Crushing On The Wrong Joshua (Crushing on You 3)

“Sure, just hurry up, sweetheart,” her dad said, straightening his tie.

Amber missed her first period history class, which was her favorite class. She didn't mind missing out on it today, because it meant that she could polish her report to perfection over the weekend.

She had just slid into her seat when the bell rang and Mr. O'Bannon gave the order to pass up their homework assignments. Amber turned in her seat and waited for the students behind her to pass their assignments up and handed them to Mr. O'Bannon.

“Why does this stack of assignments only contain six worksheets instead of seven, Miss Atkins?” he asked.

“Because mine isn't there,” Amber said, trying not to roll her eyes.

Why did he have to make a spectacle over homework?

“And why isn't yours here, Miss Atkins?” Mr. O'Bannon asked, arching a dark greasy brow.

“I didn't do it,” Amber admitted.

Amber ignored the guy across the room who winked at her and looked up at Mr. O'Bannon, awaiting her sentence.

“See me after class, Miss. Atkins,” he said.

“Okay,” she nodded.

“Not okay, Miss Atkins. It's yes, sir!” he said.

“Okay, sir,” Amber said, not wanting to look spineless in front of the whole class.

Mr. O'Bannon didn't sentence her to detention. Instead, he threatened to schedule a parent-teacher conference if she didn't catch up on the homework. He had given her until Monday to have it completed and on his desk. It would make her schedule tight and she'd definitely lose sleep. It would be worth it to keep her dad from worrying. Whenever Amber had a problem at school her dad immediately blamed himself.

The extra homework put a damper on Amber's usual Friday sense of freedom. Extra math homework, drama vocabulary words, a history report to polish up, shopping with Tamara, and trying out the spell. The book was due on Monday and Amber was willing to bet money that the librarian wouldn't allow her to renew it. Amber had decided against writing the spell down. Having the book in the house for the weekend was risky enough. She didn't even want to think what her dad would have to say if he found the book in her possession.

The spell book was still safely inside her backpack, because Amber didn't trust her dad not t

o come home from work and search her room while she was gone. He had taken to doing random room checks, which annoyed her, because what had she ever done to give him a reason to distrust her? She planned to do the spell this evening when her dad was playing his normal round of golf with his cronies from the office.

“What's with you today?” Tamara asked her while they waited for their parents to arrive.

“I forgot my math homework again,” Amber frowned.

“Forgot it where?” she asked.

“Forgot it, as in, I didn't do it,” Amber sighed.

“O'Bannon stick you in the stockades?” Tamara asked, arching a penciled on brow.

“Nah, he's giving me the weekend to finish it up,” Amber admitted, “I'm just thinking about stuff.”

“What stuff?” Tamara asked, “You're not trying to back out of our Saturday shopping trip are you, girl?”

“What?” Amber blinked and shook her head, “No! Never! Nothing is going to keep me from going shopping with you tomorrow! I need the retail therapy.”

“Then what's eatin' at you?” Tamara asked.

“I don't know Joshua Nelson's favorite color,” Amber admitted, telling a half-lie-half-truth.

“I don't know why you care so much. If you want to know so badly just take your skinny butt over there and ask him!” Tamara said, trying to give Amber a shove in the direction of the basketball team and their girlfriends.

“No!” Amber said and pushed back against Tamara's hands, “I can't. I just can't!”

“How are you supposed to ever date the guy, if you won't even talk to him?” Tamara rolled her brown eyes.