Chapter 2

Jenny had to say goodbye when we got to the door of the Chem Lab. Unlike Allie and I, she had Marine Biology.

She'd been beyond happy when she found out our school offered a Marine Bio elective. Since she was seven, she knew what she was going to be: a marine biologist.

It cracked Allie up when Jenny had told her that all those years ago and it cracked me up just as much last week when Jenny told me where she was headed to after lunch.

Here was the girl who, on five different occasions, got sunburned after just ten minutes in the sun and she was gunning for a career in a field that would make her a human briquette. Jenny would now only be getting buckets of sunblock from me on her birthdays and Christmas.

I frowned when I saw that the long tables in the Chem Lab had setups for an experiment on them. This was not a good sign.

True, I may be the holder of the highest GPA in the school but I'm also clumsy. I don't trip on my own two feet – I'm not that helplessly clumsy – but being surrounded by breakable glassware and chemicals, harmful or otherwise, raises my stress levels.

The only reason I was in AP Chem instead of AP Biology was because cells bored the life out of me. I'd rather be stressed than bored, I'd said when I signed up for the class but seeing all the beakers and test tubes on the tables made me question my thinking at the time.

Allie and I took our usual seats at the front of the room. I can practically hear you hissing, Nerd, but we have our reasons for sitting at the very front: Mrs. Rouleau has the most ridiculously illegible handwriting on the planet.

"Settle down. Settle down," Mrs. Rouleau called out to the class as she shrugged on her lab coat. She was a small woman, much shorter than my 5'6" and built as if someone had wrapped a skeleton in loose skin and held it all together with a tight gray bun of her hair on top.

"Today we will be performing an experiment we were supposed to do last week had the school been able to get its funding on time," she continued to grumble something about schools and funding for the sciences for a little while then shook her head as if to clear it.

"Anyhow, no use crying over spilled chemicals," Mrs. Rouleau laughed at her own joke. "We'll be pairing up today – and no, I will be deciding who goes with whom," she screeched that last part when people had begun looking excitedly at one another.

"We're here to learn about chemistry, not to fraternize," she said to the class's collective groan.

She took out the class roster and began to read off pairs. People shuffled around to where their new stations were.

I cringed while Allie beamed when she'd gotten Alice Chang as her partner. Allie and I had wanted to work together but if she had to have a different partner, I knew she'd want it to be Alice Chang.

It wasn't that Alice was Asian – that's kind of racist, don't you think? – but because she and Alice had worked together last summer at The Chang's restaurant – and no, they don't own a Chinese restaurant. Alice and I were the only two people Allie knew in the class. After a quick smile at me, Allie moved to where Alice was sitting.

"My, my, Ms. Preston. Looks like there'll be no more spills in your future," she looked at me. Not only was the comment weird but it reminded me of last year's beaker fiasco.

I turned to look at the other students and it seemed I was the only one without a pair.

What did she mean by that? Sure, I'd broken a few – alright, I broke six – beakers last year but I don't think that was enough of a reason to exclude me from the experiments, wasn't it?

I was about to ask if I could work with Alice and Allie but the door opened and in came Daniel Tarver.

You could hear the unified swoon of the ladies in the room.

While most of the girls at school swooned at the sight of Nate, the nerdier girls – yes, me included – hyperventilated for Daniel. He was tall, standing at around 6'2", with a lean (verging on wiry) frame, dark brown hair that was neatly combed and the most beautiful blue eyes in the world.

Those same eyes were now looking around curiously at the classroom where most of my classmates were already discussing the experiment.

Oh God. Oh. God.

"Ah, Mr. Tarver, so glad you could finally join us," Mrs. Rouleau smiled. Was she blushing? Ha! She definitely was.

"So sorry, Mrs. Rouleau. It'd slipped my mind that we'd be doing experiments this week and I had to ask my mother to bring my glasses to school," Daniel Tarver apologized with his trademark smile that lifted only the left side of his lips. He pointed to the black plastic-rimmed glasses now perched on his nose.

At the moment, no one was seeing the smile though. Most of the girls were still hanging onto what he'd said.

Daniel Tarver was British. His parents were both doctors and they'd relocated here two years ago. With his eyes, that smile and the English accident, he'd unknowingly caused the heartbreak of most nerdy girls at WBHS.

I know this because my heart broke with them.

Daniel had a girlfriend back in the UK, Mara, and she'd come to visit last summer. She was a year older and she was so posh – Jenny's word, not mine. Word was out though that when Daniel had visited Mara this summer, they'd broken things off.

"Fine, fine, Mr. Tarver, but I don't want any tardiness in the future," Mrs. Rouleau smiled coyly. The woman was still shamelessly flirting.

From the corner of my eye, I looked at Allie. She too was holding in a fit of wild giggles.

"You'll join Ms. Preston, over here," she pointed to me and I felt Daniel take the seat Allie had just vacated.

Once Daniel had settled down, Mrs. Rouleau turned her eyes to me. Her eyes were no longer twinkling flirtatiously. They were now glaring at me in warning. "I expect no spills or broken glassware this year, Ms. Preston," she huffed then left to illegibly write down chemical equations on the blackboard.

"Spills? Broken glassware?" Daniel asked with a muted version of his smile. Clearly, I was amusing him.

"I broke a few beakers last year." I tried to keep my face impassive as if breaking glassware were an everyday occurrence – as if I just randomly dropped beakers on the ground while hollering YOLO!

His eyes widened slightly and it drew my eyes further into his.

I was captivated.

The frozen blue of his irises were ringed by a darker indigo, flecked and marked here and there by the darker blue color.

Stunning.

Those eyes were now twinkling with amusement. "A few? I heard you broke ten," he laughed then stopped. "Preston, Preston ... would you be the Preston with the GPA no one can seem to beat?"

I felt myself blushing. Stop it, stop it, I angrily willed the blood vessels in my cheeks. Calm down.

There it was. Not even five minutes into my very first conversation with this boy and my stupid brain had already managed to overshadow me.

I nodded slightly, barely able to stop my eyes from rolling in irritation. "I broke six beakers, not ten," I clarified.

He blinked. He could tell something he'd said had upset me.

"I'm sure it was an accident," he assured me. "Tell you what. Since we're partners this year and I haven't yet broken any beakers in my lifetime, I'll take the blame if you drop another one this year," he joked.

I smiled. You couldn't help but smile when those eyes were twinkling at you. Never mind that it wasn't the beakers I was really upset about.

I finally understood what Mrs. Rouleau said earlier with what Daniel had just told me. I may have the highest GPA but Daniel was the school's resident Chemistry genius. Like me, he knew his way around a chemical equation. Unlike me though, he was not the type to drop beakers, that's for sure.

"We should ... get started," he gestured at the setup, a small smile on his lips.

"I'll take down notes while you handle the glassware," I chided and, laughingly, he agreed.

The laboratory manual indicated that today's experiment would take thirty minutes to complete but Daniel and I finished it closer to twenty. While the other students were still finishing up the last part of the experiment, Daniel was already going over the notes I'd taken down earlier. Meanwhile, I disposed of the chemicals and washed the laboratory glassware we'd used.

I could feel Mrs. Rouleau watching me like a hawk as I soaped and sterilized a particularly large beaker. I wanted to drop it on the floor just to see exactly how mad she would get but I knew it wasn't one of my brighter ideas. I settled for rolling my eyes when she wasn't looking.

Daniel, however, had caught my small act of rebellion and gave me one of those trademark smiles of his. I held onto the beaker tighter as I felt my inside flutter.

"It might have been disadvantageous, pairing you two together," Mrs. Rouleau mused as she came to check on our results. When Daniel started to question why, Mrs. Rouleau waved him off. "You're already the smartest students in class so there won't be a chance for one to learn off of the other," she quietly said as her hawk eyes scanned our data sheet. Seeing that everything was alright with our work, she smiled up at us. "Then again, I could just tell everyone to keep an eye on how well the both of you are working together."

"You and Daniel working well together, huh?" Allie teased as we made our way out of the Chem Lab to meet up with Jenny. Jenny and I had French class together.

"Of course we do, we both know what we're doing so there's no unnecessarily shuffling around."

"Believe me, there was some shuffling but not the break-a-beaker kind. Everyone could definitely see how knowledgeable you both were, how you both knew exactly how to flirt," Allie chimed.

"Flirt? Could this be? Sara Preston has actually learned the subtle art of flirting?" Jenny had apparently caught the tail end of Allie's joke.

I glared at Allie as she turned the corner to head off to Intermediate Spanish before turning to Jenny. "I wasn't flirting," I grumbled. "Mrs. Rouleau paired me up with Daniel -"

"Oh you lucky, lucky girl."

Jenny was the unofficial president of the Daniel Tarver Fan Club – a fact that grated against her normally pacifistic boyfriend's nerves.

Speaking of her boyfriend, Louis smiled up at us when we entered the classroom for French. He, too, had apparently overheard the last bits of our conversation.

Before he spoke, Louis gave Jenny a kiss on the cheek as we took our seats on either side of him. "We are talking about the same girl who managed to break six beakers, right? How is that lucky again"

Has nobody gotten over that yet?

Jenny rolled her eyes at Louis's lame teasing. "Mrs. Rouleau paired her up with Daniel Tarver."

"Ah."

Jenny had forced Louis to watch Pride and Prejudice once before and he never understood the effect an English accent had on a woman. Louis cleared his throat, changing the conversation.

"Is it alright if you catch a ride with Sara later? My Mom asked me to do the groceries and it's my turn to cook dinner."

Jenny smiled understandingly. "Of course."

Louis's dad had run out on them when Louis was twelve and his mom had to pick up extra shifts at the hospital where she worked as a nurse. Louis had to step up with taking care of his now thirteen-year-old sister and fourteen-year-old brother.

Any further conversation was interrupted by the arrival of Madame Rochelle. The class – or rather, the boys in the class – had gotten quiet and it wasn't because Madame Rochelle was a frightening old bat who put the fear of God in you.

She was twenty six, smoking hot – Louis' words, not mine – and spoke with a slight French lilt. He may not see the draws of English accent in a teenage male but Louis could definitely appreciate a French accent on a lady.

An update in less than a day? I don't normally write this fast but I couldn't sleep after posting the first chapter last night. 

Check out Colton Haynes who, for me, looks exactly like the Nate I had in my head.

Don't forget to comment and vote.

Cheers!

- Chompy