10. No, I'm Just Hot

By Monday, I hope that Jude has somehow forgotten all about my Saturday night adventure, because he most probably has other things to focus on. Like, you know, how he's popular and interacts with a lot of people, all the girls paying attention to him, his focus on football, maintaining those god-like looks... 

But no, he is doing none of those as the current smirk he is sending my way confirms.

I flush but try to hide it, immensely glad that he can't approach me at the moment.

Today a different girl is holding him hostage at his locker, her hand pressed against his chest, and her body to his. She is whispering something to his ear, but his eyes are stuck on me as I move to my locker. Why can't my locker be at the other end of the school?

I'm too busy getting distracted by those piercing blue eyes that I'm no longer watching where I'm stepping until I collide into someone and I yelp, my head whirling around.

I hear a familiar rumble as strong arms envelope me and I look up to find Cole looking down at me. He's so close — we are pressed up against each other — I can see the flecks bordering his dark brown iris and pupil.

He laughs again and I'm pulled down to reality, hastily extracting myself from his arms, my cheeks burning from embarrassment.

"Sorry, I'm sorry," I apologise, holding onto my backpack and fighting back the urge to face-palm.

Really, Jo?

"It's fine," he says and I look up at him. Out of the corner of my eye, I notice someone else is with him, and I turn to look who.

Holy angels of the blessed melodies.

What's wrong with this morning?

Because Jon — the one and only Jonathan Bernard Shaw — is looking back at me, an amused smile on his face.

So I not only embarrassed myself, but I embarrassed myself in front of my crush.

Former crush.

Oh, who am I fooling?

My teeth clamp onto my lip as I stare back into his black eyes. His eyes follow the move, then he clears his throat. "Hi Jo."

His voice is deep, and mellow, and smooth... And if I don't answer soon I'm going to embarrass myself further.

"Hi," I squeak.

This time I can't stop my hand from flying to my mouth in mortification at the awful sound that just left my lips. Jon smiles at me politely, but Cole bursts into laughter.

Full blown donkey laughter that has him slapping on his knee like a--

Oh, I know like who.

Like Nicole Ashley Cooper.

I smack him on the back of his head because that's what I'd do to Nicki. "Shut up," I order.

He stands up, his hand flying to his face to wipe stray tears. "You made my day," he wheezes, finally stopping his unimpressive laughter.

Under normal circumstances I could have rolled my eyes at him and told him off, but I'm acutely aware of Jon's eyes on me and my usual systems are therefore distracted and not working perfectly.

"Gotta go," I say instead, walking past them as fast as I can.

With the way this day has started, I have no idea where evening will find me.

_______

I reach over my desk and grab Simon's glasses and put them over my face. The lens immediately tug on my eyes and I pull them off, grimacing.

Simon takes back his glasses. "Why do you always do that when you already know what they do to your eyes?"

I shrug and wiggle in my chair, restless. My upper half is laid on top of my desk, my cheek against the cool surface. I'm tired and I don't think my mind can take any more of this long ass school day.

Thankfully however, Ford hasn't yet shown up to class which...

I turn my head so I can face the clock on the front wall of the class.

...should be over in about ten minutes.

"Want to come over today?" Simon asks, wiping his lenses before putting his glasses on.

"Would love to, but I have a session with Jude this evening," I tell him.

"Oh," he says. "Liam was all over me during the weekend to bring him over, but mum said he could sleep over this weekend."

Liam is Simon's eight year old brother who goes to school with Sam. There's only one word to describe those two chipmunks together.

Chaos.

There was this time they snuck into the ground floor bathroom — which I’m basically the only one who uses it since apart from my parents who have their own connected to their room, the rest of the family has their bedrooms upstairs — and decided to make a concoction of my hair shampoo and conditioner then proceed to wash their own curly tufts. Notice had been brought to their waywardness when soap got into Liam's eyes and he started screaming like a banshee.

Simon had been upstairs playing games with Trey and I was in the kitchen and we all rushed to the bathroom to save the day. Needless to say I was forced to get new hair products.

"Thanks for the heads up, that gives me a week to get prepared," I say with a suppressed groan.

Simon laughs, knowing exactly what I mean. "I heard you had a little run in with Shaw this morning," he says, raising an eyebrow.

I make a face. "Word travels fast in this school, doesn't it?"

"I also heard you managed to be your usual awkward self," he added with a slight lift of his upper lip.

I reach across our desks to smack him on his head. "Shut up."

"I think he is one of those guys," he says, plucking on his eyebrow.

"What guys?" I ask.

"Those who like you and never tell you," he says.

I raise my brow. "He has a girlfriend, remember?"

Simon scoffs, pulling out his phone. "He does, but there is no question about who the one girl he actually likes in this school is. You, my dear."

I scoff and roll my eyes.

"He's most likely very nervous when it comes to you and is afraid of coming up to you."

I scoff again because that right there is the most absurd thing I've heard all day. "Jon? Nervous? Yeah, right."

Simon gives me a look. "Trust me. I'm a boy, I know. When you really like someone opening up to them is one of the hardest things out there. You're always almost sure of rejection. Some never take the risk. Or convince themselves that you deserve better than them, all that blah and shit."

I still can't imagine Jon being nervous about approaching me. Me. He is one of the hottest and outgoing guys around, while I'm the most plain and uninteresting girl in the entire world. I’m also socially inept, which I manage to make up for a little with the little wit I was blessed with.

"You could approach him instead," Simon says.

My eyes widen as I stare back at my friend as if he has grown a second head filled with more idiocy than the first one. "Uh, Simon? This is Ava you're talking to, not, I don't know, Jen? Ava Hansen, extremely awkward girl that--"

He slaps his palm over my mouth, shutting me up. "I get it, coward. You'd never do that."

I glare and slap his hand away. "Go to hell."

He laughs and goes back to his phone. Waiting for the bell to ring, I'm now stuck in my mind thinking of the different scenarios I would approach Jon in. That is, if it so happened that I was not Miss Ava Awkward.

Which, if you are asking, is never happening. Ever.

________

"Hello, my favourite stalker."

I groan and fight the urge to bang my head on the table over and over and over again. Would probably end up dead and I don't want that.

"I was not stalking you," I deny, looking on as Jude swaggers over to the table. His hair is wet, dropping onto his face in strands, and he is carrying his backpack and gym bag.

"You so were," he claims, placing his bags on one corner of the table and smirking down at me.

"I wasn't, why would I?"

He taps his index finger against his chin, as if in deep thought. "Um, I don't know, probably to check my hotter than life pics?"

I roll my eyes. "Whatever helps you sleep."

"I sleep well enough, thank you," he says, leaning against the table.

I wave a hand. "Mind sitting down so that we can get some work done?"

He reaches forward and grabs my rickety phone that's on the table. I spring up on my seat but he holds out a hand, keeping me back. "Just a sec, tiger."

Uh? Tiger?

"Give my phone back," I order as his finger starts sliding across the screen. "What do you think you are doing?"

I try to reach around to him again but he moves away, walking backwards as his smirk grows. I groan and sit back in my chair, following his movements with a glare. Finally, his smirk morphs into a smile and he comes back, giving back my phone. I snatch it and look down at the screen.

It's on I*******m, and I find myself staring back at a familiar pair of blue eyes.

@Judew and I'm now following him?

Wait.

I look up at him, eyes wide. "You have a hundred thousand freaking followers?"

He finally takes a seat. "Yeah and you're now one of them."

I'm tempted to unfollow him, but then I see he has followed me too.

Uh...

"You followed me and you are only following twenty two people?"

"You're welcome," he says.

I scoff. "What are you, some sort of celebrity?"

"No I'm just hot."

"I swear if your ego gets any bigger I might just suffocate," I mutter, scrolling down and checking out his news feed. See what I saw on F******k? There's more here, and much better. There are some photos though that make me look twice, thrice, because they are not like the silly ones splattered all over the place with Cole appearing sometimes. "Are you a model or something?" I wouldn't be surprised.

"Sort of," he says, quite modestly may I add.

I sigh. "Of course you are." It's not a surprise really. He has it all.

"Is that you admitting that I'm attractive?" He asks and I look up to find the cocky smirk back on his face.

I don't even deny. "Everybody can see that, can't they?"

He shoots up an eyebrow. "So you are attracted to me?"

I arch my brow. "Where did you get that absurd idea?"

He rolls his eyes. "Whatever, Hansen. Can we do some Math now?"

I imitate his tone. "Yes, Walker. I believe that's what we are here for."

He snickers but says nothing, reaching for his books.

Minutes later he is looking miserable and moaning about a math test Ms. Fernandez gave them earlier on in which he is sure he'll score below average.

"I hate logarithms," he says, rubbing the end of his pencil against his scalp.

"What, that's like the easiest thing ever."

"No it's not, but I'd say that about geometry."

"If you're complaining about logs then I should probably not mention calculus, right?"

"Yes, please don't, that right there is a good idea."

I laugh at his expression because I know we'll have to go over that some day.

We almost get back to work when I see someone appear at the head of the stairs in the corner of my eye, and I turn to find a girl in a yellow sundress that comes to her knees standing there, looking over at us. I nod at Jude. "Your sister."

He turns in his chair to look at her. "Jade? Come over," he calls out, waving his hand at her.

She walks forward, her hands holding onto her bag straps. She looks like the female version of Jude, just like Jared looked like an older version of him. Her eyes are however grey, and she has a timid air around her, giving me a couple of hesitant looks as she comes towards her brother. With her looks and her older brother's popularity she could have been the school's queen bee if she wanted, but she seems shy and sort of innocent.

"Hi, Jo," she greets, giving me a small wave.

She knows my name? I mean she is two years below me and I've never really interacted with her one on one, maybe she heard it somewhere. I remember when I was in my first year or second I never quite got to know most of the seniors, but who says everyone is as ignorant. I just didn't care.

"Hey, Jade," I reply.

"I thought you'd wait at the lot? Or at the park?" Jude asks his sister, staring up at her.

"I can wait here," she says, her eyes looking around at the empty chairs.

"Avoiding someone, are we?" Jude asks with an arched brow.

Jade's teeth clamps onto her lower teeth and she casts a quick glance at me, her cheeks burning up. She looks back down at her brother. "Like who?"

Jude looks at me too, then smirks at his sister. "You sure you want me to mention?"

Jade's shy look turns into a glare and she clobbers her brother on the head. "Shut up."

Jude chuckles and turns back around in his seat. Jade looks at the books on the table then at me. "You're helping him with Math?"

I nod, picking up a pencil. "Yeah."

"Thank God, he won't have to pay me to do his assignments any more."

My eyes widen as I give Jude a disbelieving look. "What?"

Jude cuts a glare towards his sister. "Oh please, Jade. I can't remember the last time I did that."

"You get your sister, your sophomore sister to do your Math homework for you?" I question further.

He shrugs. "She's a genius, why not? But I don't do that any more."

"Yeah you don't," Jade taunts as she skips over to an empty table.

I burst into laughter as Jude glares after his sister only for it to break into a slight smile.

Then he shifts his attention to me and hits me with the pencil in his hand. "Shut up, hornbill."

That would be Nicki but it's fine.