143

Ch4

"Lou, stop it." I whispered under my breath as he jabbed the eraser end of his pencil into the side of my stomach. I made sure to keep my voice low enough so that only he could hear it. I didn't want any of the other students seated in the lecture hall to hear and catch their attention. Plus there was always the slight chance of the professor hearing. That would be a disaster.

"Make me." He spoke lowly from the side of his mouth.

I rolled my eyes, but kept them ahead, trying to keep my attention on what the professor was talking about at the front. "That was the worst comeback I've ever heard. Try again, please."

"Make me."

"Smartass."

"Ooo. I like it when you talk dirty."

I scoffed lowly, reaching to grab onto his hand to push it away and stop it from jabbing the pencil into me again. "Arsehole."

"Bitch."

"Fuck off."

"Maybe later."

I gritted my teeth together, and clenched my fists until my knuckles turned white. I didn't understand how he had managed to be such a prominent annoyance in my life, but it seemed as though I could never get rid of him. He was in basically all of my classes, he had somehow conned me into being a member of his study group, he visited my dorm room just to annoy me, he pulled pranks on me constantly (all reciprocated, of course, with much better ones), and he figured out exactly what to do to piss me off the most.

"Tomlinson," I said through my gritted teeth, "please, just leave me alone."

"Never." He whispered into my ear so that I could feel his breath against my neck, and, although I wasn't looking at him, I knew he had that little smirk etched on his lips.

I scrunched up my shoulders, and pushed him away half-heartedly. "One four three." I sighed, once again trying to refocus on the professor. The notes would be up on the internet later, but I wanted to at least try to understand these examples he was showing us.

"One four three more." He responded, finally putting his pencil to good use to write the example in his notebook.

"Doubtful." I sighed again.

I heard a few snickers coming from the row above us, and I felt the heat coming up my neck to my cheeks. I knew that if someone had overheard our little exchange they might get the wrong idea. I mean, I had to explain to Perrie and Niall what the hell Louis and I were talking about when we told each other we hated one another in our little unique way.

Perrie had shown me the song that Louis must have gotten the idea from for the three numbers meaning so much more, and I just laughed it off, letting her know that that was definitely not what we meant when we told it to each other.

Niall was as confused as I was when he first heard Louis utter the three numbers to me. It took a bit more time to explain it to him, but once he finally realized that 'I' had one letter, 'hate' had four letters, and 'you' had three letters, he caught on pretty quick. He's pretty on the eyes, but sometimes that kid surprises me with what comes out of his mouth.

"Dude, why haven't you given up?" a guy's voice from behind us whispered.

I saw Louis turn his head to address him from the corner of my eye, and I just slumped into my seat farther. "She'll cave eventually, man, don't worry about me."

The blush that I had held fled at his words. "You're a douchebag." I whispered, punching Louis in the shoulder, hard enough for him to rub it as if it had actually hurt him.