First Down

1. Adrian Brown

"As you all saw on the syllabus, this assignment requires partnering up. I have already partnered you all up, so listen for your name and please stand as I call you so you and your partner know who each other are. You'll need to connect outside of this class because I won't be providing any time in class outside of today to work on it." Dr. Frances let out as she grabbed a paper of what I assumed had the list of partners.

I let out a deep sigh only loud enough for the people closest to me to hear. The person to my left turned and nodded his head in agreement with what I felt, we would have much preferred to choose our own partner.

"Adrian Brown and Jaelyn Brentwood." Based on the last name I knew she just did it in alphabetical order. "No fucking way." I mumbled under my breath before standing up to catch eyes with Jaelyn, I gave a slight nod before sitting back down as Dr. Frances ran through the list of names. I felt like I was partnered with the worst person in here, she was the party girl of party girls and there were two things I didn't play about, football and my grades. And there wasn't any way she was focused on her grades with the way she was out damn near every day of the week. "Fuck" I mumbled again at the thought of it.

After Dr. Frances finished running through the names she gave us the last few minutes of class to connect with our partners, and reiterated it would be the last time it happened in her class. I packed up my things as I looked over at Jaelyn, her head was in her phone. I shook my head as I stood up to head towards her. I grabbed my phone and sent a quick text to Samoa, a friend who was trying to make her way out of the friends with benefits zone.

By this point I was coming up on her so I locked my phone and focused on her, but her head was still in her phone. I cleared my throat. She laughed at whatever she was looking at and then looked up at me. She locked her phone as she now gave me her full attention, "Mr. star football player." She said with a smile, "party girl" I responded without one since we were referring to each other how we were most known. I honestly couldn't stand being called that shit.

Her smile didn't falter as she rolled her eyes, "what can I say, I love a good time." She let out, "maybe you should try it sometimes, more to life than just books and football." I didn't really care to entertain this conversation. "This project" I stated as I stood over her instead of taking a seat even though it was one beside her, "eight to ten page research paper and a PowerPoint highlighting key components." I let out, easily remembering what was on the paper.

She sighed, "yeah, she's giving us the topics to choose. So we can choose one now. We honestly don't even have to meet if we don't want to. We could work this shit out through email and texting. " I nodded, but I didn't trust her to do shit. I didn't know her, and her reputation preceded her. We were going to meet. "I think we can choose the topic now but I think we should meet. She's giving us a month to do this. So I say we meet later this week or early next week to outline the paper, and then two weeks after that to hit the PowerPoint. You think you can knock your part of the paper out in that timeframe?" I questioned.

She looked at me like I asked her the stupidest question, "yeah I think I can knock out a paper in two weeks. Can you?" She questioned back, "I don't know how you work." I informed her, "but yeah I can." I finished. She was trying to be smart but I wasn't about to feed into her shit. She started to pack up her things. "I'm not dumb, nor lazy contrary to what you may believe." She stated as she looked up at me.

"I didn't say you were." I responded as I watched her pack up her things, her deep dark brown skin easily had a glow to it. Her hair was straight and long, hitting the middle of her stomach. I figured she had some hair added in, but I didn't see the popular screen door part in her head so I knew some of her hair was out.

She wore a simple white fitted short sleeve cropped shirt with loose fitting jeans that had holes all down the front and some Christian Dior slides that matched her bag she was putting her stuff in. Material girl I thought with a slight shake of his head. "Well just letting you know I'm not." She stated as she looked at me again, pulling me out of my thoughts. She took out her phone, "What's your number? I'll text you my name and we can take it from there on figuring out when and where to meet."

I took out my phone seeing it was two o'clock on the dot, meaning class was officially over. I called out my number as she typed it in her phone, "texting you." She voiced as she put her bag on her shoulder and walked out.

My phone vibrated in my hand as I saw her number pop up, another text came through from her causing me to click on the messages.

I chuckled and shook my head as I made my way out the classroom and clicked out of the thread to go to the unread message from Samoa. I hoped this project would go smoothly, I didn't have time for the bullshit.