Chapter Ten
The second bell rang, sharp, final, and far too loud for how full everyone's stomachs were.
It was just after lunch, and the classroom felt like it had been dipped in molasses. Students wandered in slowly, voices low and lazy, dragging their feet like every step back to their desks was a betrayal of freedom. Chairs scraped and backpacks thudded to the floor with a few kids were still chewing.
Desmond slipped in a few seconds behind Leo, brushing crumbs off his trousers as he dropped into his seat.
He looked beside him and caught Frankie's eye, and mouthed, Sorry.
Frankie gave a small shrug and the faintest smile. It's fine.
And it was. She didn't look fazed by the incident at lunch or by Leo's earlier interruption.
Leo watched Frankie as he took his seat and wondered why she wasn't drowning in embarrassment and humiliation from the incidents. He tossed his blazer across the back of his chair and sat down hard, arms crossed.
Miss Claudette strode in with a stack of papers tucked under her arm, her presence instantly slicing through the post-lunch daze. She wore her usual steel-grey suit and an expression that dared anyone to test her resolve.
"Eyes up, mouths shut and phones away," she said, placing the stack of papers on her desk without looking up. "You know the drill."
Groans rippled through the room like a wave.
"A quiz?" someone moaned from the middle row. "It's Monday!"
"Exactly," Claudette replied, fixing her glasses. "Because you're most dangerous when you're relaxed. Today's quiz will be in pairs."
The room buzzed louder, murmurs, protests, prayers.
She started pairing the students.
"Desmond and Frankie," she said briskly, after pairing a few other kids, pointing at them with the corner of her clipboard. "Leo and Grace. Pascal and Hannah."
Leo's head snapped up. "Seriously?"
Across the aisle, Grace squealed. "Oh my God, this is fate!"
She clutched her highlighters to her chest like a bouquet and practically floated across the aisle toward him, hips swaying with enough purpose to break attention spans.
Frankie arched a brow, looked at Desmond. "You cool with this?"
Desmond grinned. "You're probably gonna carry me anyway."
"Fair warning," she said, pulling out a pen. "I don't tolerate slackers."
Leo threw a pencil down on the table. "Great." It devastated him that he had to work with strangers, he wanted to work with Desmond. That's why he made him to be admitted to the school anyway, "now that goddamn girl has taken him" he muttered.
Grace tossed her hair as she flounced over to sit beside him. She was all perfume and gloss, long lashes, longer legs, and the kind of beauty that didn't bother to be subtle. Her skirt was just at regulation length, her collar slightly undone, and her voice had a rehearsed softness that clung to every syllable.
"I've been waiting for this," Grace purred, sliding into the seat beside him.
"Waiting for what?" Leo muttered, not looking at her.
"To work with you. Everyone knows we'd make a perfect pair."
"Hmm."
Meanwhile, Frankie was already halfway through scanning the first question.
"Alright," she murmured to Desmond. "This one's easy. Use the distributive law, expand first, then simplify."
Desmond blinked. "You're doing that in your head?"
"It's basic algebra," Frankie said. Her voice was smooth. Steady. "You got a pen, or am I soloing this?"
Leo glanced behind him, admiring at the same hating them as they worked together.
Frankie didn't glow like Grace did. No glitter or gloss. She glowed differently.
Like confidence had a body and chose hers to live in. Like she knew exactly who she was and didn't need permission to exist beside anyone, even him.
Grace leaned in close, too close. "Question one, Leo?" she interrupted his thoughts.
"I can read," he muttered.
"Oh. Sorry." She twirled her pen slowly, eyes wide and waiting. "It's just, you looked… distracted."
He was distracted, by the goddamn Frankie, the way she chewed the end of her pen like it held secrets. By the way she tapped her foot, steady as a metronome, syncing with thoughts she didn't say out loud.
It hit him like static.
His heart stuttered, like the first time his eyes met hers. It kept beating, faster.
Too fast, like it was trying to run away from his ribs.
What the hell is wrong with me?
He tore his eyes away hating the way she made him feel.
"You okay?" Grace whispered.
"No," he muttered. "I mean, fine. Let's just get this done."
Frankie answered another question aloud, then turned to Desmond. "Come on, you do number three. I'll check it."
Desmond scribbled.
Leo couldn't resist watching them, his neck hurts from staring at them but he can't just help it.
He watched the way Frankie leaned just slightly toward Desmond to read his work, watched the little smile she gave when he got it right, watched Desmond sit up straighter, obviously tensed by her closeness.
He watched them exist in this weird, effortless rhythm that made something claw inside Leo's chest.
"I'll just follow your lead," Grace said, clearly waiting for him to take charge. "You're probably better at this."
Leo didn't answer.
Because Frankie just tucked her hair behind her ear, and the smell of her cheap shampoo carried on the air, faint and maddening.
Her lips moved as she murmured something to Desmond.
He noticed everything.
The way her mouth curved slightly when she was thinking, the way her skin caught the light, not glossy like Grace's, but sun-warmed and natural. The way her voice slipped through the noise like it didn't have to fight for attention, like it belonged, and everyone else would simply adjust.
She was beautiful, ridiculously smart, like it wasn't a skill but a reflex. And worst of all, she didn't give the slightest damn that Leo was in the room.
She didn't glance his way or perform or offer him anything resembling recognition.
She didn't care.
His senses were just too sharper than normal, he had a headache from the knowledge he was gathering of Frankie.
Leo forced his gaze back to his worksheet, though the numbers blurred at the edges.
"You do number four," he said to Grace, voice flat.
"Really?" Grace blinked in surprise. "I thought you were the leader."
"I'm not interested in being a leader today," he muttered.
Grace pouted, twirling her pen, wondering why Leo was suddenly obsessed with the new pauper girl.
Desmond and Frankie were laughing, quietly like they'd known each other longer than a day. It wasn't loud or flirty or forced.
Leo's jaw tensed. He stared down at his paper again, but nothing stuck. The equations might as well have been in another language. All he could think about was her, two seats away but still too close to ignore.
Pascal the jerk liked her, that much was clear.
Desmond liked her too, maybe more than he realized.
And Frankie? She didn't seem to care about either of them or him which made it worse.
He wanted to hate her more.
People always cared about Leo, noticed him, tried to impress him, please him, win him or obsess over him.
Frankie looked at him like he was just another boy in another chair. Nothing worth bending for and that indifference dug under his skin like splinters he couldn't pull out.
He hated her.