Alex
First day of school was like every other day. Me and Max and the rest of the boys we hung out with sat on the grassy hill over looking the buses. Usually we had loud music playing and some of the other kids accused of smoking pot. But none of us had ever done that – at least not on school grounds. Not even Jimmy who was our celeb pot head. Been busted a few times and suspended a few more for being high on school grounds.
Max and I lounged in the greenery while the others lingered in the back talking loud and playing air guitar to the music blasting on the old school boombox via MP3 player of course, but it was the aesthetic that Johnny went for and it was worth it most of the time. “What about that one?” Max pointed out a well muscled guy wearing a tank top and shorts and looked like he’d spent his days on the beach – which there were none around here so family vacation.
I shrugged, “He’s probably got a small pecker so no.”
Max chocked on his own spit laughing at my comment.
A girl in a tan dress that nearly showed off her nether region and definitely showed those leopard print panties she was sporting. “Her?” He asked without a snicker though he couldn’t hold it back.
“Probably a virgin trying too hard, so nope.”
Nox and Drew walked by with Mandy on Drew’s hip. She waved at us, though I think it was just pretense really, we were done and she was pissed about it. Even called me three times in the past week to make it up to me. Max laughed, “I know the answer to those three – Yes, yes and fuck yes.” He laughed even harder.
I rolled my eyes and stood up. “Class, let’s go.” I pulled Max up and he stumbled after me still laughing. We had the same homeroom this year. Unusual for us. So we slipped inside and low and behold there was Pretty Boy sitting in the center of the room like he belonged there. Everyone piled in around him, chatting and catching up. I wondered if anyone brought up the picture at all. Max and I moved to the back of the room though as we moved past he looked at me and smiled and gave me a slight nod to acknowledge our eyes met.
I nodded back unsure of what was going on. We never had the same classes. Max sat in the back corner of the room by the windows and I sat next to him. I got a great view of Nox’s backside when he stood up after roll call and homeroom ended.
Ten minutes in the same room and I was still wondering why he gave me his number.
“I got rem math next. I’ll see you at lunch.” Max said as he pushed past me to head off in the other direction.
I had science. One of the most boring classes in school. And the one that was the hardest to fake. It wasn’t hard to do, labs just made it that much more difficult to fail when you don’t really want to blow up the classroom. I’d had to resort to getting sick during dissections last year. This year I think was chemistry, I don’t know but it didn’t matter really.
I was the third person in the class room and sat down at a lab desk at the back of the room. Mr. Whitmore looked up from his reading and frowned when he saw it was me. He opened his mouth to say something but we both were shocked when tall popular and fucking hot pretty boy sat down next to me. His mouth snapped closed and he blinked at us. Fuck I didn’t even know what to say to that. It wasn’t like the last seat in the place he’d walked to the back of the room and purposefully sat next to me, “You don’t mind do you?” he said.
I shook my head still in stunned silence. What the fuck?
His knee brushed against mine and there was a bolt of electricity. I pulled away it felt like it hurt but was so exciting too. Fuck me, I was screwed here. I leaned forward on my elbows and hid my mouth behind my hands, “Why are you sitting here? We aren’t friends now.”
Nox smiled. “I figure if I’m your lab partner you can at least pretend to cheat off me to get the grades you actually earn.”
I blinked at him and he smiled with a slight pink tinge to his ears and neck. “Why do you care?”
He shrugged and opened his notebook and scribbled down a note and pushed it to the middle of the desk so I could read it. I just do! It was written in elegant hand writing you’d expect from some art kids or the popular girls but without all the swirls and hearts. It was elegant that was the only word for it.
He pulled his notebook back to his side and wrote the date and started making notes. Of what I don’t know class hadn’t even started yet. The bell rang and Mr. Whitmore start talking almost immediately. I rested my head on my hands propped up by my elbows and closed my eyes.
The next thing I knew the bell rang and Nox was standing up and stretching, his t-shirt rode up past his jeans and a small slip of skin shown and I groaned. “Finally wake up sleepy head?” He asked as his arms fell.
“Yeah. Something like that.” I said as I hurried to stand and move out of the classroom. Nox followed me and I wanted to escape his scrutinizing look.
Nox followed me half way to my next class before he ducked into his next one. Thank fuck we didn’t have another class together.
The rest of the day until lunch I worried that he might be in another class, but he wasn’t. I met Max on the grassy hill with my usual apple and chocolate milk. I couldn’t stand school food so I never ate more than that. Max on the other hand had a tray full of everything packed into his bags as he hurried out the cafeteria to sit on the grass with us. This was his only good meal all day long he soaked up the food like a sponge.
“Anything fun happen in your classes?” Max asked.
I shrugged, “Nox sat next to me in science class.”
Max’s eyes went wide, “Was he late or something?”
I shook my head, “No. He sat down next to me. Something about letting me cheat off of him.”
Max laughed. “He could cheat off of you if you cared enough.”
Max was one of the few who knew what I’d done to stay in the same grade as him for a couple of years. “Actually he said it was so I could earn my grades and pretend to cheat off him.”
“He knows?” Max whispered.
“Apparently he grades some of the papers in down time and saw what I did to fail the tests.”
Max sighed. “And he’s not going to tell?”
I shrugged again, “I dunno. He hasn’t yet. Or if he did they don’t care.” I growled, “I don’t wanna talk about it anymore.”
The Mind of Nox 