Cupid's Daughter

Chapter 16~ This Was So Not Part of the Plan

^^ This chapter's inspiration: Fire and the Flood- Vance Joy^^ :D

Almost as quickly as it began, his lips left mine. I opened my eyes slowly and found that he was already staring at me, his lips pulled up into a small smile. I remained in his arms a moment longer before he winked and unwound himself from me, walking off in the opposite direction. I stood staring after him, my hands flying instinctively to touch my tingling lips.

What had just happened?

"Damn, girl." Tommy breathed from beside me, having just watched the whole scene unfold before him. I felt my cheeks flame up and I knew that they were scarlet, so I reached up to pull my ponytail out of its elastic and let my hair hide my face. The bell rang suddenly, excusing me from having to explain to Tommy what was going on, so I dashed straight to Algebra without saying goodbye, grateful for the escape. I took my usual seat next to the window, and as hard as I tried not to, I couldn't resist but to turn and see whether Noah was sat next to JC. JC's body was slouched forward against the table, his head resting on his arms as he snoozed. Underneath his arm was a pink detention slip fluttering underneath the fan, and I shook my head with a smile as I speculated how on Earth he'd managed to get a detention before class had even started.

Seeing the detention slip made me remember Noah's suspension, and I stared at his empty seat, perplexed. We'd arranged to meet before school and talk to Sam, but then Noah was supposed to go home, not follow me into the school and attack me with his lips.

I was so confused.

My mind kept drifting back to the kiss as the lesson started, and no matter how hard I tried, I just couldn't focus on the logarithms the teacher was drawing on the board. The way his lips had felt against mine... soft and gentle, yet somehow still controlling. It was kind of like-

Stop!

I had to stop.

Focus, Isabelle.

Logs. Expand  log4( 16/x ).

Easy. Just...

His eyes; oh gosh, those dark eyes that you could lose your soul in...

FOCUS ISABELLE!

Right, logs.

And his lips, those lips...

But of course, he wasn't mine. He was Sabrina's. He loved her; it was always going to be her.

The thought of Sabrina snapped me out of my trance as I dragged my nails through my hair. 'I'm giving them the show they want', Noah had said. Who was he talking about? The students? Sam? Sabrina? Was this all part of his grand scheme to get her back?

Of course, that's it. He kissed me to make Sabrina jealous; I mean, Sam already thought we were dating and the rumour had spread around the school in record time, so why wouldn't Noah milk the fake girlfriend thing if it meant he'd make her jealous? Granted it was all very clichéd and Noah had explicitly told me at the football party that he didn't want me to fake being his girlfriend, but maybe he'd changed his mind. It would probably work, anyway.

There were two things I was absolutely sure of; that Noah's kiss had been part of a plan, and that Sabrina was going to kill me when she found out.

***

✧ Noah Jones ✧

I had no idea whether or not I regretted what I'd just done yet, but knowing Sabrina and her tendency to lash out, I knew that I was going to. I didn't know what had come over me; I just saw Sabrina standing there throwing one of her new guys in my face and I wanted to hurt her back.