“Morning, Candace. I need a late slip for homeroom. Mr. Bradley won’t let me in.”
“Good grief, Miss Valentine. The day you actually manage to get to class on time is the day I hang up my gloves in here for good,” she said in a semi-scolding manner as she rolled her chair back and disappeared below the desk.
The girl turned to me with a mocking face, mouthing the words, “what gloves?”
I couldn’t help but laugh.
“You’re new,” she smiled. It wasn’t a question. “I’m Taylor.”
“Jemma,” I smiled back.
“Cute kicks.”
I glanced down and noticed our matching pairs of black Converse sneakers. “Yours are pretty cute too.”
“Great minds,” she winked.
“Here she is,” cooed Ms. Tate, pulling out a pink pad from the bottom drawer and jotting something down onto it.
“What’s your schedule look like?”
“I’m not sure yet,” I said and looked over at Candice.
She handed Taylor a sheet of paper, presumably my class schedule. “Perhaps you might escort Miss Blackburn to her class?” She eyed Taylor as she wrote. “It is her first day after all.”
“Love to,” she smiled and turned back to me, her round, denim blue eyes sparkling. “The longer this takes, the better. I seriously can’t stand history.”
“Me neither,” I laughed, and left out the part about how I hated the other subjects too.
All eyes were on Taylor and me when we walked into our first-period World History class together. A short, balding man with a white chemise and beige pants stood at the front of the class, an open book in one hand and a piece of white chalk in the other. He didn’t look pleased by the intrusion.
“Miss Valentine,” he said, in a low staccato voice. “Nice of you to join us. I see you brought a friend with you.”
I felt my cheeks warm as the entire class gawked at me.
“She’s a new student, Mr. Bradley,” explained Taylor. “I was in the office helping her get registered. That’s why I’m late,” she added and then turned around with a smirk before taking my transfer papers and handing them over to him.
“Of course it is, Miss Valentine,” he said sardonically as he took the papers from her and looked them over. “Very well. Find yourself a seat, Miss Blackburn. Any seat will do.”
Taylor waved me off before heading to the back of the class. She took her seat next to a pretty brunette with thin almond-shaped eyes the color of an aquamarine stone who would have been even prettier if it wasn’t for that nasty scowl she was wearing; which, consequently, seemed to be directed right at me.
There was a definite hate-on-first-sight feel to it.
I scanned the class and found an empty seat on the other side of the room, mid-row against the wall. I moved to it quickly, avoiding all eye contact as I shuffled down the aisle.
“You can share Mr. Pratt’s textbooks until you get your own,” said Mr. Bradley, motioning to the brown-eyed blond guy with the buzz-cut and industrial piercing sitting beside me. He scooted his desk over to mine and pushed his book closer.
“Thanks.”
“No problemo,” he said, grinning. “I’m Ben.”
“Jemma.”
“Make sure to see me after school,” continued Mr. Bradley, at the front of the class. “We can go through what you need to get caught up with the rest of the class.”
I nodded that I would and breathed a sigh of relief when he went on with his lesson, taking all the attention and curious eyes back with him.
All except one, I noted.
He was sitting clear across the classroom, leaning back in his chair with his legs stretched out in front of him like he owned the room, and was staring at me through the most striking blue eyes I had ever seen before—piercing cobalt eyes, like the clearest part of the deepest ocean.
An ocean I had the sudden urge to swim in.
While everyone else was busy taking notes, he sat in front of a closed notebook with his pencil tucked behind his ear and absolutely no intention of connecting the two. His jet-black hair was thick and long. Just long enough to be slicked back neatly, and dark enough that it made his eyes soar out at me from across the room.
I noticed he averted his eyes as soon as I met his stare but they quickly returned, and then it was my turn to look away. Only I didn’t. I couldn’t. My eyes locked in on him, and in an instant, I was embroiled in an entanglement of feelings I was neither ready for, nor prepared to understand.
There was something about him—about those eyes and that stare—something familiar. It was the kind of something that made everyone else in the room fade away into the dark recess of my mind until there was no one left but me and him. He was the picture. Everything else around him was just white noise.
His eyebrows pulled together as he stared back at me from across the room, and then, seemingly despite himself, his expression softened and gave way to a faint smile that caused two of the most beautiful dimples I’d ever seen ignite on either side of his marvelously sculpted face.
Before I had a chance to react, to catch my breath again, the moment was abruptly detonated when the scowling brunette from earlier leaned forward in her chair and pushed herself into my frame of vision, breaking the connection and sending a tirade of daggers over to me by way of her glowering eyes.
It was a warning shot if I ever did hear one, and I knew enough to leave well enough alone.