You Are the Shell to My Tortoise | ✓

52

I sighed in relief at the large A scrawled at the top of my English test paper.

"What did you get?" I whispered to Nolan, who lifted a corner of his paper to show me his grade.

He got an A, too. Of course, this wasn't surprising since he always did well, anyway. English was probably one of the few classes in which I could actually give Nolan a run for his money, mostly because of my love for reading and writing.

With a proud smile on his handsome face, Mr. Jameson said, "Every single one of you improved from the previous test. Great job, everyone. Keep it up."

It took everything in me to suppress drool at the sight. His brown hair wasn't gelled back today, which made him look even younger. If he hadn't gone into teaching, he could probably have made it big in modeling.

Beside me, I heard Nolan mutter, "He's not that good-looking."

"Huh?" I turned to look at him.

There was a slight scowl on his face as he stared at Mr. Jameson.

"What?" he said, a tinge of defensiveness in his tone. "He isn't."

Nolan was better-looking than Mr. Jameson, I'd give him that, but it wasn't like I was going to let him know that.

I froze for a second in sudden realization of what had just gone through my mind.

I actually found Nolan more attractive than Mr. Jameson, the latter of whom I'd been admiring for the better part of the school year.

Abruptly tongue-tied, I looked back down at my textbook instead of responding to him.

------------------------------------------

"Are you sure you don't want to come with me later?" I grinned cheekily at Ashley, who shoved me lightly on the shoulder. "Someone is going to be there, you know."

I'd been inviting her to join my book club meetings ever since school started again. Despite trying to entice her with Cody's presence, my attempts kept failing.

"Are you sure you don't want to stop asking?" she said, narrowing her eyes at me. "Maybe I should invite Nolan on your behalf instead. I'm sure you'd appreciate his presence more—"

"I'm sorry! I was wrong!" I wailed, flinging out a hand to stop her before anyone else could hear what she was saying.

I couldn't imagine if Nolan just happened to walk past us right then. I would probably die right here in mortification.

She laughed at my reaction—the audacity!

"How could you just say that out loud?" I demanded in a whisper, glancing around to make sure that no one was paying attention to us. "What if he was nearby?"

"But he isn't," she said. "And I didn't actually say anything of worth. Relax."

"It was implied! The whole world could interpret it even without context," I said, gaping at her nonchalant attitude. "How could you?"

"Wow, you really have it bad." Ashley shook her head. "Also, you were basically doing the same thing to me! You can't talk."

I frowned at her. "I didn't name names!"

"I didn't exactly shout his name for the whole school to hear," she said. "How about this? If you stop, I'll stop."

"Fine!"

We went round a corner into a hallway with slightly more students streaming through.

"No more names," I practically hissed to Ashley, who only snickered some more.