Ace of Hearts (FU High 1)

“Okay.” She slides a pile of supplies in front of me. “You owe Mrs. Burdock ten bucks.”

“On it.” I reach for my wallet and pull out the necessary cash. “What are we making?”

“A pillowcase.”

“Fresh.” I shake out the material and look around me. Everyone is sorting through their stuff and making notes. I glance over at Ace’s table. She’s got numbers on her pad. I narrow my eyes. “Is there math in this class? No one told me there’d be math.”

“There’s no math,” Ace assures me.

“I mean…I’m not gonna call you a liar, Ace, but there are numbers in your notebook.”

She stifles a giggle. “I promise you that there’s no real math.”

“There’s an equal sign. That definitely signals some kind of addition, subtraction. Maybe even that advanced thing called multiplication.” I mock shudder.

“I can help you,” offers a girl to my right.

Ace’s smile turns south. I hurry and turn the girl down so Ace doesn’t crawl over my lap and fight this student. “Nah, Ace has got it. She’s a human calculator, right?”

“Not really.”

“Well, if you need anything, I’m Marisa Hardy.” She holds out her fingers.

I glance toward Ace to see what she wants me to do because I can easily ignore this chick but if Ace wants me to be friendly, I can shake the hand. I raise my eyebrows in a silent question. She gives me a slight nod.

“Owen Fast McCoy,” I tell the girl and slap my fingers across hers. “New guy. Ace’s boyfriend. Ace is new here, too.”

“My boyfr—” Ace cuts herself off when Marisa kind of armbars me back so she can reach a hand out to Ace.

“I thought you were new, but I didn’t want to say anything,” Marisa says to Ace. The two shake hands. I like this Marisa girl. I give her a mental checkmark in the good column.

“Alice Alistair but everyone calls me Aly. Yeah. My dad got a job in town,” Ace says, “so we moved.”

“That sucks,” Marisa declares. “You had to move your senior year? I’d be livid.”

Ace makes a face. “Nah. I went to this awful boarding school before so I was glad to leave. FU seems cool. I mean, it’s only day one but most everyone’s been nice so far.”

“Is that where the two of you met? At the boarding school?”

“Nope,” I cut in cheerfully. “I saw Ace at the mall the other day.”

“We’re not actually dating. We’re friends,” Ace corrects.

“I’m a boy. We’re friends. That makes me a boyfriend. It’s kind of like math only with words.”

Ace sighs. “We literally just met today,” she says to Marisa. “And so we’re not dating or anything.”

Marisa is bemused. “Okay. I mean, whatever you two have going on isn’t really any of my business, but it’s cute. Whatever it is.” She slides back into her chair. “Just stay away from the football guys. They’re all assholes.”

I take that back. Marisa is not a good girl. I move her into the red column and put a big red x next to her name. “Wow, is this a needle?” I exclaim, picking up a small silver thing, hoping to derail any discussion about asshole football players. I wonder what Carter did that gives the team such a bad name. I mean, it can’t all be on Billy…can it?

“Yes, it’s a needle,” another girl giggles. I look up to see that half the class has moved their tables and chairs closer to Ace and me.

“How the hell am I supposed to get the thread inside this tiny eye?” I hold up the needle and squint. I’ve got magic hands. You can throw anything within an arm’s distance of me and I’m catching it. I don’t care if it’s a watermelon, a kettle bell weighing fifty pounds, or a football. I’m catching it. But this needle thing is so small that I can barely see it and the hole where the thread is supposed to go through is tinier yet. “Y’all are funnin’ me, aren’t you? This isn’t the needle. No one can put thread through this fucking hole. That’s ridiculous.” I turn to Ace for agreement but she’s covering her face with her hands to hide her amusement. All around me the faces of the girls are in different stages of laughter. With the needle still pinched between my fingers, I raise my palms up. “It’s true and any of you saying it’s not are lying.”

“Here, you can use my needle threader,” the barrette girl offers.

That sounds like a vaguely pornographic offer. I turn her down. “Ace here volunteered to thread all my needles. Thanks though.”

The girls return to their seats.

“I did?” she queries.

I grab her hand and lay the needle in her palm. “You did, silently, and I accepted. Knock yourself out.”

Ace takes the sewing tool, mutters something under her breath that sounds suspiciously like, “I don’t know what is happening,” but threads the needle for me anyway.