Keri pulled Nate over to our lunch table, and forced him to sit down. Our eyes didn’t meet – the conversation we had before was in my head. What did he mean, about the whole Kindergarten thing? It was a long time ago…why should I remember?
The second Nate’s butt touched the seat, about ten girls all ran to our table, sitting down as well. I rolled my eyes, putting down my hot dog. Suddenly, I wasn’t hungry any more. I tried to ignore the giggles of the girls, who were now invading my personal space. Weren’t they meant to be avoiding me? Did the carefully cultivated reputation suddenly not matter any more?
I stood up, and the girls all shut up. Their eyes were trained on me fearfully.
“I’m leaving,” I told Keri, ignoring Nate. “I have to go…practice. I have a tournament coming up, and the other guy’s about double my height and my age.”
Keri smiled, playing along. She knew this was just to boost my ego in front of these idiots. “You reckon you could take him?”
“Yeah,” I replied, like it was the stupidest question in the world. “Of course I can. I took him last time. He was in a coma for a while.”
“Well, good luck.”
“Bye,” I said, enjoying all the fearful stares directed at my face. I turned around, and left.
This was who I was. The one everyone was afraid of. And you know what? Kind of fun.
***
End of the day
***
I checked the address on the piece of paper Keri had given me. Yep. This was definitely the place.
“Well, Nate. Let’s go.”
“Are you kidding me? We’re going to work in a posh, private school? No. No way.”
“What’s this school’s name?” I called loudly, over my shoulder. “Oh, right. Charlotte’s Private School…for GIRLS.”
He was by my side at an almost superhuman speed.
***
“The mop is here. The bucket is here. Clean.”
I grimaced at the gym manager’s disappearing back. “God, what a loser. If he wasn’t paying us, I would go all karate on his butt.” I turned back to Nate, expectantly. “Well, Nate? Clean.”
He gaped. “Are you kidding me? You do it!”
“My dearest, sweetest Bachelor,” I said, smiling. I had to pull the Bachelor card. I could see he wasn’t about to do what I wanted. “I really think you should.”
Grumbling, he did as I said. I watched him scrub at the floor, with a smirk on my face.
***
“That was awful,” Nate grumbled, kicking the wall. He winced, and grabbed his foot.
“Idiot,” I muttered.
“I heard that,” he snapped.
“Well, I said it loud.”
We were walking home, having established that no one was walking anyone else home, simply that we were two people to had to go the same way. And maybe one of them was scared of the dark (i.e. Nate. How stupid is that?). I practically had to push him away every few seconds. He kept clinging to me, because “the darkness was scary”. Or maybe he just wanted to feel me up. Whichever way, I wasn’t letting him near me.
“No, Nate!” I yelled, slapping him. “I like Noah, okay?”
“Right.”
***
