14

“Quiet now, please.” Our class professor raises his hands to bring quiet back to the chatter of our English lesson. “We have one week before break, and I know it’s agonizingly close… but you still have to work.” He turns and taps the board, highlighting random topics with his torch pen that are laid out in a numbered list. “One assignment before then… due on the last day. I want you paired off in groups of four, and we will make this a team deal where I assign you guys one topic each. A full week on nothing but this, so a little seating reshuffle before we end for the weekend. Let’s make this fun and relaxed, guys.”

There’s a chorus of groans from everyone in the room, including Elisa next to me, as no one ever likes to group in for projects. Especially not pre-holiday ‘fun’ ones where the assignments are always lame. It’s always unequal pairings where certain people get stuck with the majority of work. I personally do not care, as my control freak self likes the be the one researching and writing to ensure my grade is the best I can get.

“You have ten minutes to get it together while I go collect something from my office. Keep the noise down and get into your groups.” The professor lays down his pointer and takes off in the direction of the door before chatter starts up again, and people start moving chairs to create their groups.

“So, who do we hook up with?” Elisa leans in, whispering at me, and I catch her eye, straying over me to the row on my left, where Tyler sits almost level with me. He’s leaning back over the vacant desk behind him and mouthing to Dane up back.

“Nope.. not a chance. You know for a fact that with him comes my idiot house invader. They always pair up.” I push her face away and lean down to find my bag under my desk, needing my notebook.

“Hey, Kayla… do you and Elisa want to pair with Sam and me?” Jordan, in the row behind us, leans forward, taps me on the shoulder, and Elisa starts eye-gesturing at me in a panic to refuse. She is so desperate for any kind of Tyler attention since he insulted her at my house that it’s a little pathetic. She puts on the little pouty face and sad eyes even under that veil of red hair, knowing I can never deny it.

“Move, four eyes…… this spot is taken.” There is a scrape of a chair leg on the wooden floor, and Sam sits back as my attention is drawn back to the front of my desk. Dane has hauled a chair backward to straddle it the wrong way round and gets right in my face. Perching it up tight against the wooden surface. Only a desk between us which he is leaning forward on.

 Jordan mumbles something incoherent under his breath and moves right back, knowing never to rile Dane. Seeing as he once gave him a black eye when we were juniors, but Dane earns himself a narrowed glare from me.

“Don’t call him that.” I push his hands off my notebook he attempts to pick up, and Elisa recoils into a little ball of fear as Tyler wanders over and sits on the corner of my desk. He, too, seems to be in the know that we four are getting grouped.

“You are our class president and top student…. if anyone can keep my ass out of London, baby… it’s you. You breathe out A’s without effort.” Dane leans forward, pinches my cheek with his finger and thumb while trying to give me his cute boy pearly white smile, and earns a hand slap.

“Or… how about you pair up with anyone else and actually do some work yourself.”  I get annoyed with how Elisa is dissolving into her lap under Tyler's proximity, and I force a finger under her chin to pull her face and make her sit up. “Right, Lees? Tell them we don’t wanna.” I give her a visual warning that she better back me up, and she hesitates. A war crossing over her scared kitten expression, torn about giving up a chance to work with Tyler for five days.

“Ummm.” She turns pink and pulls her bangs across her eyes to avoid mine.

“Don’t bully her into this.” Dane pulls my arm away by the wrist and drops it on my desk. “Come on, Kales…. You do this shit with your eyes closed, and Tyler here is smart and academic, so it’s not like you will be carrying the workload.” Dane thinks that’s a sales point, but Tyler rolls his eyes at his best friend.

We both know Dane was the top-grade earner in our class once upon a time, but he chose a life of rebellion instead. Now it seems Tyler does most of the work, and Dane gets a free ride. No wonder he sits apart in classes like this.

“Do you ever do anything on your own? Or do you piggyback him as much as you do me?” I chin gesture at his silent bestie, who nods back at me that I’m close to accuracy, and it gets my back up.

“If the step beast from hell weren’t harassing my dad about my grades, I wouldn’t care. This is on your mom, not me.”

“Hey… don’t you dare.” I shove his foot under the table with mine. Triggered by him calling my mom names and then pushing his hand back for a second time as he tries to pick up my pencil case. He always has to touch everything that is mine when he invades my space.

“Elisa, you wanna work with Tyler, right?” Dane turns his attention to my best friend, all smiles, dimples, and charm oozing out as he tries to get her on his side. I grit my teeth and throw daggers his way, knowing fine well that’s a low-blow tactic. It’s not hard to tell Elisa has had a crush on Tyler since forever. I think the only person in our class who doesn’t know is Tyler… because she seems invisible to him.

“Ummm.” Elisa is dissolving like sand into her seat and progressively getting lower. Her love for me and her love for Tyler are pulling her two ways. She hates conflict and being stuck between a rock and a hard place at the best of times, so this is hell for her.

“Leave her alone.” I push Dane’s wrist back as he reaches to flick her hair out of her face so that he can see her reaction. “I told you, No…. Go away. I want an intelligent and hard-working group buddy. That’s not you.”

“Kales…… you suck.” Dane tuts and prods me in the face with a pointed finger to the cheek before he gets up, annoyed by my refusal. He knows how stubborn I am, and my tone tells him he won’t defeat me today.

It looks like he’s finally taking the hint that I will not agree when Charmaine, one of our popular blondes with big boobs, decides to meander to join the desk party. I have loathed this girl since I was eight, and everyone knows it. She has lived on our street since then and followed Dane on and off for years. Her tight shirt is almost popping over her breast implants, straining at the buttons, and her school skirt is about four inches shorter than it should be as she props herself up beside him.

“I want to work with you, Dane. Alice and Tyler make a good match, too. We could all get cozy and meet up after school. Have some fun.” She purrs, smiling creepily as she sits on Elisa’s desk, her ass almost in my friend's face as though she isn’t even there, and angers me on a whole other level. Seeing Elisa’s crestfallen expression and how she reverts into her little ball of hair hits me with guilt. She doesn’t ask me for much in this friendship, and her crush on Tyler has never wavered.

“FINE!” I slap my notebook on the table, startling Charmaine and Elisa simultaneously. Pushing up out of my seat and shoving that voluptuous backside off of my friend's table. Charmaine squeals and almost takes a tumble before spinning on me to deliver a scowling sneer. She knows better than to start a catfight, though, as Dane would shut her down in a second. No one picks on me because he would annihilate them. It’s one of the only perks of being related to him.

“Dane…. We will work with you, but we are not coming to sit back there. This is where we stay. And you better contribute, or I’ll take your name off the paper. I’m not playing in this…. You work with me. You contribute.” I’m in no mood for his BS today.

I want to stay up front and center where I sit in every class so I get fewer distractions from the idiots who don’t like to learn. This is where we stay; if he wants my help, he has to come here, even if it means sitting in the vacant seats right in front of the professor.

Charmaine pffts at me and thrusts her cleavage further out, trailing a manicured pointer nail over Dane’s shoulder in a cringy suggestive manner. Her perfume is wafting over me in a sickly smog.

“Dane, are we still on for this weekend?” She purrs, and I physically recoil inwardly. Disgusted by this blatant ewwwww and so mad at him that his flirt fest is happening over my desk. She has no shame, and he’s just as bad for already having a new woman on the hook when Renee was literally a few days ago. It brings up that inner loathing I sometimes feel for him. I hate that this is how he is, and Tyler is barely any better.

“Laters… I’m busy. I’ll call you if I need a date.” Dane dismisses her without a second glance, and her immediate rigid posture and cold icy stare tell me she isn’t happy with the rebuff. He flicks her hand off him, and I find myself shaking my head and repeating his words of wisdom back at him.

“Don't let a guy disrespect you…. Know your worth.” I mumble his way in a tone steeped in disdain for his ears, and he raises a brow and smirks at me.

“That’s right. Hence picking me.” He gets up and pats me on the head before pushing me back into my seat with a slight shove and strolls off to get his bag and jacket. Tyler sighs heavily and stares down at me for a second before his eyes trail to Elisa and back again.

“This is going to be an interesting week. Dane needs to get your mom off his back because I am already starting to rethink our friendship.” He smirks too, and then moves to collect his belongings as students all around us start shifting into groups for the assignment, and Elisa becomes still and silent. Jordan eyes me up with a gloomy sadness before getting out of his seat and walking up back too.

“You got what you wanted? A whole week of sitting with those losers while we do all the work. Are you at least going to lift your head up and make eye contact?” I nudge her on the shoulder with mine and give her a warm smile. Hoping to encourage her out of her shell. I know Elisa can be a dazzling and bright star when we are alone. I just wish she would show other people how she shines. I have tried to build her confidence for years, but nothing ever helps.