I nearly leapt out of my chair when the bell rang to signal 3pm. My chair hit the ground with a startling bang, and Miss Riley, my Modern History teacher, gave me a dirty look.

"Somewhere to be, Mr. Stewart?"

I did have somewhere to be - anywhere but the school grounds. I'd stupidly made an unsavoury comment about Marisol Ursa's hair extensions within earshot of the soccer captain and, being her boyfriend, he had declared me dead. I considered ducking out the door and waiting for Monday to face the consequences.

What a delusion. I picked up my chair and sat down submissively as Miss Riley closed her lesson. I tapped and fidgeted as she dismissed each row of my peers, before narrowing in on me.

"I need to have a talk with you," she said darkly, to the low jeers of my class. Miss Riley was not one for subtlety, not that I deserved her discretion. I hung my head as she ushered the final students out the door and turned on me with the look that a mother might give her screaming toddler in the supermarket.

I tossed my bag over my shoulder and followed her sluggishly to her desk. She slipped into her chair and began shuffling through a stack of essays on the Russian Revolutionary War.

"I'd like to have a chat about your latest test score, Miles," she plucked one paper from the pile, and pushed it towards me. "This just isn't acceptable."

I bit into the inside of my cheek. The front sheet had an 8 in a red circle - which might have been uplifting if it was out of 10, disappointing if it was out of 20. Out of 40, which it was, was just plain pathetic.

"Are you struggling with the material?" her tone was sympathetic, yet I found it incredibly patronising regardless. "Did you even look at the rubric?"

I pulled my shirt up over my mouth and sighed through it. "I'll do better next time. I had a bad day."

It wasn't a total lie. I'd worked a gig at Execute the night before the test, for which I'd done virtually no study. I had read the rubric - on the bus, on the way into school, intensely hungover.

"Right. Thing is..." Miss Riley cradled her head in her left hand. "You seem to be having an alarming number of bad days lately, Miles."

No. I was having a lot of great nights. But that didn't really translate to amazing marks in modern history.

"Is everything alright at home?" Miss Riley asked plainly. "Your dad is doing alright?"

Reece isn't my dad, I wanted to say, but to avoid Miss Riley actually worrying about me, I nodded curtly.

"Any problems at school?" she continued, "Girlfriend troubles?"

I didn't respond.

"Boyfriend troubles?" she added without missing a beat.

"Can I leave now?" I said sharply. Miss Riley pursed her lips but waved me towards the door.

"I will have to call your dad," she called as I walked through the doorway. I resisted the urge to double back and beg for her to do anything but that and made sure to slam the door behind me to emphasis my disdain.

I was three metres from the front doors when someone wrapped their thick fingers around my collar and pulled me back as easily as a ragdoll, sending me flying. I landed on my backpack, leaving my arms flailing in the air like a flipped turtle.

"Happy 3pm, Stewart."

Aidan McCaffrey threw a kick into my side before my brain could connect with my survival instincts. It only caught my hip but, being the soccer captain, the kick had some training behind it. Immediately I felt an ache blossom around my thigh, and mentally cursed because my skin was the colour of rice-paper and I bruised easier than a peach.

Aidan was standing tall like he had something to prove. His face was redder than a bell pepper and twisted into a hideous scowl. I rolled onto my hands and knees, but he was on me in an instant, hauling me to my feet by my backpack. I had enough composure to stop myself from squeaking like a mouse, but not enough to get out a decent quip before he was slugging me across the face, dropping me to the polished concrete floor.

My cheek immediately felt as if it had been stuffed with hot coals, and I didn't even try to restrain my groan.

Aidan kicked at me again, but I scrambled to my feet fast enough that I could grab his assaulting ankle and pull. I was all limbs and no muscle, so I didn't shift him, but it threw him off balance enough that I could hike up my bag and shoulder through the small audience we'd attracted before he could recover. What I lacked in fight, I more than made up for in flight.

I was only running deeper into the school but running on a flat surface was a better bet than the seventy stairs running down from the front doors. With any luck, Miss Riley was still in her classroom and I could hide out there until the coast was clear. Aidan might have had diplomatic immunity in a way, being Mr. Troutman's golden boy and the school's star defender, but it wasn't as if my modern history teacher was going to rat me out to him.

And I was on the ground. A new thicket of pain spreading across my forehead, from where I'd collided with someone a head taller than me and far steadier on their feet.

"What the fuck?" I snarled because my head was throbbing and I was keenly aware of Aidan hot on my heels. "Watch where you're going!"

"Mate, you ran into me," The person above me looked plain irritated. As the ache subsided, I was able to slowly piece together his identity. The first thing I noticed was the soccer team jacket draped over one shoulder, and then the vice-captain stripes on the left arm. Black hair, longer than I'd ever worn mine, the kind of fine features and olive skin that wouldn't look out of place in a Dolce & Gabbana commercial and the bluest fucking eyes I'd ever seen outside of a wet dream.

Caleb Proust offered me his hand, but I staggered to my feet on my own terms.

"Miles?" he asked as if there was a question. I tried to circle around him, but his hand flattened against my chest, fixing me in place. Caleb was just as tall as Aidan, almost as strong and ten times as attractive. I wasn't going anywhere.

He pushed me back, firm but gentle, and gave me an incredulous one-over. "McCaffrey's looking to disembowel you."

"What, you think I'm running for ice cream?" I stepped back, out of his reach. Trying to ignore the fact that I could feel the imprint of his hand on my chest. The guy had warm hands. And a voice like a smooth jazz radio host. And a face you could help but wonder what would look like between your thighs.

Woah, boy. Down boy.

"If he gets into another fight, he's off the team," Caleb worried aloud, and I wondered why he thought I cared. "If we don't get to go to finals because you called Mari's extensions blonde pubes, I might have to kill you myself. Pay you a visit at whichever hospital Aidan sends you to and switch off your life support."

His tone was frustrated, not threatening. His eyes were spellbinding. I wondered if he knew what those eyes did to people.

"Well, I'll be off then," I managed, going to pass him again. He stopped me again, this time with a hand around my wrist, and dragged me in the opposite direction - back from where I'd come from. Back towards Aidan.

I did fight at that, pulling and twisting in his grip while hissing pleas that I hoped didn't sound too pathetic - he's going to kill me. Let go, Proust. Caleb, he's going to fucking kill me, let go. His hand was like a vice around my wrist, and I didn't stand a chance. I could hear Aidan huffing and puffing not far enough away from us, only a couple of hundred lockers ahead of us.

Just before we rounded the corner to come face to face with him, Caleb pulled me across four lanes of student traffic and out through a side door. I had always thought it was a janitorial closet, but quickly found the outdoor heat slapping against my bare arms and the sun greeting my eyes with a familiar sting. We were on a patch of lawn out the back of the school, brown with neglect and littered with schoolyard trash. Since it was hidden away to the back of the school, no one had made the effort to groom it in the same way the flowerbeds at the front steps were. There was a slouching hill adjacent to us, trailing down to the soccer field and the bus station.

"I'm pretty sure that door will be alarmed," I gestured over my shoulder as Caleb dropped my arm like a live wire. He turned and transfixed me in his crystal gaze once again, looking me over head-to-toe. He zoned in on the left side of my face, which throbbed and pulsed angrily.

"You're bruising up," he told me. I cursed internally, raising my hand to my cheek. It stung to touch.

I'm fine," I insisted.

"You can't tell anyone who hit you."

The crystal in his eyes shattered. They became cold and indifferent and looking into them felt like plunging naked into sub-zero water. I dropped my gaze to a patch of decaying grass, which was a similar shade to my own irises. Rotted brown, with flecks of optimistic green scattered throughout.

"Or what?" I challenged, though my head was still hung. "You'll have to kill me? Some shining student example you are."

"Miles..."

"Relax. I'm not a tattletale," I crane my neck and pretended to be looking over his shoulder. In reality, I was caressing his jawline with my eyes. It had a calming effect, despite his persistent frown and furrowed brow. "I'll be off then."

I almost thought he was going to let me pass without incident, but he caught my shoulder at the last minute. He pulled me almost flush to his side, as if I'd run away if he wasn't in arms reach, and jerkily unzipped his bag. I made a show of huffing and tapping my foot impatiently as he pulled out a cap and pressed it to my chest.

"Put that on," he insisted and flicked his hand dismissively over his shoulder. "And get the hell out of here. Quickly."

I bit back a retort and pulled the cap low over my eyes. It was dark blue, with the school logo on the front - a golden bell in a circle of the same colour.

"You should pray Aidan gets concussed in the game this weekend," Caleb took the rim of the cap and pulled it up. He had to know that his eyes kept people in check. His gaze was far too deliberate. "Are you alright?"

What would you care? It was right there, on the tip of my tongue. But I was too shocked to spit venom. Luckily, I was quick to recover.

"I bruise easy," I said flippantly and made sure to bump his shoulder as I passed him. He didn't even budge, but I did feel him watch me as I tripped and fumbled down the hill, completely incapable of looking suave as I descended.

I usually got a ride home with Aaron and Max, but they parked around the front of the school and I didn't want to risk being spotted. Instead, I trudged to the bus station and crammed myself into a seat beside two middle schoolers' sucking face. I put in my earphones to drown out the sound effects, and watched the road, tracing the white lines until my mind was empty.

A/N: welcome to the world of EXOTIC! please enjoy your stay :)