Sterling asked.
I shook my head. “No.” I mean, what was I supposed to say? Yeah there’s a problem. A huge problem. There’s this really strange electric feeling buzzing between us, and despite the fact that he hates me, I can’t seem to hate him back. Yeah, that wouldn’t make me sound crazy at all.
Mr. Sterling stared heavily at us, his attempt, I assumed, to be intimidating . The thing was, he just wasn’t a very intimidating teacher. In fact, he had a rep for being a real softy and letting things slide.
“It just seems like there isn’t a lot of group interaction going on.” Mr. Sterling said, his attention focused solely on me. “Now Gemma, I expected you to be a little more welcoming to Aislin and Alex since they’re new here.”
Shocked, my jaw about dropped. What! Was he kidding? “I-I’m not…I mean I—”
He held his hand up, silencing me. “I don’t want any excuses. What I want is for the three of you to worked together and get along.”
My jaw tightened as the prickle stabbed at the back of my neck. I was pissed. More than pissed. I was downright furious. I burned the hottest glare I’d ever summoned up at Alex. He pressed his lips together to, of all things, hold back a grin. Apparently, my anger was also another thing that entertained him.
I clenched my hands into fists. I’d never been a violent person before, but if Mr. Sterling hadn’t been standing right there, I might have hit him. Well, okay, that was a lie. But in the imaginative part of my brain I would have.
“Now we have a fieldtrip coming up here pretty soon and working in a group is a very big part of it,” Mr. Sterling continued on, oblivious to my outrage. “So I want you two to get to know each other by working on the other assignments as a group.” His gaze wandered back and forth between Alex and me like he was waiting for us to promise we would.
But I was too irritated to make such a promise.
“ Alright,” Alex said, his eyes flickering in my direction. “We will.”
I had to hold back an eye roll. What’s this we crap? I wasn’t the one going out of my way to hate someone I barely knew. He’d never even given me a chance, and now I was the one getting the blame.
“Good,” Mr. Sterling said with a pleased smiled. He opened the door to the classroom. “Now I’ll let you two get back to the assignment.”
Grinding my teeth, I stepped back into classroom and made my way back to my table. Kelsey Merritt awarded me with one of her infamous you’re-such-a-loser looks as I passed by her, and then batted her eyelashes at Alex. In spite of how mad I was, I still felt a wave of relief as Alex turned his head away from her.
But I hated that I reacted that way.
I hated that Alex had that much control over my feelings.
I dropped down in my chair and watched Alex as he shuffled the deck of cards like he was getting ready for a game of poker. He cut the deck once, twice, and then tapped it on the table, aligning the cards evenly with one another.
“Alright,” he slid the deck of cards at me, “you hold them up and I’ll tell you the answers.”
I raised my eyebrows questioningly. Was he being serious? Because I’d thought when he’d made the agreement with Mr. Sterling, he’d made it as an empty promise. Yet here he was, waiting for me to show him a card.
I eyed the deck of cards warily, wondering if it was a trick or something. If I picked one up and showed it to him, would he laugh at me because I’d actually thought he wanted to work with me? Or was he just trying to be cooperative?
There was only one way to find out.
Reluctantly, I picked up the deck of cards he’d slid over and added it to my own. Then I flipped the top one up.
“Cassiopeia,” Alex answered indifferently.
He was correct, so I nodded and slipped the card under the deck. I lifted up the next one at the exact time the intensity of the electricity decided to ascend a notch.
“Ursa Major.” he said. Then very
Douglas E. Schoen, Melik Kaylan