- like a lot of people did, if I were being honest. It made sense, too. Max was your typical careless high-school jock. I never would have been 'friends' with them at all if we hadn't grown up in the same neighborhood.
"No, it's fine, I'll just ask my mom if she can pick me up. If not I'll just wait," he shrugged it off.
"No no no, this is a long-ass detention. You shouldn't wait for me," I shook my head.
"Jake, it's fine, I can just do homework," he replied, and I sighed.
"You sure?" I frowned.
"Yes. Now go away you're crowding me," he smiled, and I sarcastically laughed.
"Later loser," I said and got up, saying a quick goodbye to the other two and walking back over to my table for the rest of lunch.
"Yo Jake, have you seriously not tapped Sara yet? She's been after you for so damn long," one of my other teammates asked as I ate some chips. I shook my head as an answer, and he chuckled.
"Why not?? That slut's been through like the whole team, might as well," he joked, and I rolled my eyes at him, hating that word.
"Funny of you to call her that when you probably have a much higher body count yourself," I replied with an irritated grin, narrowing my eyes slightly at him.
"Oh yeah, J, forgot to ask- where did you even go when you left the party saturday?" Max asked.
"Your mom's room," I replied immaturely, and they laughed. It was honestly none of their business where I was, and I knew Connor wouldn't want me spreading the story.
"I was in yours last week" James started to joke back, but cut himself off when he remembered. I clenched my jaw and glared slightly down at the table. They all were subtly waiting for my reaction, and when I looked back up at James he honestly looked a little scared.
"You're lucky I don't give a shit about you," I told him and took a sip of water, trying to simmer down before I landed myself in detention for three more weeks. He just awkwardly laughed it off and the table resumed talking about random stuff.
And I just sat there trying not to think about the fact that I didn't actually like any of my 'friends'. Another year and a half of this would be tough, but like I said, I was comfortable being alone anyway.
•
C O N N O R
•
Okay Connor. Okay. Just breathe. Oh god. Oh god. Okay. No, you know what, we're good! We're totally fine. Everything's fine.
"Hey!" I greeted him, immediately cringing at myself for being overly enthusiastic. He looked up at me from where he was sitting and smiled, his dimples making my heart swell already.
Lucas, the newly discovered love of my life and potential husband (not that he knows that yet), had just moved here recently from LA and needed to be caught up in our music class. Me, being the self-destructive-hopeless-romantic I was, decided to volunteer when my teacher asked if someone could catch him up on what we've done so far this year. So from now until he's caught up, I would be spending my music periods with him one-on-one in the auditorium.
Gulp.
We were working on our own individual projects during the class right now, anyway, so it wasn't like I was missing anything. I couldn't decide if I was excited or if I wanted to die as my face heated up. He had been sitting on the piano bench while he waited for me.
"Hey, Connor, right?" He had an accent. Holy shit he had an accent. No fair. The universe was cruel for putting this perfect specimen so close in front of me and yet so far out of reach. His warm brown eyes seemed to pull me into a hug and scare me away at the same time.
"Yeah," I smiled back, fiddling a little with my binder.
"I'm Lucas," he replied and brushed a hand through his hair. The dark colors of his buttoned up, short sleeve shirt looked so good against his deeply tanned skin. I swallowed.
"I'm Connor," I replied, and he chuckled, standing up.
"We've covered that," he joked, and my face heated up again.
"Uh, right, sorry," I cringed yet again and awkwardly laughed. Why am I like this.. just why. Kill me now and save Darwin the trouble. "Alright so, the first thing we did in class was just make sure that everyone knew the piano basics- just cuz it's a really important instrument to know for music theory and composition and whatnot," I focused all my energy on not stuttering at all as he watched me talk. He stood a few inches above me.
"So you actually had the right idea about sitting there," I added with a small smile, gesturing back to the piano bench behind him. He nodded and sat back down, spinning around to face the keys. I rolled my eyes at my awkwardness and set all my stuff down on the floor. Then I joined him at the piano, standing next to it.
"How much piano do you know?" I asked him when I saw that his hand positioning was correct.
"I can play, if that's what you mean," he answered.
"Gotcha- so I'm guessing we should probably skip the basics," I grinned.
"Probably, yeah," he agreed and laughed a little. "I know piano, but I'm much better with a guitar. Do you play either?"
"Yeah, piano," I responded. "I play guitar, too, but I'm definitely better with a piano," I said, being the opposite of him, and he raised his eyebrows slightly.
"Maybe we can help each other out a bit then," he smiled softly, and my heart stopped beating for a second or two.
"That would be cool," I replied and mirrored his expression.
I had been trying to search for any sign I could that would tell me if he liked boys or not... but I was too distracted by him and his goddamn dimples to focus. I also had never seen anyone wear rings so well, but I didn't let myself think about that too much in efforts to avoid blushing any more than I probably already had been.
"So where did you move here from?" I asked, leaning against the grand piano. I knew where he'd moved here from, but I didn't want to seem like a stalker. Even though I slightly was. Only a little. Ever so slightly.
"Los Angeles, but my family's originally from Mexico," he answered, his voice smooth yet textured. "We moved here when I was young. What about you, have you lived here your whole life?"
"Since I was three or four, yeah," I replied.
"What about before?" He asked, just curious.
"I, uh, I don't really know," I answered, immediately scolding myself mentally for not just saying that I moved around a lot. The last thing I needed was for him to already think I was a freak.
"Your parents never told you?" He raised an eyebrow, confused but intrigued. I tried not to hesitate, but probably failed.
"No," I forced a smile and small chuckle, "but hey, I'm here now, though."
"Thankfully," he grinned as his eyes flickered around my face quickly, and I felt my cheeks heat up before he looked back down at the keys and played a few notes. Only four, but the chord they formed sounded extra nice for some reason.
Did he just flirt with me? Probably not, right? I mean, that was something a bro would say to a fellow bro, wasn't it? No need to read into it- but I knew I most definitely would read into it anyway, though.
I tried to calm my mind down as I watched him play a few more random chords, the tones floating throughout the auditorium and ringing around us.
I filled him in on a little more of what we'd covered in class, and the bell rang sooner than I wanted it to. Talking with him honestly felt right. I knew it was because he was a blank slate that didn't know anything about me, but for now I'd pretend that it was because we were meant to be or something stupid like that.
My mom was at work still, so I just did my homework in the library while I waited for Jake. We'd figure something out for the rest of the three weeks, but it didn't help the fact that every day was going to be a reminder of what he felt like he had to do for me. He didn't want me to feel embarrassed or guilty, and I knew that, but I still did.
I knew that we would always have each other, but sometimes I felt bad for him, having to deal with being essentially related to me and whatnot. And it wasn't just sticking up to bullies for me, but he had also basically reprogrammed himself to naturally avoid all my triggers. And that made me feel bad, too, because he shouldn't have had to.
But he was too stubborn to listen to me every time I told him this, though. So I guess this was just another case of Summers and Monroe family members being stuck together. Except this time we wouldn't end up sharing the same name.
When he finally found me after detention, he wasn't in as bad of a mood as I would have expected.
"Did something exciting happen or are you just happy to see me?" I mused as we made our way to his car.
The girls at this school really didn't feel the need to be subtle- they always seemed to just shamelessly check him out wherever he was. It would be humorous if it wasn't so damn annoying to be constantly submerged in. I made fun of him about it all the time, though, so I guess I got some amusement from it.
"What about my expression makes you think that?" He asked, and he was right- I mean, he wasn't smiling or anything. Someone would probably think he looked irritated, if anything. But I knew better.
"You look slightly less dead inside than usual," I replied and we both got in the car. He rolled his eyes but smiled.
"I'll tell you later," he said, turning on the radio and pulling out of the space.
When he dropped me off, I turned on some music to get rid of the awful silence, and fell asleep on the couch.
• • •
Soooo excitedddd lets goooo
QOTD: How are you felling today??
>> excited for this book ;)
Stay beautiful,
Briella <3