ALESSIA'S P.O.V.

"Why are you doing this?" Nick asked, playing with a lock of my hair

"Doing what?"

"That thing you do when you zone out and don't pay attention to me."

"What do you mean?"

"What's wrong?" he asked and bumped his shoulder with mine as we sat beside me in our Agric Science class."

"A lot of things."

"Care to share?"

"Jayden's ex girlfriend is a psycho. She's trying to pull them apart and it's not good. I'm angry." I explained to him.

"What?" he asked, honestly confused.

"It's a long story. I'll tell you about it lunch time."

****
"So his ex girlfriend who thinks they're still apart and doesn't know they're back together is still trying to separate them. And your role in this is?"

"I'm the master mind." I chuckled.

"Ah... Smart girl."

"I take pride in that." I quipped taking a fry off his plate while he took a bite of my sandwich.

"We'll aren't you two so adorable and—" Brandon, Nicks friend said as he joined us at the table. His sentence wasn't complete because his not so identical twin brother, Blake. "—dandy."

"Shut up." Nick said, clearly irritated at his best friends, throwing a fry at his head.

Personally, I like the twins. They're very handsome as well. Bryan was a brunette with steely grey eyes, very tall and a smile that charms almost all the freshmen females at Winston high.

Blake on the other hand, has sandy blonde hair and soft pale green eyes. His smile melts the hearts of every female that walks the halls. The kind that makes all the half witted girls melt. Yeah, that kind. Their only similarity, they're the same height.

"We have football practice in ten minutes." Blake informed since both him and Nick played.

The look on Nick's face was so cute, I would cry if I had missed it.

"What's up, Cupcake?" Bryan asked me with a pointed look.

"Nothing much. You? "

"Not so good, now that she's coming here." He gave a glare toward the direction of the cafeteria double doors.

In walked the queen bitch herself. Maybe in another lifetime, Makayla and I could be friends.

I mean a lifetime in an alternate universe where dogs mooed and pigs flew, yeah then and there, we could be the best of friends.

"Hey, Alex." I rolled my eyes at her lame attempt to forget my name even though it's obvious by the way she keeps coming after me that I'm unforgettable.

"Hello, Mackenzie." Two can play.

"Since I'm such a good human being, I thought your life as a nobody would be kind of exhausting so I brought you a little something to refresh you."

"What are you—?"

I turned around to face her to see shared she was talking about but unfortunately, I was too late.

She dumped the contents of the cup she was holding on my hair. Strawberry smoothie was rolling off my back and then, I knew I was going to kill this girl.

But I could get expelled or suspended for fighting on school property and poor creature isn't worth my education.

Hence, I grabbed the plate Bryan was eating pie from. The look on the boys faces said "you're not really going to—" Up her face it went.

I made sure to hold her still and smear it all over her face.

"Whoops, it slipped." The smirk on my face was too evil to be missed as Nick and the entire cafeteria stared in shock.

Someone— I don't even know who yelled "Food fight!"

Just like that, food was being thrown everywhere.

I was in awe, frozen for a second till someone grabbed my hand and pulled me under the table. It was Nick.

"That was awesome but you do know that you're now Freshman enemy number one, right?" he asked, throwing a carrot that just landed right beside him.

"Meh, I'll take my chances." I shrugged and mashed potato hit me right in the face.

A bit of it going into my mouth and I sighed. "What a waste of perfectly good mashed potatoes."

The fight didn't last long when Ms Gayle entered that hall and got hit with a Taco.

Uh oh...

"Enough." She all but screamed and the cafeteria went quiet.

"Who started this?" Silence.

"Who. Started. This?" Just as she said this, Makayla came skipping into the hall.

"It was—" I was about to say it was me when Nick interrupted "—me."

"It was me, ma'am." He said. I gave him a look as if to ask what he was doing by taking the blame. His eyes relaxed, telling me it was okay.

But I wasn't going to let him take the blame.

"No, Ms Gayle. It was me." I said and she looked between the two of us.

"No, no. It was me."

"It was me."

She let out an exasperated sigh.
"Since it was the both of you, you two will spend the rest of the day cleaning this mess up and detention for the rest of the week."

"Oh and Alessia?"

"Yes?"

"Wish your sister luck. She's gonna need it." She smiled and left.

****

"What do you think you were doing, Nick?" I reprimanded him for the umpteenth time.

"What?"

"Why did you take the blame when clearly it had nothing to do with you?"

"Really? It and nothing to do with me?  My friend says getting harassed by my apparently crazy girlfriend that's driving me nuts and it has nothing to do with me?"

That shut me up.

"Thank you and I'm sorry for saying that." I apologized sincerely.

"No problem and plus," he wiped some whipped cream off the wall and smeared it all over my nose."you didn't think I'd let you take the fall alone now, did you?"

"Oh you're on." I chased him around the cafeteria but unfortunately, I couldn't catch him. That was until he slipped on a banana peel and landed on his back.

"Are you okay?"

"Never better. Help me up?" he said extending his hand to me.

I took it and my heart skipped. My heart skipped a beat but I chose to ignore it and the fluttery feeling in my stomach and pulled him up but he pulled me down with him instead and I landed on top of him, my hair in his face and gaze, locked directly on him. His icy blue eyes were staring back at me with the same intensity.

It got harder to breathe and suddenly the huge cafeteria became a lot smaller.

The distance between our faces, getting smaller by the second. Like they were being drawn to each other. Just a space left when the door burst open.

Blake and Bryan stood there, giving each other knowing looks.

Now realizing the current position that Nick and I were in and how it probably looked to them. I swiftly got off Nick and to my feet, clearing my throat awkwardly.

"What are you guys doing here?" I ask.

"Well, Cupcake. We couldn't let you two clean this mess alone but we think we might have interrupted something important. Right, bro? " Blake answered, nudging his twin brother.

"We're you two getting it on?" He asked wide eyed. It was times like this I was grateful for my brown skin. It hid my blush but I was very sure my ears were hot and pink.

"What? No." Nick and I said at the same time as he swiftly got up.

"Sure."

"We believe you."

"We didn't fucking ask you to." Nick said.
Taking the Bluetooth speaker from Brandon and connecting it to his iPhone.

We scraped food off the walls, swept and mopped the floor till it was spotless.

Blake and Bryan eventually left for football practice and to tell coach that Nick wouldn't be able to make it to practice for the rest of the week.

I felt a little bit bad about that because he was going to miss practice and the other quarter back, Zach Walters was leaving in a little while because he was graduating.

NICK'S P.O.V.

She looked so beautiful when we danced to the songs from the Bluetooth speaker while we cleaned the hall.

When she was on me, looking straight into my eyes it was as if we were the only two that existed in those few seconds that felt like forever.

I tried so hard not to think about the fact that we could have kissed if Blake and Brandon hadn't walked in and I think she did too because none of us spoke about it.

It would be wrong for me to do kiss her. I have a girlfriend and as much as she drives me nuts and as terrible a human being she is, I can't cheat on her.

If I did, then if just fall into the stereotype that everyone expects me to. "Player", and whole lot of other bullshit.

But watching her hide that blush that's so evident from my best friends was just the cutest thing ever.

Talking to her made me want to do it all day, everyday because I know for a fact, she doesn't want the stereotype. She wants the real deal. She wants to know me. Who I am and not who everyone who puts me on a pedestal says I am.

We were in detention. We were the only ones there. Funny because with the amount of trouble the twins get into, this is basically their second home and for the first time,  I'm in here and they aren't.

I smiled at it.

"Why are you smiling?" Alessia asked from beside me.

I shrugged.

Just then, Mr Bush stood up and yawned.

"Don't leave this classroom. Detention ends by five. You can leave by then." with that, he left.

"Figures."

She brought out her phone and started typing something furiously.

She seemed satisfied by whatever she was doing and sighed putting it back in her pocket.

"How about we go out and do something?"

"What do you have in mind?"

You don't wanna know.

"I know this great ice cream place not too far from here."

"Okay... As long as we don't waste too much time."

"Great. Let's go."

We walked all the way to ice cream parlour and she wanted cookie dough ice cream.

She wouldn't let me pay.

"I can pay for myself." She sighed at me, pulling some money out of the pocket of her ripped jeans.

"But I want to. Please?"

She sighed.

"Fine. But just this once." She sighed again.

It really wasn't going to be just once.

I secretly smiled to myself as we sat down to our ice cream.

"Aren't you going to ask me if I want some?" she raised an eyebrow at me.

She finished the ice cream in her mouth before speaking to me. "Nick Zachary Hope, if I wanted to share my  ice cream with you, I would have offered. I do not lie and neither do I share my food with anyone. Ever. But
..." she put another spoon in her mouth "since you paid for it, I think I could share with you."

I smiled.

"Okay but I'll only take it if you feed it to me." I reasoned.

She looked taken aback by what I said for a moment. She blushed and quickly recovered.

At least, I wasn't the only one feeling whatever it was exactly that I was feeling.

She fed me ice cream spoon after spoon, her eyes lit up with an emotion that I could place.

ALESSIA'S P.O.V.

Alessia Brown has a rule. It's that I do  not, under any circumstances share my food with anyone. If I had to, it it would either be because they're living their last days on Earth or just really special to me. Yet here I am, feeding him my Dairy Delights. Sharing my food with him.

Yeah, I need to get my head checked by a doctor after this...

Nick's case I'm hoping is the latter because I really don't want Nick going anywhere on me. He fed me his mint chocolate chip ice cream. Cookie dough is much better. Not everyone can be a Brown.

As a girl, I know it's in my programming to over analyze things but I don't want to do that.

But then again, I can't help myself. What were doing now, in this moment, right here, feeding each other ice cream, looking at each other like we are the only ones left. Everyone else disappeared.

Just us...

This is what couples— people who are  in love do. It didn't sit well with me. He has a girlfriend. And even though she might be the spawn of Satan himself and hellbent on making my life just a little bit difficult, I can't do that to her. To anyone. I can't be like her.

Then again, this could just be something he does with all the girls he knows. It may not be anything special so why am I over thinking this?

The thought of him doing this with all the girls he knows makes my stomach sink. Then the thought of this being nothing special made it sink a little more.

Don't over analyze...

"Let's get back. Thanks for the ice cream."

I smiled and he smiled back at me.
My stomach went back to its original position.

Something swum in his icy blue eyes. "You're welcome."

If I didn't know any better, I'd say it was...

Don't over analyze!

We made our way back to the school and by the time we did, it was already five so we grabbed our stuff and went home. Together. Hand in hand.

Don't you dare over analyze!

Of course, there was the part where I had to explain to my mother that I was late because I was supposed to be at detention.

"We went to grab some ice cream." I explained.

"That's all good— wait, who's we?"

The gleam was back in her eyes. My mother is not the "don't get into trouble" conventional kind of mom.  She's the "lead the best life and take all the risks you possibly can. You're only young once." kind of mom.

I love her.

"Nick and I went for ice cream." As I said that, as if on cue, my sister walked in and made a beeline for the fridge.

"I like what I'm hearing, Sis." she waggled her eyebrows at me and I rolled my eyes, hiding a smile.

Cue the squeals and bleeding eardrums.