Falling for Ocean Blue [BxB] ✔️

Chapter Thirty seven

Grace, Peter, Minho, and I sit at a picnic table chipped and hidden in the shade of an old birch tree. It's study hall and we're hunched over a single textbook, taking it in turns to read about the study of epigenetics.

Grace is fascinated, making remarks, and nudging her boyfriend when he loses focus. Minho speaks low, mostly to himself, stopping only to quote facts he's learned. His hair is slicked in a gel cast and combed off to the side. Neat and tidy personified. Peter and I are barely paying attention. He raises his eyebrow at me whenever the other two remark excitedly over every dull detail.

"How are your practice sessions going?" asks a very bored Peter, hellbent on derailing yet another study hall.

Minho groans.

"Mine are going great!" Grace interjects, "Stacey Lu is so amazing. She listens and she does the homework I assign. She'll definitely win the competition."

Minho scoffs.

Peter grins widely.

"No way. Benson is such a smart kid. He learns quick. We heard Stacey at your last practice. She's good, but she's a novice."

"Wanna bet?"

"Gambling is a big part of your dynamic, isn't it?" Minho steals away the book and reads intently, annoyed by the turn in conversation.

"Brandon can't be awful..." I offer him my condolences in a thinly veiled and weak praise.

"He never concentrates. He brings his girlfriend to every practice. He doesn't shower beforehand, so he smells like a muddy shoe. Violin is difficult for anyone. I expected a little more commitment."

Grace tuts.

"Be a little more tolerant. They're in love!"

Peter stoops low to kiss his girlfriend on her temple. Minho rolls his black eyes in contempt.

"What about you, Max? You never use the music rooms to practice." Peter mumbles.

They both stare at me in wait.

"Max uses the old storage room."

I look up in surprise. Minho is reading the laminated pages, disengaged from the company.

"How do you know that?" I ask.

My mind is thrashing, trying to remember if I ever closed the door of my warm harbour. Safe from prying eyes.

Minho just shrugs.

"You asked about it that day in music class. When I saw you didn't book practice rooms, I assumed you've been practising there."

"With Fray Anderson?" Grace exclaims, "Alone?"

"It's a good piano..."

Peter chuckles.

"That all?"

"You know there was a rumour Wolfe Oberstein and Fray were dating in secret. Someone caught them at a party in one of the bedrooms."

"So?"

Peter just shrugs.

"He's referring to your altercation outside of Walgreen. It likely has to do with your close relationship with Fray. A lover's spat, perhaps. Why anyone chooses to date during senior year is beyond me."

Minho sighs in that sage wizard-trapped-in-a-seventeen-year-old's body kind of way.

"We're just worried about you. Don't get involved in that mess." Grace gingerly places her hand on mine. The purple-haired girl is solemn in her aura, smiling softly as she traces circles into the nook of my thumb.