The Cassidy Boys

Chapter Fifteen: Mission Impossible

Chapter Fifteen: Mission Impossible

I, Max McKinney, have now declared myself a part of a top-secret mission.

Operation Secret Note.

My mom thought I should call it something else, something involving the words "secret" and "admirer," but I refused based on two simple facts. One, I'm still in denial over the fact that someone could maybe, possibly, be admiring me from afar and two, secret note sounds way cooler.

I click and unclick my pen a few times until the sound becomes annoying to my own ears, and my eyes flicker down to my messenger bag. The faded army green looks dejected as it remains slumped beside my seat and I glance back up at the whiteboard in front of me before my eyes flicker back down again.

My teacher decided that today would be a good day to change our seats, and by our seats, I mean my seat, to prevent a couple boys from talking to each other. My teacher decided it would not only be a good idea to place me smack dab between the two boys, but also to place me smack dab in the front of the room.

That's not the reason why I'm so fidgety, though. It's the new piece of lined paper wedged between my planner and homework folder. The beaten green flap of my bag is shielding it from being seen, but I still know it's there. My brain won't let me forget that it's sitting there only a mere few inches from my grasp. The words seemed to have already burned themselves into my memory and branded themselves along the steady beat inside my chest.

When it comes to you I feel as if I lost my mind, but the best part it is... I don't want to find it.

My leg starts bouncing as my thumb clicks down on the end of my pen again. The note writer may be losing their mind because of me, but all I know is that the second I read those words my brain downright melted away into oblivion. That's also when I decided to officially go undercover. I need to find out the person who is slowly stealing my heart with each tiny scrawled out word.

"Okay, everyone, if you could all pass your homework up to the front," my teacher says as he tapes a new dead face over the cheesy poster on the wall.

Everyone chuckles the second my teacher steps away from the task, but he immediately begins snapping his fingers out in front of him as if he can't wait to snatch out homework from us.

I turn around and grab the stack of papers from my row. That's when it hits me. I begin shuffling through them. No, no, nope, no, no.

"Max?"

I freeze and slowly move my eyes along the stipes of my teachers dress shirt before settling my gaze on his furrowed brows.

"What are you doing?" he asks and assures that I now have the attention of everyone in the room.

"Um." I gulp before quickly straightening out the pile of papers in my hand. "Just . . . alphabetizing."

"Oh." A light chuckle escapes my teacher before he snatches the papers from my hands. "You don't have to do that."

My shoulders slump back down in defeat.

First mission, decode and identify, has failed. I repeat has failed.

****

After the front door clicks behind me, I lazily kick off my shoes and begin the process of tiredly pulling my jacket off one sleeve at a time. My coat falls limp against the stare banister before my eyes notice a pair of black suede boots. The boots have small silver buckles, fat wooden heels, and I'm ninety percent positive the owner wore them with rainbow fuzzy socks. The peacoat draped across the stair railing is what gives me the other ten percent, and I'm making a one-hundred-mile sprint further into the house.