*Edited*

Uriah raised his eyebrows at us when Elijah and I sat back down at the table. Mae looked between the two of us, worried about what had happened just now.

My smile was strained as I said, "We're back."

As soon as the words were out of my mouth, our waiter came over to take our order for drinks. We told him that we were ready to order our dinner as well even though I had hardly been able to look through the menu.

Elijah and Mae ordered first and then the waiter turned to me.

"Uh, I'll have whatever he gets," I said, gesturing at Uriah. He pointed at the menu and told the waiter, "I'll have this."

Shit. I had forgotten Uriah liked spicy food. He ordered a burger with jalapeño peppers and a side of seasoned french fries. Before I could change my order, the waiter collected our menus and said he would be right back with our drinks.

I'd have to make sure to save my drink for when I really needed it. I couldn't handle spicy food that well.

"What new classes do you have tomorrow since a new semester is beginning?" Mae asked Elijah.

I groaned. "Ugh, I forgot our schedules changed tomorrow. I'm pretty sure I'm in a cooking class like fourth period."

"Nice, do you like cooking?" Uriah asked me. I shook my head, "No. I just took the class to fill my schedule. I didn't know what else to take."

Uriah laughed. "I'm taking a financial planning class seventh period. I heard it's an easy A."

The obnoxious boy sitting next to me cleared his throat. "I have an art class sixth period," he said, only looking at Mae.

"No way! So do I!" She said, bouncing in her seat which made her hair bob up and down.

"I was also planning on taking another class, but now I think I might drop it," he said, shrugging.

"Why? What class is it?" Mae asked.

"Cooking. Fourth period."

"Oh hell no," I said, "Math and history class with you together in one day is enough torture for me. I don't need you in my cooking class as well. You have to drop it."

He rubbed his chin as if deep in thought. "Hmm, now that you say that, I realized that if I don't take that class, then I won't have enough credits to graduate junior year since I started so late in the year. Why don't you drop it?"

"I can't. That's literally the only class that will fit in my schedule."

Elijah and I stared at each other for a while, not daring to be the first to look away. "I knew it," Elijah said, narrowing his eyes.

"What?" I asked as the waiter came back with our drinks. Elijah waited for him to hand them out before continuing.

"You're going to poison my food in that class," he said as I took a sip of my soda.

"Trust me, I have better ways to kill you than that." I turned away from him and focused on Uriah. He raised an eyebrow at me and shook his head, chuckling to himself.

"Will you two ever get along?" He asked, waving his straw at Elijah and me, getting a drop of Pepsi soda on the table.

"No," we said at the same time.

"Jinx, you owe me a soda," Elijah drawled. He grabbed my soda and sipped out of my straw while his green eyes flashed, looking at me.

"Elijah!" I yelled, trying to snatch my soda back. He slid it out of my reach and took the straw out of his mouth, focusing his attention on Mae.

I decided to ignore him for the rest of dinner once our waiter served us our food. I took one bite of the burger and my tongue literally felt like it was on fire. I darted my eyes over to my soda that was still far out of my reach. I needed a drink fast.

I wasn't about to give Elijah the satisfaction of seeing me suffer without my soda, so I vowed not to take it back from him. I took another bite of the burger as Uriah asked, "How do you like your burger? This is my favorite meal."

I chewed and swallowed, flinching as the burger went down my throat before I answered him. "It's great," I lied again.

"Liar," Elijah mumbled. "Your face is as red as a tomato and the sweat beading on your forehead says otherwise." He hitched an eyebrow at me, but my stubbornness continued to kick in, so I would not ask for my drink back no matter what. There was no way I was proving Elijah right.

By now, my mouth felt completely numb. My tongue was tingling from the hot jalapeño peppers, but I decided to be strong and finish the entire burger without a drink and ended up proving Elijah wrong.

Nah, just kidding. Did you honestly believe me?

Since my soda was so far away, I grabbed the next best thing; the soda that was sitting right next to me. I took huge gulps until the fire in my mouth had been put out. I sat back in my seat to meet the stares of my table mates.

"Gross. You got your nasty spit all over my straw and you probably backwashed in my soda," Elijah said when I pushed his soda back to him. He stopped my attempt and shoved it back over to me. "You can keep that."

Uriah chuckled. "I didn't know you didn't like spicy food, Veronica. I figured you'd be okay with the burger and hot peppers since we went to The Mexican Grill on our first date."

"Yeah, I-"

"You're a liar, Ronnie," Elijah interrupted. I tightened my hand around his soda at the nickname for Veronica. Everyone used to call me Ronnie when I was a child, which I certainly wasn't anymore.

"Don't ever call me that again," I spat.

"Alright, Ronnie." Elijah grinned deviously. I shot Mae a helpless look and she just shrugged. "I think it's a cute name," she said, smiling politely.

Cute, my ass.

I dropped the issue. I didn't feel like arguing with Elijah anymore. We've basically been fighting since we sat down and I was drained.

For the rest of the time, I engaged in normal conversation with everyone. I paid no attention to Elijah and only talked with Mae and Uriah. By the time I got home and was in my bedroom, it took me no time at all to fall asleep.

**********

"This class is an introductory culinary course. You will learn how to work diligently with each other in order to properly prepare you for working with many different types of people in the real world. I will allow you to write down one other student's name who you would like to work with and then I will pair the two of you up with another pair. There are five kitchens in this room, so we will have five groups of four," Mrs. Winston addressed us during fourth period cooking class. She had a pudgy face and stomach and was wearing a wacky sweater with a skirt that didn't even match.

I knew we would get along just fine. She passed out a paper for us to write down a partner's name. When it got to me, I just left it blank. I didn't care who I worked with since no one in here was my friend.

We were sitting in a large room with five small kitchens spaced out, circling around an area of twenty desks where we all currently sat, listening to Mrs. Winston explain everything we needed to know about this class.

I passed the paper to the person sitting next to me. He obnoxiously clicked his pen so many times that it made me cringe. I finally turned to tell him to stop and froze with my mouth open when I realized who was sitting next to me. I don't know how I didn't notice before.

"Elijah."

"Ronnie," he responded evenly.

I stared in his green eyes as he matched my glare. He clicked his pen one more time and turned his gaze to the paper. He scribbled his name and I wondered whose name he was going to write down. Most of the people in this class had only taken it because it would be an easy class. They were the kind of students who didn't really care about school.

I stretched my neck to see the name Elijah had written beside his own. I got a peek as he passed it on to the next person. In messy handwriting, Elijah had written his name and a dash that connected the two names together.

The second name had said Veronica.

"Are you insane?" I hissed under my breath.

He didn't answer me. Instead, he stared straight ahead at the teacher as he clicked his pen. I snatched it out of his hand and shoved it inside my backpack. A slight smirk lifted up the corner of his mouth and I felt like smacking it off of his face.

"We're going to start a fire or something in the kitchen if we have to work together," I tried to reason with him.

Still, he ignored me as his smirk grew larger.

"Is there something you'd like to share with the class, Veronica?" Mrs. Winston asked, startling me.

"Uh, no." The class snickered at my expense and I rolled my eyes.

"In that case..." She said as she continued with her lecture that I completely spaced through. Apparently we were doing our first cooking lab tomorrow in the kitchens with our new groups.

I already dreaded the rest of the semester with this class. I sighed and dropped my forehead on the table when Mrs. Winston was done with her lesson on desserts.

"What the hell?" Elijah muttered. I lifted my head to see him rapidly typing out a text on his phone.

"What?"

Elijah stood up suddenly and his chair scraped across the ground. He left the classroom just as the bell rang. I darted after him to see what was going on and caught up to him once he was in the library behind one of the bookcases.

"What are you doing?" I asked.

Elijah sat down and leaned against the bookcase, dialing a number. He held the cellphone to his ear and cursed after a few minutes, angrily hanging up.

"Are you gonna tell me why you're skipping class to make random phone calls in the library?" I prompted, sitting across from him with my legs crossed.

"Like I'd actually tell you. You probably don't even like-"

"Like what?"

He sighed, aggravated and said, "Pierce the Veil is having a concert tomorrow night and I'm trying to win tickets, but you're here, interrupting my chances of winning."

I held up my hands. "Woah, wait. Pierce the Veil is having a concert here tomorrow?" I asked, getting excited. He nodded slowly at me, giving me a look as if I was stupid.

"Sorry buddy," I said, pulling my cellphone out of my pocket, "but those tickets are mine."

Pierce the Veil was only my favorite band out there. I ignored the fact that Elijah liked them as well because the less we had in common, the better.

"You wouldn't dare," he growled.

I grinned and dialed the number that I had peeked at while he had first called. The line buzzed in my ear until someone answered and I held my breath as my heart beat rapidly in my chest.

"Congratulations! You are one of the top five winners," an automated voice said, "Find out if you won the top prize tickets by receiving them in the mail. Only one of you five will win two tickets to the Pierce the Veil concert tomorrow night. Please state your full name and address so we can send your tickets to you if you are the winner."

"Veronica Fray," I stated a little nervously, "39 Westbrook Ave."

"Elijah Reed. 43 Westbrook Ave," I heard Elijah say into his own phone.

I flicked my eyes to him and he narrowed his on me. We hung up our phone calls and stared at each other. One out of the five top callers would receive the tickets. Elijah and I had apparently both been in the top five. There was a pretty darn good chance of one of us winning.

"Those tickets are mine," we said at the same time.

"Jinx," he said, raising an eyebrow.

Still not standing up, we sat openly glaring at each other.

"Who would you use your second ticket on anyway?" Elijah asked. 

"Uriah, duh."

Elijah frowned. "Bad choice. Uriah hates this kind of music. He enjoys music more along the lines of rap."

"Who would you use yours on then?" I countered, disappointed Uriah wouldn't want to go to the concert.

"Mae."

"Ugh. We should just cut a deal here. Whoever wins out of the two of us should give the extra ticket to the loser," I tried to reason. "That way, we'll get to go to the concert regardless of who wins."

"Good idea," he agreed, standing up.

"Really?" I asked to make sure. I had a huge grin on my face thinking about how much fun the concert was going to be.

"No," he said as the bell rang.

I better not have ditched class for the first time ever for no reason, especially with the guy I hated the most. I was going to that concert no matter what.

*********

Sorry for the super long chapter! Who do you think will win the tickets and who will they use the second ticket on?