Tyler Prescott was bored out of his fucking mind. Everyday melded into one, every period being just as mind numbingly boring. If it were up to him, he’d just ditch and go home. So what if the lessons were important for his future. It was nothing he couldn’t google ter. But he had promised Lia he wouldn’t ditch her so he couldn’t just leave like he wanted to.

  He couldn’t even remember why he had decided to take ancient history as an elective in the first pce. He had never been overly invested in the subject, and he had certainly never wanted to spend ten weeks learning about the roman empire. But Lia had given him a puppy-dog face with big teary eyes and he had caved.

  Sighing, he ran a hand down his face and moved to down the corridor and through the stairs to the second floor of the building he was in. He didn’t know why the school had to have so many stairs. More importantly, he couldn’t remember if the room was D3. He contempted calling Lia but struck it out almost immediately.

  It would be a hassle to do it and he knew Mr Elliot would confiscate the phone. Leaving him to bear the brunt of her anger until she got it back at the end of the day. He didn’t know why he was such a hard-ass to begin with. It wasn’t like one phone call was the end of the world.

  Rolling his eyes, he narrowly avoided colliding into a group of seventh graders as they walked to their next css. His lips twitched as he watched them pass. Were they ever that small? He couldn’t quite remember. But he refused to believe he was ever that tiny.

  When they faded from view, he turned to continue on his way. Only to collide with another body just as he turned. It took him a second to register the hit, before his hands reflexively went out to steady her body before she could fall off the stairs. It wasn’t quick enough to stop her from dropping the pile of papers in her hands, but that didn’t matter.

  His brown eyes widened as they met bright blue, blonde hair falling over his hands as he slowly helped her get back into standing position. That was close. He let out a sigh of relief before bending down to help her pick up the paperwork.

  “Thanks,” she said, tucking her hair behind her ears as she took them from him.

  He fshed her a smile. “No problem.” Then. “Are you new here?”

  From the quick gnce he’d gotten of her timetable, she was a senior, same as him. But he couldn’t recall ever seeing her. He was sure he’d remember if he had.

  “Sort of,” she replied in a flippant tone. “Sorry for running into you like that, I probably should have been paying more attention to where I was going.”

  “Yeah you should have,” his mouth replied before he could think through his words. Fucking hell. That wasn’t what he meant to say. Great. She probably thought he was an asshole now. His tone had sounded a little too sharp even to his own ears.

  Instead of gring at him like he expected her to, he was surprised when she snorted a ugh instead. It had his eyes snapping back to her face. An odd feeling bloomed in his stomach at the way her face lit up with the amusement. Must be indigestion. Ignore.

  “Are you ughing at me right now?” And so maybe he sounded a little too bewildered. Sue him, but it had been a really long day and the st thing he had expected to happen was to have a girl ugh at him after she literally ran into him.

  “I’m sorry,” she said not sounding sorry at all, “it’s just…” A ugh. “Your face.”

  His brows furrowed in confusion. “What about it?”

  “You just looked so put out by the words that came out of your mouth.” She ughed again and he had to resist the urge to smile.

  “Was it really that funny?” He said, trying to sound annoyed. From the snort of ughter it got him, it was clear he hadn’t been too successful.

  “Absolutely.” She grinned. “And I really am sorry for nearly making you fall. Did you get hurt?”

  “No.” This time the smile couldn’t be tamed. He didn’t know why but there was something about the way she was smiling at him that made him unable to resist returning it. “I’m fine. I’m not the one who almost fell ass first down the stairs, are you alright?”

  Tyler could see her lips twitching. “Yeah. And I didn’t ‘fall ass first down the stairs’, you saved me.” The monotone voice she’d taken for the second half of the sentence was repced with a strange one. He couldn’t quite pce the emotion in her tone as she said, “I suppose that makes you my savior.”

  “I wouldn’t go that far,” he said around a ugh.

  “I’m afraid I’ll have to disagree Savior, if you hadn’t reacted as fast as you did, I really would have fell.”

  “Ass-first?”

  “Ass-first.” She replied in the same overly somber tone he had taken before her lips reformed a smile. “So I suppose it’s settled.”

  “What’s settled?”

  “What we were just talking about,” she said like it was obvious.

  They stared at each other for a few seconds before he shook his head and gave up on the staring contest. It was silly. But he was surprised to note that he didn’t feel bored anymore. Now, there was only one thing he needed to know.

  “What’s your name?”

  For some reason that made her smile waver. He swore he saw a fsh of an unnamed emotion in her eyes but when he blinked it was gone. That’s strange. Maybe he had imagined it? Why would something as simple as asking for a name make her react that strongly. He was definitely imagining it.

  “Vicky.” She held out a hand, the other clutching the paper stack close to her chest. “Vicky Fleming. It’s nice to meet you.”

  Vicky shakes his hand quickly and then moves it back to hold her stack of papers. It’s so fast that he doesn’t have any time to react as she makes to move past him, “I really do need to get to css, see you around Savior.”

  Tyler’s left blinking after her in confusion. What…Did he do something to upset her? They had been having what he’d a consider a pretty great conversation up until then. So, why had she practically ran out of there as soon as he had asked for her name?

  What a strange woman. His lips pursed as he continued to make his way down the stairs. A quick gnce at his phone told him he was already te enough for css as it was. If he didn’t get there in the next few minutes, he’d probably get a detention for sure.

  The man had always had it out for him for some reason. Ever since he’d met him in seventh grade, the man taken one look at him and decided he was nothing but trouble. It was frustrating. He didn’t know what he had done to garner such a reaction.

  Nina said it was probably self projection or some shit when he had compined one time. So maybe that was it. Still, he’d been happy when he didn’t have a css with the man after that first semester. Until he had taken over for Mrs Montgomery when she went off on her maternal leave.

  Don’t get him wrong, he was happy for the woman. She was probably one of the nicest teachers he had met and she definitely deserved the good news. But her leaving meant he had to spend the rest of the semester with the literal devil.

  So far he’d managed not to provoke him, but lord knew how long that could st. He swore that if he the man still had it out for him, he was going to drop the subject. Final exams and Lia’s puppy dog eyes be damned.

  By some miracle, he managed to get there before Mr Elliot had arrived and he praised whatever god had made that possible. Sinking into the seat beside Lia, he quickly took out his book and pencil case and made it look like he’d been there all along. Satisfied, he leaned back to look at Zach.

  “Any idea what’s deying the devil?” He ignored the swat that got from Lia in favour of waiting for a response. But he still had to rub away the sting left behind.

  “No clue. Someone else let us in when they saw us standing outside like lost children.”

  Tyler hummed in response and sat back in his chair, sending a gre Lia’s way before burying his head in his arms. He wondered if he could get away with taking a nap. Probably not.

  Sighing, he turned his head towards the door, letting the conversations going on around him blur into the background. His eyes wandered over the cssroom, taking in the motivational posters over the whiteboard. They’d been there for as long as he’d been here, but there were some new ones added.

  Vicky hadn’t even asked for his name. Was she just going to call him ‘savior’ when she ran into him? He had to stop himself from wincing. That sounded so pretentious and would definitely give people the wrong idea.

  So why hadn’t she asked his name? She had to know it would sound weird. Maybe she forgot? But then again, she hadn’t seemed like the type to forget that sort of thing. The more he thought about it, the more it seemed like it might have been on purpose. But why?

  More importantly, why he was spending so much time thinking about her when they’d only had a five minute conversation. His nose wrinkled subconsciously at the thought. It was even weirder how comfortable he’d felt when he was talking to her.

  It hadn’t felt stinted at all. He couldn’t remember ughing so much in such a short time. Couldn’t remember feeling so…light. He wasn’t sure how to feel about it. But he did know that something about the way she had reacted to him asking her name tugged at the recesses of his memory.

  He couldn’t put a finger on why, but it had felt familiar. Hell, even thecolourof her eyes seemed familiar. And it bothered him. Why would a girl he had only just met make him feel that way.

  Turning to Lia, he poked her shoulder to get her attention. “Hey, you know anything about Vicky Fleming?”

  “The new girl?” Lia turned to look at him, greyish blue eyes narrowed in confusion.

  “Yes.”

  “I had a English with her this morning. All I know is she moved to town fairly recently and lives with her mother.” She cants her head to the side, eyes flickering over him questioningly, “Why do you ask?”

  “N0 reason.” Well, that didn’t tell him anything he didn’t already know.

  Tyler doubted Zach would know anything. He was too oblivious to notice much of anything unless it concerned him. He’d just have to see if Nina knew anything ter. If he remembered correctly, she had math right now.

  And if he remembered right from his quick gnce at Vicky’s timetable, she had the same css. It was a very big coincidence, but it was great for him. Nina was much better at collecting all the relevant info and would be able to tell him more than Lia and Zach combined.

  She also had more subtlety than them as well. He had to suppress a sigh as he remembered the amount of times he had to stop them from looking like creepers when they tried to get any information. Lia wasn’t as oblivious as Zach, but put them together and it was like they didn’t have two brain cells between them.

  He still couldn’t believe she had talked them both into taking this elective. Of course Zach had caved first and Tyler had had to come with so he didn’t do anything rash. Like flip someone off on a whim. He’d definitely get caught.

  Somehow over the years, he’d been designated as the voice of common sense. Which was funny, because he certainly didn’t feel qualified for the role. As seen by the time he’d thought throwing a paint ball on a car would make it look better. He hadn’t accounted for it shattering a window.

  The wince couldn’t be suppressed this time. He could practically feel the after effects of the earful they had gotten for it. They’d had to mow Mr Murphy’s wn for months to pay him back for that stunt. Largely because of his parents, because the man had just ughed it off as a folly of youth.

  Of course, that had only served to make them feel more guilty and they’d mowed his wn anyway. Nina hadn’t let him live it down. Neither had Zach. It was bound to come up in any sort of conversation. But it was minor compared to some of their fuck ups so he still somehow remained as the voice of reason.

  Strangely enough, all of the questionable life choices had only been in high school. Of course that may have been because of the switch into high school but…A pang went through his heart.

  “Why would you do something that stupid as use a crowbar to get the tch open when you could just pick the lock?”

  He couldn’t remember who had said that to him. But he did remember that they had managed to pick the lock of the door and had not damaged it by using the crossbar. He had also tried to channel that energy sometimes, but it never quite seemed right.

  A fsh of blue eyes made his thoughts turn back towards Vicky Fleming. He could still remember how soft her hair had been and how…He shook his head, sitting up and pointedly ignoring the confused look Lia threw towards him.

  He wanted to get to know her. As Mr Elliot finally walked into the room, apologising for being te, he only vaguely heard the excuse. A feeling of certainty welled in him. Certainty that if he didn’t find out more about the woman, he’d definitely regret it.

  And though his instincts had steered him wrong multiple times, his stupidly romantic heart told him this time might be different. He bmed that on Nina for making him suffer through so many romcoms and kdramas. But he was doomed. He knew his thoughts wouldn’t leave him be if he didn’t give them what they wanted.

  Information on Vicky Fleming.