I'm currently sitting directly in front of Etch in my A.P. History class. Mr. Clemons is paying zero attention to us—his students—as we do basically whatever we want. We were supposed to read a couple chapters of our textbook but instead, most of the students are drooling all over their books, asleep. Etch is amusing himself by finding any possible way to annoy me.

The first five minutes, he tapped his pencil on the back of my chair.

After that, he fake-sneezed every two seconds.

Five minutes later, he started kicking my feet around under my chair.

He's currently trying to get my attention. "Vanilla...." He says his name for me in a stage-whisper. "Vanilla. Vanillaaaaa... Vaniiiiiiiiiiiiiilla... Vaaaaaaaniiiiiiii-"

I turn my head to face him and cut him off. "What, Etch?"

He wiggles his eyebrows. "Wanna get out of here?"

Scoffing, I turn back around. I've been doodling in a notebook and I'm currently trying to finish the leaves on a tree. I'm just finishing a line of leaves when Etch pokes my shoulder.

I turn back around. "What, Etch?"

He laughs softly. "I'm serious. Do you wanna get out of here?"

With a roll of my eyes I face my notebook again to finish my tree.

This time, Etch resorts to hitting my head with his textbook. He does it softly, but he still hits my head.

Whirling around, I ask him a third time, feeling exasperated. "What, Etch?"

Etch sits back, a smirk on his face. "I've been asking you if you wanna get out of here."

I snort. "In case you haven't noticed, Etch, we're in the middle of class. We can't get out."

His smirk widens. "Wait five minutes, then follow me."

My eyebrows furrow as I start to ask, "Wha-"

He cuts me off by raising his hand and waving it around, getting the attention of our teacher, who's been completely out of it until now. "Yes, Mr. November?"

Etch smiles charmingly at Mr. Clemons. "Can I go to the bathroom?"

Mr. Clemons waves his hand passively as he replies, "Yes, sure."

Etch stands up and winks at me as he passes. He gets to the door and walks out of it. After closing it, he sticks his face in the window of the door and mouths, "Meet me upstairs."

I nod discreetly, and Etch disappears from the window.

Five minutes of doodling later, I grab Mr. Clemons' attention and ask him the same question. He lets me go, and I jump up and make my way out of the classroom. I bounce up the stairs of the east wing and arrive at Etch's room shortly thereafter.

I rap the door with my knuckles and Etch opens the door immediately. "Hey, Vanilla."

Nodding at him, I respond, "Etch."

He smiles lazily and opens the door for me to enter his room. He's got a book and his laptop open and they're lying on the couch.

After closing the door, he joins me by the couch. "I was comparing a book to a movie this morning."

Moving closer to the couch, I pick the book up in order to see the cover. The Maze Runner. I tap the spacebar of Etch's computer to see it paused at the scene where Thomas is trying to escape the Griever after going into the Maze even though he wasn't supposed to.

Nodding approvingly at Etch, I tell him, "A worthy thing to do. I compared the movies to the books as soon as the movies started coming out."

Etch smiles cheekily at me and exes out of the movie on his laptop, then puts the book back on his shelf. Afterwards, he looks at me, a mischievous smirk playing on his gorgeous face.

Frowning at his facial expression, I ask him, "What kind of trouble do you have in mind, November?"

Etch's smirk grows more cocky-looking as he states, "We've still got ten minutes before class ends. Truth or dare."

My eyebrows find themselves halfway up my forehead as I repeat his words incredulously. "Truth or dare?"

With the smirk still very prominent on his face, he inquires again, pausing in between the words. "Truth. Or. Dare?"

Narrowing my eyes, I take a chance and answer, "Dare."

Etch puts on his cheeky smile once again as he tells me, "I dare you to do something unexpected."

I sigh and start to think about what I'll do. When I finally decide on something, I chuckle to myself, and then I look at Etch.

His eyebrows are raised, and I bet he's wondering what I'm gonna do.

Well. He sure is in for something unexpected.

Putting my dare into action, I crumple to the floor and begin to cry. (Fun fact: I can turn on the waterworks whenever I want. Hehehe.) Curling up into the fetal position, I feel Etch's hand on my back. "You're gonna have to try harder next time, Vanilla. This ain't getting me."

I gasp and look up at him, pretending to be shocked. Bringing my hand up quickly, I slap him and then push myself up off the floor. Looking at him disbelievingly, I say harshly, "You jerk. You've got no compassion in your heart at all."

Whirling around, I walk to Etch's door, and find, that, to my surprise, he didn't lock it. I swing it open and look to my left, where at the end of the hallway, lies an old window.

Etch grabs my hand from behind me and looks at me questioningly, trying to decide if this is part of my dare of if I'm actually peeved at him. Putting a scornful look on my face, I yank my hand out of his and sprint down the hallway until I get to the window. I let the fake tears flow out of my eyes freely as I look sadly and longingly towards the ground outside of the window.

Etch runs up to me not that long afterwards and softly grabs my shoulders, turning me to face him. He looks at me warily, and then he asks in a soft voice, "Vanilla, what's wrong?"

I shake my head and look back out of the window. Pretending to choke back sobs, I tell him in a broken voice, "Oh, Etch, it's horrible. My imaginary friend, Hazel, just committed suicide. She jumped out the window... and... and... now she's gone, Etch!"

Etch looks at me with the most stupid expression on his face, and after a couple seconds his failure to react or do anything becomes so ridiculous to me that I double over laughing, finding everything about this amusing.

Crouching to meet my eyes while I keep laughing, Etch finally speaks. "That was your dare?"

I nod, still laughing. Etch rolls his eyes and stands back up, waiting for me to finish.

As my laughter dies down, I stand up straight again. Meeting Etch's gaze, I tell him, "Oh my gosh, oh lord, ohhh... you totally fell for it!! You should've seen your face, Etch. Priceless. Priceless!"

Rolling his eyes, he tries to look serious and pissed but fails when a smile makes an appearance. "Okay, okay. Your turn."

Smirking victoriously, I give Etch his question. "Truth or dare?"

Etch stands up straight and crosses his arms across his chest, taking on a confident stance. "Dare."

Because I'm the most unoriginal person that ever existed, I give Etch the same dare he gave me. "Okay. Now it's your turn to do something unexpected."

Etch's face morphs into that twisted smile that means trouble. He grabs my hand and pulls me back towards his room.

Except, instead of going in it, he takes out his keys and unlocks the abandoned classroom across from it.

This is already a surprise to me, but I try my hardest not to show it, knowing that that isn't the only thing Etch probably has planned.

Taking my hand in his, he pulls me to the opposite side of the room, where several dust-covered windows await us. He gently positions me in front of the window, and then points to a river that's almost impossible to see because it's hidden behind a sea of trees.

Behind me, he whispers, "When I was in middle school, that was my favorite river to go to. My friends and I'd go there all the time in the summers. About ten miles downstream, there's some small rapids and a tiny waterfall. We always used to go tubing there. For me it was funner than any water park."

I glance back at him and send him a small smile. I certainly didn't expect him to say that.

What he does next catches me even more off guard.

Gently, his hands find my waist and turn me around to fully face him. Letting go of me, he lifts his arms up to cage me against the window behind me. I'm backed up against it as he looks me in the eyes, his blue ones boring into mine intensely, seeming to drown me.

It takes me a moment to process this. Etch November, the boy I'm crushing hard on, has me in between himself and a wall, looking at me like... like... now that I think about it, like how I always wished someone would look at me.

With his ridiculously perfect blue eyes still trained on me, he whispers in a low voice, "How you feeling right now, Vanilla?"

I'm only just noticing that my breathing is fast, and I'm barely avoiding blatant hyperventilation. Trying to calm my overwhelmed senses, I reply honestly, "I don't know."

His mesmerizing eyes sparkle and then darken, and he begins to angle his head towards me. I widen my eyes as his breath starts mixing with mine, still trying to avoid hyperventilating.

Anticipating what I think is going to happen, I close my eyes and wait.

Instead of feeling his lips on mine, however, I feel him lean the side of his head against mine as he puts his lips to my ear and whispers mischievously, "You don't know, Vanilla? Don't even feel a blip?"

Even though I thought he'd kiss me, this is still really getting to me, and I literally shiver when he whispers that to me. I try to answer him confidently, but it backfires completely because my voice comes out sounding vulnerable and breathy when I whisper back, "I really don't know, Etch."

Cue the internal face-palm.

Slowly, he inches his face back in front of mine so that his lips are hovering barely a couple of centimeters over mine. It's taking all of the restraint in me to look him in the eyes and not pull him closer and kiss the life out of him. At an agonizing pace, he brings his face impossibly closer until our lips aren't centimeters, but millimeters apart. I feel his hands on my waist, pulling me to him. Just as I'm deciding in my head to just kiss him already, he abruptly lifts his head and briefly touches his lips to my forehead before resting his head on top of mine.

Well, at least he's holding me.

After maybe a minute, he asks, "You seriously felt nothing? Most girls would kill to have me do that—or more—to them."

Rolling my eyes, I push him away from me as he starts to laugh. I glare at him for a few seconds before the bell starts to ring, drowning out the sound of his laughter.

As he stops laughing, I walk up to him and shake his shoulder. "I'ma get my stuff from class, Etch. See ya."

After I walk past him, he straightens up and catches up to me. He grabs my wrist gently and I turn to look at him. "Just wait a second Vanilla. Let me lock up and I'll walk you down."

Sighing, I nod as he quickly locks the doors to both his room and the classroom. He then positions his right arm around my shoulders, and together we return to the History classroom.

(Thank goodness, he's not making anything awkward. In fact, it's more like nothing ever happened, and although part of me is disappointed at that, another part of me is grateful.)

When we enter, Mr. Clemons is waiting for us with two detention slips in his hand. After handing us both our respective slips, he shakes his head in a disappointed fashion and returns to his chair at his desk.

After Etch and I gather our things, we take up our former position and he walks me back to my locker. When we arrive at it, the bell rings again, signaling the start of second period. He smirks at me, and then states cockily, "Looks like you and I will be spending not one, but two hours in detention together this afternoon."

I fake disappointment as I finish gathering my things and shut my locker. "Aww. That's two whole hours that I have to spend with a total loser."

The smirk falls off of his face, replaced by a flat look. "Goodness gracious," he mutters before turning around. Over his shoulder he calls out, "See you in a bit, Vanilla."

I wave even though he can't see me, and then start towards my second period class, biology.

Oh, how I dislike the study of body parts and nature. Blech.

My second detention slip of the day awaits me the moment I enter the classroom. Smiling tightly at the teacher, Mrs. Evans, I trudge my way to my lab desk, making eye contact with Luke in the process.

It scares me how well I know this kid already. After barely a week of knowing him, I can already tell what he's trying to communicate to me with his eyes. Why're you so late?

As I sit down, I shake my head microscopically. Raising my eyebrows slightly and blinking twice, I try to tell him, I'll tell you later.

He seems to get the message, because he nods and refocuses his attention on Mrs. Evans.

Huh. It's scary how well he knows me, too, now that I think about it.

After the 35 remaining minutes of class end and I'm free to leave the classroom, Luke makes sure that we leave the classroom together, bent on making sure he knows why I was late.

As we plod along the hallway, Luke queries, "Why were you late to class, Van?"

I don't wanna tell him about Etch. Not yet, at least. So I hesitate while my mind comes up with a lie to feed him. After a few seconds, I say, "My foot started aching because of the bed incident," I pause and send a pointed look at Luke, "so I went to the bathroom to wrap it in one of those pressure bandages."

In reality, it's a very believable lie. Ever since I dropped the bed on my foot on Saturday, my foot will start to ache at random times, and it only stops when I put on the pressure bandage. I brought it to school today, as a matter of fact. So it doesn't surprise me that Luke lets the subject drop quickly, believing my words.

We walk in silence for a few moments, and then Luke speaks up again. "Do you know when your new stuff for your room is coming?"

I shrug. "Everything'll come at different times. I checked on the status of everything yesterday. The dresser will probably come first."

Luke nods, then says, "When it does, I'll help you move it up there."

This makes me laugh, and he looks at me strangely. Through my laughter, I tell him, "You wouldn't have had much of a choice about that, Luke. I would've made you help me, 'cause I can't carry a whole dresser myself."

After a quick shake of his head, he smiles sarcastically down at me. "Yeahhh. I know you couldn't. Can't even stop yourself from dropping a bed on your foot."

I huff out an exaggerated sigh, then I respond, "That was your fault. You said, 'on three,' then you skipped one and two."

Luke shrugs. "Reflexes. Guess you don't have very fast ones."

His comeback surprises me, and my eyebrows find themselves halfway up my forehead when I shove him and lamely say, "Shut up."

He just laughs.

Imbecile.

By now we're at my locker, and Luke pats my shoulder before he goes off to his own locker to get his things. As he walks away, I give his back the stink eye, and resolve to tell him that I did later.

•–•

Lunch time finally rolls around, and I couldn't be more happy. Luke spent the entirety of Spanish class last period pestering me to help him with an assignment. Being the only person to speak Spanish fluently in a class full of people who can't is honestly one of the most tiring things in the world.

Anyways. Today I'm not going to spend lunch with Etch upstairs. I'm sticking with my squad.

As I walk into the cafeteria, I take a glance around to locate the table that Luke and Cady are at. Once I do, I find my way over to them and sit down, with Luke across from me and Cady next to him.

As always, Luke's eyes light up when he sees me, and his smile makes the corners of my mouth twitch up, too. "Hey Cady. Hey Luke." I acknowledge them both.

Cady waves at me, then says,"Long time, no see."

I chuckle a bit, then I answer, "Well that's not my fault. You're the one who hasn't walked me to or from school in a week."

She lets out an exasperated sigh and gestures to Luke. "He came along!"

Amused, and with my eyebrows raised, I state, "That shouldn't be an excuse."

Another huff of air escapes her and she rolls her eyes. "Fine. I'll walk you today."

Luke butts in while chewing a mouthful of the Jimmy John's sub he brought. "You'll have to tag along with Etch November if you do."

Cady whips her head back towards me so fast I think she might have gotten whiplash. "WHAT?!"

I shrug. "I didn't get a say in who walked me."

Cady's face maintains its shell-shocked expression as she repeats, "WHAT?!"

I blow out an impatient sigh. "Luke and Etch have an arrangement about who walks me home on which days."

She appears to be recovering from her shock, but her face is still displaying prominent surprise as she inquires, "Well, what's the arrangement?"

Shrugging passively, I answer matter-of-factly, "Ask Luke. He's the one who knows."

Turning back to Luke, Cady asks him, "What'd you and Etch come up with?"

Luke glances somewhere in the distance before looking at Cady to answer her question. "Etch is walking her home today. He has detention, which doesn't surprise me, but Van—er, Cami—does too, so he's gonna walk her today. I'ma walk her home tomorrow and Wednesday, then Etch takes her Thursday, and I take Friday. That's this week, at least."

Cady nods in understanding. She takes about a minute to let it really sink before she asks, "Van? You call her Van? That sounds bad. Reminds me of FBI vehicles or my favorite pair of shoes. Doesn't suit her. If you're gonna call her anything, then call her Ess. It sounds better."

Luke glances at me, and I shrug. Honestly, between Etch calling me Vanilla and Luke calling me Van, I get confused as to who uses which nickname sometimes.

After a moment of pondering, Luke sighs. "I guess you're right, Cady. Ness, it is."

Cady and I simultaneously raise our eyebrows. Cady speaks first. "Ness? I literally just said Ess. You're turning her into the Loch Ness Monster now, Luke. It's not much better."

At her remark, he just laughs. However, when he stops, he does seem to realize Cady's point, so he amends, "Alright, okay. Nessa."

He looks to me for affirmation and I shrug.

It does have a nice ring to it, actually, now that I think of it.

Luke and Cady exchange a glance. "What's with all the shrugging today?" Cady asks. Luke nods in agreement, also wanting to know.

Just to tickle them, I shrug again, then respond, "I don't know."

Cady lets out a playful groan and Luke rolls his eyes. Their actions make me laugh. I feel like even though none of us have really known each other for more than a month, we've already got a dynamic... trio... thing going on.

(Let me be weird for a sec. Dynamic trio doesn't sound right. I need to alliterate. Trifling trio... triumphant trio... triangular trio... triple trio... trivial trio... troublemaking trio... I like troublemaking trio.)

We've got a troublemaking trio thing going for us.

•••

My afternoon classes all roll by uneventfully. Etch made only a couple attempts to bother me during Geometry, which I ignored. All we did in English Lit was read Hamlet. I had free period instead of gym today. And now, I'm at my locker, gathering anything I might need to amuse myself during my two hours of detention this afternoon.

Not surprisingly, my bag of 100+ colorful pens and a blank notebook make the cut.

One could argue that I'm "obsessed" with pens, but I prefer to think of it as more of a hobby. Pen-collecting—that's what I call it. Like stamp-collecting, but with pens.

I stuff the pens and my notebook into my backpack as Cady comes up to get hers. As I zip up my backpack and hoist it onto my shoulder, she asks, "How long are you in for?"

After a shrug, I state, "Two hours."

Cady—being the dramatic girl she is—widens her eyes so much they could rival decorative plates, and then she shakes her head in an exaggerated manner. "I can't believe you got two whole hours." She pauses to shut her locker after getting her things out of it. "That being said," she continues, "I'm outta here. See you tomorrow, Cami."

I wave at her as she turns to leave. "Bye, Cady." When she disappears around a corner, I heave in a breath and start towards detention.

Somewhere in between here and there, Etch catches up to me and rests his arm against my back. "Hey, Vanilla. You ready for one of the best two hours of your life?"

Out of the corner of my eye, I see Etch smirking, so in a defiant manner, I reply, "Nope."

Etch chuckles sweetly, and as my heart melts at the sound, he pulls me closer to him. "Yeah, I thought so. I mean who would be ready to spend so much time with this?" He gestures to himself, and I scoff.

"Yeah, uh-huh," I start. "I know, you told me this morning that most girls would just kill to spend that much time with you."

Etch's amused smirk makes an appearance as he hums in affirmation. "True. Very true."

Somehow, this makes me laugh, and as I do, I glance up to see Etch half-smirking, half-smiling at me, and I gotta admit, that facial expression looks beyond cute on him.

We arrive at the detention room in the nick of time, because the detention-monitoring teacher is just starting to shut the door. Etch and I slip into the classroom and take seats in the back, right next to each other.

The detention teacher, an older looking man who teaches one of the senior classes, takes out a slip of paper and starts doing a headcount of the students under his breath. When he finishes, he clears his throat. "Alright, you know how this works. If any of y'all leave this room, you'll be in for another detention tomorrow. I've got things to do in my own classroom, and I'll be back sometime before the first hour finishes. When I come back I'm going to do another headcount, and if any of you are missing, count on spending another hour here tomorrow."

The students collectively grunt, and the teacher unenthusiastically leaves the classroom, grumbling complaints under his breath.

Etch takes out his phone and stares at his clock app for about two minutes before taking my hand and dragging me back to the front of the room. "Etch! Where on earth are you taking me? We're supposed to stay here, remember!!"

He smiles mischievously at me before opening the classroom door and glancing out of it to make sure the coast is clear. "After you," he states.

I don't think I have a choice in this.

As quietly as I can, I make my way into the hallway, and something in my brain makes me press my back against the wall next to the door. For stealth reasons. I guess.

Etch closes the door behind us and then peeks at me. With an eyebrow raised at me, he waves me along. "Come on, Vanilla. Let's go up to the room."

He starts walking, and I tiptoe behind him, being careful to keep a close eye on my surroundings.

Apparently, I'm not good at this, because just before we reach the east wing staircase, I bump into Etch's chest, unaware that he'd stopped and turned around.

I glance up at him wearing a sheepish grin. He looks amused as he asks me, "What were you doing, Vanilla?"

Shrugging passively, I tell him, "I was trying to be stealthy and aware of my surroundings."

Etch chuckles and takes my hand. "I don't think you'd be good in a Mission:Impossible movie," Etch states as he leads me up the stairs.

Even though he isn't facing me anymore, I pout, and childishly mumble, "I would, too."

I hear him half-laugh, half-scoff. "Uh-huh. Right." He states sarcastically.

As we get to the landing at the top of the stairs, I take my hand out of his, mostly out of pettiness after he said I wouldn't be good in a Mission movie. He glances back at me, and I scowl at him, which only makes him smirk.

That damn smirk of his. I want to smack it off of his handsome smug face.

He ignores my deep frown and takes my hand again, on his way back to the closet. When we arrive at the door, he lets go of my hand again, to which I don't know whether to be relieved or sad.

I actually think sadness won, in comparison to the relief.

Etch opens the door wide and motions for me to go in first. "M'lady."

With an eyebrow raised, I walk into the room and murmur, "Chivalry isn't dead."

As he shuts to door, he responds, "No it ain't, Vanilla."

He walks over to his shelf and pulls down his MacBook. he motions for me to join him on the sofa, and I happily oblige. He opens up his laptop and makes his way onto a (most-likely illegal) putlocker site. Turning to me, he asks, "What movie d'you wanna watch, Vanilla?"

I reply without hesitation. "Ocean's Eleven."

I've seen the movie a million times, but honestly, I can never get enough. It is, after all, my favorite movie. Has been since I was twelve.

Smiling slightly, Etch asks, "That your favorite?"

Nodding eagerly as he puts it in the search bar of the site, I reply, "Bingo."

Etch chuckles. "That's one of my favorites, too."

I gaze at him in approval until I hear the movie start.

While the screen is still black, a guard starts shouting. "One con under escort. Open gate one. Man walking. Open gate two. Let's go, face the wall. Got one under escort."

The screen brightens to reveal Danny Ocean walking into frame and sitting in a chair in the middle of the screen.

"Good morning," says a female parole board member.

"Morning," Danny answers.

The board member continues. "Please state your name for the record."

"Daniel Ocean."

She speaks again. "Thank you. Mr. Ocean, the purpose of this hearing is to determine, whether, if released, you are likely to break the law again. While this was your first conviction, you have been implicated, though never charged, in over a dozen other confidence schemes and frauds. What can you tell us about those?"

I glance up to see Etch mouthing the lines under his breath. He's looking intently at the screen, and I smile at him. I think that while watching him mouth along with the lines of my favorite movie, my crush on him has grown considerably.

In answer to her question, Danny deadpans, "As you say, ma'am, I was never charged."

We watch for the next fifty minutes in silence, completely absorbed in the movie.

•

A/N

So yeah. More Etch than Luke, but there'll be more of him soon, I promise.

I think I found a good actor to play Luke's character.

That's KJ Apa, in case you didn't know. He's in Riverdale, A Dog's Purpose, The Hate U Give... c'mon you just gotta know who KJ Apa is! He's the most accurate match I could find for the description of Luke. What d'you think?

So, being the horrible fan that I am, I recently realized that The Maze Runner series has two prequels, which I hadn't read. I'm currently about 3/4 of the way through The Kill Order and I can already tell you I hate whoever engineered the Flare with a passion. The PFC I think. From what I've read so far.

What do you think so far? Don't hold back your constructive criticism. It's very welcome.

It's 30° out and I'm sleeping with my window open during the beginning of flu season. Yay, me.

I'm flip-flopping with my topics in this authors note. I would apologize but honestly I apologize to much as it is so deal with it.     :) I put a smiley face there so you know that wasn't meant to be rude.

If you made it this far into the story, I commend you and I greatly appreciate you, the marvelous person reading this. I've sent some good vibes your way. 

~Alex