Her mouth drops open again. “I…I don’t even know how to respond to that. You’re the queen of not doing your homework and skipping class.”
“True, but have you ever seen me walk out of any of my science classes?”
Tully’s brows furrow as she thinks it over, not a second later, they fly back up in understanding. “Woah. You’re for real, aren’t you?” she practically howls with laughter. “You’re a science nerd.”
“Keep your voice down,” I seethe, swatting at her arm and stealing the textbook back. “You’re endangering my reputation.”
She scoffs. “Like a little nerding out could possibly do that,” she laughs. “I could scream it from the rooftop and nobody will believe me. Now, if I said your extracurricular activities included swinging and getting stoned, that they’d believe.”
I let out a frustrated sigh. She’s probably right. It’s a shame though. No one ever expects the popular girls to have brains or even a clue about the world. They all assume that their lives revolve around cell phones, hair, and makeup. Well, guess what? Surprise motherfucker, we’re not all plastic bimbos with pea brains.
“I can’t even believe this,” Tully continues. “How have I never noticed this before?”
“Maybe because you’re always too busy plotting revenge tactics in your head or new ways you can piss off Rivers.”
A proud grin spreads across her face and lights up her eyes. “I’ve got some new ones,” she tells me. “You want to hear them?”
“Well, duh,” I laugh.
“So-”
“Alright, seniors,” Mr. Carver’s voice rings loudly over our conversation, making Tully’s face fall. I mean, from the sparkle in her eyes, she’s particularly fond of her new form of torture meant solely for Rivers. Though, the second she has a moment, I don’t doubt she’ll be telling me all about it. “Time to settle down.”
Once we’re all quiet enough for Mr. Carver’s satisfaction, he gets started on his lesson. “I trust you all have your books open to page eighty-nine?”
I sit up straighter in my chair and face Mr. Carver. He’s not the best science teacher I’ve had over the course of my school years, but he does ok. He’s actually interested in his students learning, unlike so many other teachers that teach at Haven Falls Private.
I think the teachers here have already come to the conclusion that Haven Falls isn’t going anywhere. Only a small percentage of students get into college and of those that do, hardly any of them can afford the fees to actually go. It’s not ideal. Most of the kids who actually graduate end up working at the grocery store or if they’re lucky enough, manage to build up their own business, but honestly, it never goes far as us kids from Haven Falls simply don’t have the resources to make it happen.
You’ll often find most of the guys fall into careers like landscaping, plumbing or carpentry. All things they can do with their hands while trying to find work in Broken Hill, as they’re the only people who can afford to pay straight up.
The girls. They hope they can get themselves pregnant to a guy who has enough money to support her and the baby. Maybe even marry her.
It’s a great life here on the wrong side of the tracks.
Like I said, with the students not giving a shit about their futures, why should their teachers? We’re lucky to have one like Mr. Carver.
So, my love of science…I don’t really think anything will come from it. It’s not likely that I’ll go to college and it sure as hell isn’t likely that I’d be able to afford it. This is it for me. I have to soak up as much of my school years as possible as who the hell knows where I’ll be after graduation.
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?”
“Uh huh,” I murmur, already ignoring her to set up all the items in the order in which we’ll need them. “I honestly don’t know how you’re only just figuring this out now.”
“How could I not? I’ve never seen you do homework before and you’re always skipping out on class. I’ve just never put it together like that. I guess I assumed you were more like me than I had thought.”
I smile up at her. “Sorry to disappoint, but I’m not a horny bitch set on revenge.”
“You might not be set on revenge,” she scoffs, “but you certainly are a horny bitch.”
Yeah…I can’t deny that. “What can I say?” I shrug. “Your brother brings it out in me.”
“Gross,” she grunts, scrunching up her face in disgust.
We get busy on our experiment and fall into mindless chatter as we finish setting everything up and measuring chemicals into our beakers. “So, is this what you want to do?” Tully asks, bending low to make sure she’s poured the exact amount into her beaker.
I scoff. “In a perfect world, yeah,” I tell her. “But you know how it is in Haven Falls. I’ll probably end up working as an aide for a chemist…or working at McDonald's.”
She rolls her eyes. “With that attitude, you will,” she tells me before focusing a glare on me. “And don’t knock McDonald's. You’d be privileged to work for such a fine establishment. I mean, those nuggets. Damn. I could eat them all day long.”
I can’t help but laugh. “Your obsession with chicken nuggets really isn’t healthy. You should probably see someone about that.”
“And you should probably jump aboard the nugget express before I kick your ass to the curb and tell the world you’re a secret loser.”
“You wouldn’t.”
Her green eyes piercing into mine with nothing but seriousness tells me exactly what I need to know. “Wanna bet?”
Shit.
“Fine. I’ll leave your ridiculous obsession alone.”
“Good. You should have seen what happened to the boys when they tried to give me an intervention. Trust me, that’s not a fate I ever want for you.”
“Ok, ok,” I laugh, holding my hands up in surrender and trying to get back on track. “So, what do you want to do then? After school, I mean.”
Tully presses her lips into a tight line and shakes her head vigorously. “Nope. I can’t.”
“What?” I demand. “Why the hell not? It couldn’t be worse than you finding out I want to be a scientist despite the fact that it’ll never happen.”
“I…nope. I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“Because you’ll laugh at me. I haven’t even told my parents about this. Noah and Rivers don’t even know. Well, Rivers kind of mentioned it one day but didn’t actually realize what he was saying.”
I make a cross over my heart. “Promise. I won’t laugh.”
“No, seriously. It’s nothing like you’d expect…like at all.”
“Tully,” I sigh. “Surely by now, you must realize that if you said you wanted to be a poop technician, I’d support you and figure out how to make it happen.”
Her eyes narrow. “Seriously? A poop technician?”
“What?” I laugh. “It couldn’t possibly be worse than that.”
She quickly glances around but all the other students are way too busy watching their experiments take place to notice what we’re talking about. “Alright,” she says, slowly. “I want to be a florist.” My brows shoot up. “But not just work as a florist, I want my own store and everything.”
“Are you serious?”
Her eyes continue flicking around. “Well, yeah.”
“That’s freaking awesome. Why the hell are you embarrassed about that?”
“Because it’s not what people expect me to do with my life. They all think I’m hard. Like I’m supposed to be some kind of badass CEO who gets off by yelling at people all day.”
“Don’t be stupid,” I tell her. “Who gives a shit what other people think? Just because someone else has placed you in their little stereotypical box, doesn’t mean that’s where you belong. Do what you want to do.”
“Yeah, but.”
“No. I’ve never known you to do what others expect of you so why the hell would you do it now? Especially now when it’s one of the most important decisions of your life. Who gives a shit what they think?”
“I guess.”
“That settles it. You’ll have a boutique or floristry or whatever the hell they call them and I’ll work there because college is way out of my league.”
“Says who?”
“Says every student before me from Haven Falls who’s ever tried.”
Tully sighs. “Haven Falls does have a really shitty success rate, huh?”
“Sure does,” I tell her.
“Girls,” Mr. Carver says, striding towards us with purpose, clearly noticing that a little too much chatter has been going on over here. “Tell me about your findings.”
Well, two can play at that game. I guess being a bit of a science nerd does have its advantages seeing as though I already know what is supposed to happen during this experiment despite the fact that we haven’t got any further than measuring out the chemicals.
I rattle off our ‘findings’ and half an hour later, we walk back into the classroom feeling as proud as can be.
There are only a few minutes left before the end of class and the end of the school day, so I quickly scrawl out a report in my notebook and wait patiently for the bell to sound.
As I finish a little earlier than expected, I use the last few moments of class to daydream about my hunky boyfriend. I glance up, expecting to find him either staring straight back at me or fast asleep on his desk, but what I don’t expect is for him not to be there at all.
I look around what small parts of his classroom I can make out and I’m completely stumped. I pull out my phone and check to see if he’s sent me a message. Usually, when he needs to rush out of here to do a shady job for Anton Mathers, he sends me a text. But today, there’s nothing.
Damn it.
“Hey,” I whisper to Tully. “You didn’t get anything from Noah?” I ask. “He’s not in class.”
Tully looks up and scans his classroom before shrugging her shoulders. “Don’t know,” she grumbles. “I left my phone in my locker.”
Hmmm. How strange.
At least the day is just about over so I can call him as soon as class is done.
The next few minutes are the longest few minutes of my life. I pack up my things and impatiently watch the clock ticking, and as soon as the bell sounds through the classroom, I’m out of my seat in the blink of an eye with Tully right beside me.
We’re the first out of the classroom and the first to reach the lockers. We stop by hers first so she can check her phone and when we find nothing, we stop by my locker and grab our things before heading out of the school.
I slip my phone out of the back pocket of my phone and press Noah’s name before bringing the phone up to my ear. Tully rambles on about something as I listen to the call ringing out.
We pass the student office before walking past Principal Evans’ office when Tully grabs onto me and howls out in laughter. I turn to see what’s caught her attention when I peer through the blinds of Evans’ office.
Noah is sitting across from him, elbows pressed on the desk, and an amused smirk on his handsome face telling me that whatever he’s being accused of doing right now, he certainly did and he’s damn proud of it.
Noah catches us watching him from out the window and grins wide, only making Evans lose his cool, but naturally, Noah doesn’t have a single fuck to give.
Geez. I should have known. Of course, he was getting in trouble. If he was on a job, he would have texted because he knows I worry. I hate what he does for Anton and I hate it even more that he won’t stop, but it’s not my place to ask him too.
It’s his life and his decision.
Noah feels that he owes Anton for the help he offered his family during the hardest time of their life. There’s not a damn thing I can do about it except support him and keep an eye out for him, hoping and praying he doesn’t get himself into any trouble.
Seeing us out here, waiting, Noah pushes to his feet, not bothering to allow Evans to finish ranting at him. He makes his way out of the office with Evans yelling behind him, telling him to sit his ass back down, but Noah sees something more important.
Me.
His arm falls over my shoulder as his lips press to my forehead. “Let’s go get Ari and go home,” he tells me. “I’ve been missing you.”
Well, how could I deny the man what he wants?
“Let’s go,” I smile before looking back into Evans office to see him scowling at the two of us. “What was going on in there?” I ask. “What did you do?”
His eyes light up with mischief. “Oh nothing,” he grins. “Just a little misunderstanding is all.”
“Bullshit.”
Chapter 5
I walk through my home with my phone glued to my ear, explaining for the twentieth time what pizza toppings Aria wants. Is it really that hard to understand? It’s basically a pepperoni pizza with only a million changes. Maybe we should have gone to the store and gotten all the ingredients. At least that way she can make it herself and have no one to blame when it inevitably comes out wrong.
Dad was supposed to be home two days ago, but the job keeps getting bigger and bigger, then add a flat tire and issues with the brakes, and you’ve got yourself a job that seriously isn’t going as planned.
He checked in with us this morning and I assured him we were doing fine. I can handle it. I think I’m getting better at straddling that fine line between big sister and parent. It’s fun but it’s also hard work. One thing’s for sure though, when it comes time for me to have a kid, I’ll be a damn pro.
Just as the guy on the other end of the line gets our order right, my phone buzzes with an incoming text. I peel the phone from my ear and quickly glance at the screen.
Untameable: Haven Falls (Book 3) Page 4