Mr. Carver gets started on his lesson and lets us all know that after a brief introduction into Biochemistry, we’ll be heading into the lab to do a little experiment. Excitement surges through me and I will the class to shut up and get on with it.
Nothing’s better than actually experimenting.
It’s so intriguing. You never know what’s going to happen. I mean, well, you always know what should happen, but sometimes you get the surprise of your life. It’s intoxicating.
As I’ve already covered the introduction in Biochemistry in my own time with the textbook I bought at Christmas, I find my eyes wandering across the hall to the classroom sitting across from ours. The blinds are pulled halfway down but I can still see the body that sits slouched in a chair, not even slightly interested in what’s going on in class.
As if sensing my gaze, Noah’s eyes flick across to me. They settle on mine and I find it impossible to look away. He’s completely captured me, and I love it.
A playful smile lifts the corner of his lips and fills me with nothing but undeniable joy. My heart rate increases, my breath catches, a smile graces my lips, and I hear nothing except for the rapid pulse beating in my ears. And it’s all because of him.
Mr. Carver’s voice clears. “Miss Bronx, is there something a little more interesting outside?”
My head whips around to the teacher. Does he want the God’s honest truth from me? Because, yeah. There certainly is something a little more interesting outside. I have no doubt that if I was to walk out right now, Noah would follow right along. Tully would probably join out of sheer curiosity until she realized I was leading him somewhere that I could take advantage of him, then she’d scurry away as quickly as possible.
“Uhhhhh,” I say, unable to even form a sentence right now. “No.”
“Good. Then read out the next paragraph, please.”
My eyes zone in on the textbook and I quickly scan page eighty-nine. Shit. Where are we up to?
Tully coughs under her breath beside me. Cough. “Weak Interactions,” cough.
I grin into the textbook and pick up at that paragraph as though Tully didn’t just save my ass from landing in detention. As I read through the paragraph, I feel Mr. Carver’s eyes on me and as I finish and glance up at him, he’s giving me a sharp glare through narrowed eyes. “You’re lucky you have such good friends, Henley,” he says with a clear warning in his tone. “Next time keep your attention on class, not your boyfriend next door.”
I nod my head as the rest of the students in the room try their hardest to pretend their queen didn’t just get her ass handed to her by the middle-aged science teacher.
As he moves on, picking on Rachel Prairie to read the next section, I can’t help but cut my eyes across to Noah once again. His eyes are still on me but that playful smile from before is gone and is replaced with a smugness that makes me want to throat punch him. He saw every moment of me getting in trouble and the bastard absolutely loved it.
I roll my eyes and shake my head, letting him know exactly what I think about that. He brings his fingers to the bottom of his chin and nudges it, silently tell me to keep my chin up before mouthing two simple words that spread warmth all through me. ‘Love you.’
I’m sure as hell my eyes are glistening with every damn feeling I have for this guy. ‘Love you too,’ I mouth right back at him.
He winks and I turn back to Mr. Carver who thankfully is busy reading along with Rachel.
I get focused and do my best not to look across the hall at the boy whose gaze I haven’t felt move from me for even a second.
As class goes on, we finally get up and head into the lab for our experiment. I’m the first through the door and the first to pull on my white lab coat and safety glasses. This is my favorite damn part. Nothing beats doing experiments. Except for experimenting with Noah. Though, that’s completely unrelated right now.
Tully comes to partner with me then goes to get all the things we’ll need while I set up our station.
I partner with Tully nearly every time we have an experiment, but today, she’s looking at me with new eyes. She’s finally realized that I’m not just in a good mood or wanting to do it quickly to get it over and done with. She’s finally realizing that I’m doing it like this because I can’t hold myself back.
“Shit,” Tully chuckles as she reaches our station and places all the items down. “You really are a little science nerd, aren’t you?”