As lunch winds down, I throw away my trash and gather my bag up. I’m glad I visited my locker before lunch so I have my afternoon books and gym clothes already, so I glance over my map again to figure out my path.
“Come on, Charlie, we can walk together,” Adam says, motioning me over. I slide my backpack over my arms and follow him. He leads me through the masses of students, but I can hardly keep up with his long legs and the pushing crowd. He eventually reaches back and grabs my hand, pulling me up next to him. “Don’t let the crowd push you around,” he jokes but keeps my hand locked in his until we’re outside of the classroom. I hate to admit how nice it feels. Part of me wonders if it’s just that I’ve been starved for attention this long or if I like their brand of attention. Calm down, Charlie… it’s day one.
When we step into the classroom, he drops my hand so I can hand the teacher my form before he just motions for me to take a seat. Adam grins and points to the seat next to him and I do an internal happy dance. Thank god I won’t have people talking to me again, I’ve had enough of it today already.
Having an ally in class makes it much easier to tolerate. He gives me a rundown of what I’ve missed so far before the teacher starts class up. Thankfully I’m not that far behind them, from the looks of it. Though I already have a stack of makeup work a mile long.
When the bell rings, Adam takes my hand again, giving me a wink when I make a startled noise.
“You’re small and this makes it easier to keep you close.” His words make sense but I don’t miss the hint of flirting behind it.
We walk quickly through the crowd and he leaves me at the entrance to the gym before literally sprinting away. Smiling to myself, I head into the locker room.
Gym should be a lot easier since sports don’t exactly encourage chatting. I change and avoid everyone until I can make my way to Trent. The teams have clearly formed in previous classes, so he just waves me over to join his.
Before I can fully reach Trent, I go flying forward as something beams me in the back of the head. A basketball rolls into my line of vision as I’m sprawled out on the floor, vision blurring slightly. The impact steals my breath, and it takes me a second to get my bearings before I can get off the floor.
Seriously? This is going to start already?
“Oh my god Charlie, are you all right?!” Trent helps me to my feet and checks my eyes, before running his fingers gently over my scalp. I wince as he hits a tender spot and he frowns. But once he sees I’m mostly all right, he runs off across the gym. By the time I stumble over to him, he’s in a familiar girl’s face.
“What the hell, Callie?” he yells. I immediately notice that she’s the girl from my history class. I didn’t realize she was that offended that I didn’t talk to her.
I put a hand on Trent’s shoulder, and he meets my eyes. I shake my head and try to gently pull him away but he doesn’t budge.
“She needed to know her place! You don’t get to be the new girl and a complete stuck up bitch! She completely ignored me in class like she was too good to talk to me. Me!” she shrieks, pointing an accusing finger my way. At this point, we’re causing a scene. This whole time I keep trying to move Trent away, and he almost caves until she says that last sentence. Now he looks livid as he swings his body around to face her again.
“She can’t fucking talk! You didn’t stop to think why she was writing her answers down?” he snarls, before he grabs my hand and pulls me with him back to our team. I give his hand a reassuring squeeze before I risk a glance behind me to take in Callie’s reaction. She looks chastised, but then quickly changes back to angry when she sees me looking. This is not going to end well.
When we make it back to our team, he’s breathing heavy and still doesn’t look like he’s calming down. It doesn’t scare me, I don’t think he’d ever hurt anyone. Not sure what else to do, I quickly take my hand out of his and put a hand on each shoulder, so he can see my eyes. I take exaggerated breaths to encourage him to calm down. Apparently my new friend has a bit of an anger issue. I smile softly to show him I don’t care, and he smiles
back, finally breathing normally again. The whole reaction was unexpected since he seemed so chill before.
The gym teacher finally comes in and blows his whistle. Trent goes with me to hand over my paperwork and claims me for his team. The coach just nods before blowing his whistle again and yelling, ‘Game on.’ He starts going around the gym, taking in faces and marking off on his clipboard as he takes attendance, but that’s about it out of him.
The rest of gym class goes smoothly, until the locker room. I finish changing and start pushing the door open when Callie shoulder bumps me, pushing me into the door and walking out.
“Stay away from Adam, he’s mine,” she hisses as she closes the locker room door in my face. For a moment I’m stunned, then I roll my eyes. New school, same bullshit, I think as I walk to my arts class.
When I get closer I see Cole waiting for me in the hall. He spots me and gives me that half grin of his. As I get closer, he wipes a smudge of dirt off my cheek and tries not to laugh.
“Have a fun time playing dodgeball?” he asks in a fake innocent voice. I immediately cover my face in my hands as he continues laughing at me. I’m not even upset by it, just embarrassed at how quickly I became a target. Though the joke took me by surprise, I didn’t expect that out of him. I expected a more serious demeanor to go with his broody looks. But I do love that he’s already comfortable enough to joke with me.
“Come on, Charlie girl, don’t be embarrassed. Callie’s a bitch.” Gently, he pulls my hands down and grins. When I return his smile with one of my own, he finally releases my hands and heads into the classroom. Feeling a lot lighter now, I follow him in.
The room is huge, clearly used for band practice. I assume that means this is the music portion of the arts classes. I pull out my notebook as he leads me to one of the tables set up in the middle of the room. It’s two to a table, so I’m extra glad Cole’s in here with me.
‘How does this class work?’ I write and slide it over. He reads it and looks up at me.
“Do you play any instruments?”
I nod and keep my eyes trained on him expectantly..
“Cool, only a few of us do. Today is actually the first day of music, we just finished theater. This class has two parts, one teaches those who don’t play, how to read music and about musical history. The other is pretty much practicing whatever instrument we know. It’s nice knowing how to play, so you don’t have to spend an hour studying sheet music. What do you play?”
I smirk at him, not giving it away that easy.
‘Guess’ I write down and slide it over, quirking an eyebrow as I study him. He reads my note and chuckles again before narrowing his eyes, studying me for a second. I fidget at the attention, refusing to think about how much I like it coming from him. Though, I don’t know what that says about me since I like all of their attention.