Nero laughed. “You think I give a shit what these people think?”
Elle looked at him; like, really looked at him. He was much taller than her, but when they were sitting down, she didn’t have to look up to see his face. He had dark skin and was cleanly shaven, but she could tell he could grow a beard like any older man. Something about his eyes intrigued her; it was like they were emeralds.
“No, clearly you don’t.”
As soon as Elle went up to the back of the class to pick up her poster, Nero followed right behind her. He found his first and headed back to the table. Elle grabbed her blank poster and headed back as well. She laid the poster on the table and took her seat.
“How come yours doesn’t have anything on it?”
“Because I haven’t decided what to put on it.” Elle actually still hadn’t decided what to do with the darned thing.
“You do know you’re just supposed to throw shit on it you like, right?”
“Yes, I know that.” Elle stared at her poster and bit her lip. Who am I?
“You’re thinking too hard about this. What makes you happy?”
Elle looked at Nero. She could tell he was confused as to why she didn’t know what to put on her poster. She swore he looked almost concerned.
What makes me happy? She had never thought of it like that. A lot of things in her life made her upset; however, she knew what always made her happy; it was how she stayed sane.
Elle opened her satchel, then grabbed some lined paper out and a pen.
She looked at Nero, and for the first time, she gave him a smile. “Thanks.”
Nero threw his arm behind her chair. “No problem, babe.”
And then he ruins it. “Don’t call me that. You should go back.” Elle nodded toward the table he had sat at yesterday. The two girls had been putting daggers into her skin the entire time. “I think they miss you calling them ‘babe’, anyways.”
“Yeah, you would know. I saw you watching me yesterday.”
“I don’t kno—”
Nero grabbed the back of her head and made her look at him. “Don’t lie to me. Not now, not ever.” His deep tone became serious and his eyes demanded an answer.
Elle could only nod, her mouth starting to turn dry. She wasn’t scared of him. But I probably should be.
“Good. Now, this is where I’m going to sit whether you have a problem with it or not. I understand if you don’t want me to sit with you at lunch, for now, but don’t tell me to move again.”
After a second, she retorted, “Fine.” Elle tried to make it seem as if she allowed him to sit there, but she knew she hadn’t won that one by the way he was smiling. Arrogant asshole.
Shutting out the boy next to her, Elle was finally able to begin filling the paper with her words. She had always loved to write; it helped her escape everything that troubled her, and Elle had a lot of troubles.
Every now and then, she could sense Nero staring at her. She thought it was a strange feeling to have a boy look at her the way he did. She couldn’t describe the sensation because she had never had it before. No boy had ever looked at her or paid her any attention in high school. Now, within one day, Nero was talking to her and choosing to sit beside her. She didn’t know how to feel about it.
Her emotions had been all over the place the last couple of days. As a result, Elle kept doing what she was doing—writing.
“Can I use your pen a second?” Nero held out his hand.
“Yeah, sure.” She gave him the pen and saw him outline something on his poster, although she couldn’t make anything out.
“You know, in the supply closet there are much better writing pens. The words will stand out better with a nicer pen.”
Elle could see Nero might be a while with her pen, so she got up and headed for the closet in the back of the class, which had several shelves; Elle had no idea where the pens would be.
“Here.” Elle felt Nero’s body lightly at her back as he reached over her and grabbed something out of one of the top bins, bringing a pen down and handing it to her. Elle gave him a half smile and started to walk out of the closet, but something had been bothering her; she needed to know something from him because, right then, it didn’t make any sense why he was talking to her.
She decided to turn around and ask him, looking right up at his face. “Why now? Not one time have you ever spoken to me, and now you’re acting like we just met or something.”
“You really want to know?”
Elle swallowed hard. She probably didn’t; however, she needed to. She nodded and looked down at his chest.
“All right.” He shut the closet door then took a step toward her.
“W-what are you d-doing?” With every word she spoke, she took a step back. Nero took one more step toward her until her back hit the door and she was pinned.
“Yesterday, I saw you staring at me and Cassandra, and later, I caught you again in the parking lot with Stephanie.” He took a step closer, closing the small gap she had placed between them. “Usually, people feel too uncomfortable. They won’t even look in my direction.” As Nero leaned down, Elle thought he was going to kiss her for a second; instead, his mouth came close to her ear. “But you couldn’t pull your eyes away.” His words made her ear warm, causing the rest of her flesh to become heated.
He grabbed her chin to make her finally look in his eyes. “There is something dying to come out…” His finger traveled down her neck and stopped right above the swell of her breasts. “And I want to be the one who brings it out, Elle.” Hearing her name brought her out of the trance he had put over her.