Chapter One: ❝ the girls of our dreams ❞

"So are you sure this isn't considered... stalking?"

Rashaad lowered his dark gray binoculars to the tip of his nose, shaking his head and using the tips of his fingers to rub his temples.

"The fact that you'd even ask that is utterly ridiculous. Don't you trust me?"

Hakeem rested his elbows on the cold railings and huffed. "Well..."

"Hakeem!"

"Sorry, sorry! You're right, I shouldn't ask questions," he said with his hands thrown up in defense. "But are the 'noculars really necessary?"

Rashaad placed the binoculars back on his eyes to adjust them, circular crease lines already formed around his eyebrows and upper cheekbones. "Oh trust me, they are. Once we spot him, we'll get the signal and make our move."

"So... we are stalking them."

Rashaad scoffed. "Intensely watching someone's every move isn't stalking."

"That's literally the definition of stalking—"

"Keem, 'noculars on!"

"All right, okay, sheesh..." Hakeem rolled his dark brown eyes and placed his own light gray binoculars onto his face, studying the bustling student life beneath them.

Since their middle school days, Rashaad was never really the "mastermind" behind the schemes. Every time Hakeem let him plan something, it either went up in flames, exploded in their faces, or dislocated their elbows. The last time Rashaad led something as important as this was in their seventh grade science fair. The assignment was to create something original and eco-friendly in honor of Earth Day but instead ended up scorching off both his and Hakeem's eyebrows as their "water-cano" (a play on words of volcano) accidentally spewed real fire onto their test plants and almost burned down the entire gym.

They skated by with a B- for being realistic, but they had to pencil in fake brows until their freshman year.

But this time, it was different. Or at least that was what Rashaad promised him. Up until now, Hakeem feared any sentence that Rashaad started with, "I have an idea..." and ended with "But look on the bright side..." This new plan, supposedly, was going to help them win over "the girls of our dreams." Hakeem wouldn't hear it until one persuasive essay, twenty bucks, and a gift card to Krispy Kreme later that he even considered their options and benefits. Even if the plan didn't work, it's not like they had much to lose besides their confidence and potential dignity.

This is why Hakeem finally agreed to it and Rashaad shoved giant binoculars into his hands once the last bell rang, completely unaware of how the plan would actually work.

It was half-past two and the campus was nearly bare, students either racing to the bus loop before it was too late, going out to the field for practices with heavy gym bags on their shoulders, or revving their engines in the student parking lot as they went out with friends for a bite to eat. But none of the faces in the dimming crowd were the ones the boys hoped to see. 

"Ugh, where is he?" Rashaad asked after three minutes of tapping his foot on the ground. "I told him to be there to signal us as soon as the bell rang."

Hakeem shrugged and lowered his binoculars to rest his eyes. "Maybe he got held up or something. Who'd you get to do this anyway?"

Rashaad sighed and lowered his binoculars too. "Someone who I didn't have to pay and has nothing better to do with their time."

"Cameron?" Hakeem asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Nah, he still has that sinus infection remember?"

"Ooh yeah..."

They both immediately shuddered.

"What about Arthur?"

"You know I never really liked him. He always pats the back of my neck too hard," Rashaad said while massaging his neck.

"Then who else could you have possibly—"

"Hey, guys! " a slightly high-pitched, male voice shouted from behind them. "I finally got it!"

Hakeem and Rashaad jumped and quickly swiveled around, coming face-to-face with a pair of bright blue eyes a little too close for comfort and a whole lot of plaid.

Rashaad blinked multiple times before shaking his head in confusion. "Rory?! Wha—What the hell are you doing up here?!"

"What do you mean silly?" Rory, their semi-acquaintance friend, said with a smile full of blue-tinted braces. "I came to give you the sigil you needed."

Hakeem started to snicker under his breath as Rashaad's right eye began to twitch. 

"Rory..." Rashaad said, taking a deep breath and pinching the bridge of his nose. "You see the courtyard down there?"

Rory peeked over their shoulders to see the nearly empty courtyard with only a few people left lingering on campus. "Yeah... "

"You see that tree with the brown leaves and mulch next to the bench?"

"Yeah..." Rory responds with a dry gulp.

"You... were... supposed... to... give... us... the... signal!" Rashaad barked, smacking Rory on the shoulder with his binoculars after each word.

"Ouch! Hey! No need to be violent!" Rory said after he took a few steps back and rubbed his shoulder. "I could have sworn you said you needed me to give you guys a sigil."

Hakeem bit his fist to keep from bursting with laughter as Rashaad smacked his forehead.

"I said signal! Siiggg-naaalll! What on earth could I possibly do with a sigil Rory, huh?! You had one job that you weren't even going to get paid for! One!" Rashaad said.

"Well I'm sorry that I didn't understand your enunciation," Rory said and looked at his feet in shame. "But do you at least want to keep the sigils I printed out? My dad got this new printer that shows off the color from the ink really well."

Rashaad narrowed his eyes at him, snatched the stapled papers from his hands, and threw them down two floors, the wind carrying them off somewhere in the courtyard.

Hakeem frowned. "Rashaad!"

"Hakeem!" he mimicked, folding his arms over chest.

"Rory!" Rory chimed in, pumping his fist in the air even though he was really bummed about his sigils.

"Be nice all right?" Hakeem said, ignoring Rory. "He was just trying to help."

"Trying to help? Help us what, cast a spell?" Rashaad said and glared back at Rory. "This was one of the few chances we had to ask out the girls we really like, and now they might be gone!"

"Well..." Hakeem paused for a minute before he continued. "Look on the bright side—"

"Keem, don't you dare use my line against me!" Rashaad said with a pointed finger.

Hakeem slapped his finger out of his face. "This is why I'm the brains and you're the bones. Next time we do it my way."

"Pfft, whatever. And I'll have you know my biceps have increased three inches since last month—"

Rory suddenly cleared his throat. "Uh, guys, don't mean to interrupt, but I think I see Annisa and O'Dallas down there right now."

"What?!" both boys shrieked simultaneously.

The guys quickly leaned over the railings and plastered the binoculars to their corneas once again, adjusting their lenses to see two girls head out one of the building doors ahead of them.

Rory squeezed in between the two and squinted his eyes through thick, rectangular frames. "Whoa, they look so tiny from up here. And cool 'noculars by the way—"

"SSHHH! SSHHHH!" Rashaad said, slapping his finger over Rory's lips.

Two floors down from where the guys stood, the girls were engaged in an intense conversation as they made their way to the student parking lot, their voices echoing across campus and bouncing off the concrete.

Out of almost all the girls in Whitney Hills High School, Annisa Abdullah and O'Dallas Price were the top layers of a ten tier wedding cake that was not be eaten but enjoyed from a great distance. Most people loved them out of fear, some feared them out of love, and others just loved them because they truly did love them.

It's not certain exactly when people began to dub them the "Queen Bees" of the school, but they each had over 105,000 followers on Instagram, hosted some of the most legendary parties since grade school, led some of the largest clubs on campus, and are so incredibly stunning that they've posed for dozens of small campaign advertisements and been in a few commercials.

But those things were never real reasons the guys liked them.

In sixth grade, Rashaad knew he was in love when Annisa shared her Mott's apple juice with him and told him he had a cute nose. Even though that was their first and only real interaction, the chances of him asking her out got slimmer and slimmer as she became more popular and he got more awkward.

A few months later, Hakeem also fell for O'Dallas after she asked him for help on the science homework, to which he did lend a hand. As soon as their fingers grazed each other, he just knew she was the one. But that was after he found out she already liked Chris Walkins.

Crushes as kids usually fade away and people moved on as they grew older, but Hakeem and Rashaad always found themselves drawn back to those girls. After dozens of awful first dates and embarassing first kisses that almost didn't count, the guys have been determined since the first year of high school to make sure that by the end of it, they'd finally get the girls they've truly liked since, well, forever.

"Oh crap! They're going out the door, let's go!" Hakeem shouted, dropping his binoculars around his neck and scurrying to grab his backpack from the ground.

Rashaad mimicked his movement and slung his bag over his shoulder, racing down the stairs with Hakeem and leaving Rory in the dust.

"Good luck you guys!" Rory shouted out as their footsteps began to fade away. "Oh, and if you find my papers, be sure to—"

"Shut up Rory!" the boys shouted from the first floor.

"Okay!" he shouted back.

By the time the guys made it to the doors going out to student parking, Annisa and O'Dallas had already gone into their car and pulled out of the school. The guys skirted to a stop as they saw the door slowly shut on them and rolled their heads back in disappointment. They were too late.

"Damn it, now what?" Rashaad huffed, rubbing his hands over his face.

"Just don't panic, all right, we still got two and a half weeks till the dance," Hakeem said and patted his friend on the back. "Even though it was your fault, I'm not going to blame you. This time."

Rashaad narrowed his eyes at him and flicked his hand off his shoulder. He considered kicking him in the shin but didn't want to overwork his new three-inch muscle growth, so he decided against it. "Fine, whatever. Let's just hope they don't get new boyfriends in the next two and a half weeks."

"See, that's what I like to hear. Now let's just—"

"Hey, get your fucking hands off of me all right?! I'm walking!" Hakeem's voice was cut off when one of the side doors to the building was kicked open a couple feet away from them. Deputy Jackson, the campus cop, dragged from behind him a taller, dirty young man with ripped jeans and what appears to be dark blue paint all over his face and neck.

The guys glanced at each other with a panicked look in their eyes and then quickly jumped back out of the line of sight, Rashaad peering over Hakeem's shoulder to see what was going on.

"If you don't keep quiet, so help me God we are going straight to the station," Deputy Jackson said, gripping the boy tightly by the elbow.

"Yeah, well if you gave me the chance to explain myself before trying to slap cuffs on my wrists than maybe this wouldn't have happened!" the boy yelled.

Hakeem squinted his eyes and tilted his head a bit as the two men headed toward the first floor of Building Three, where the Dean of Discipline's office was. A lightbulb suddenly went off in his mind and his eyebrows shot up to his hairline.

"Hey Rashaad," Hakeem began in a low whisper, "Is that who I think it is?..."

Rashaad tried squinting his eyes the same way Hakeem did and slowly bobbed his head up and down. "Unless you and I are thinking the same thing, then yeah..."

"And you see that he's blue too, right?..."

"Totally..."

As the deputy tried to shove the young man through the door, who continued to mutter all types of profanities under his jagged breath, something from the back pocket of his ripped jeans fell to the ground as the deputy used his scuffed boots to kick his butt through the door. Which in turn made the bickering start back up again as the door shut behind them.

Hakeem and Rashaad slowly rose from their squatted positions and tip-toed near the object that fell out of the young man's back pocket, both of Rashaad's hands on Hakeem's shoulders in case he needed to use him as a shield.

The closer they crept towards the building door, the louder the yelling and swearing became. Hakeem looked both directions to make sure no one else was around them and picked up the object that was dropped, which appeared to be an old, dark, leather brown wallet.

"Aht, aht, aht, Keem!" Rashaad said and snatched the wallet from his fingers and threw it back on the ground. "What are you doing?! Don't touch it!"

"And what, just leave it here?! Do you know who this might belong too?" Hakeem said.

"Yes! Which is exactly why I don't want to touch it," Rashaad said in a hushed whisper. "Let's just go before the deputy or someone comes back."

"Just hold on. Let's at least check. And if it is who we think it is, we'll just turn it in to lost and found like this never happened."

Rashaad sighed and wiped his hand on his shirt. "Fine, but quickly."

Hakeem picked up the wallet again with Rashaad looking over his shoulder, his racing heartbeat making him take deeper breaths.

"And stop breathing so heavy, I can feel it down the back of my neck."

"Sorry..."

As Hakeem opened up the wallet, all the muscles in his face suddenly dropped and Rashaad felt some of his burrito from lunch rise back up his throat. Of course it was who they thought it was because his name was engraved right on the side of the leather. They heard his name a thousand times in a thousand different places that it almost felt like he was just a myth. But to actually see him so close and in person with something of his in their hands, it still didn't feel real.

Hakeem and Rashaad read the name over and over and just knew they were in serious trouble.

IF YOU HAVE THIS, IT DOESN'T BELONG TO YOU
– MANNY LOCKWOOD

Well, if you made it this far, congrats. And thank you! I seriously hoped you enjoyed this chapter because there's going to be a lot more where this came from.

Forgot to mention this earlier, but I am going to be experimenting with a lot of graphics, music, & gifs throughout the story because they do make things more visually appealing. So let me know down in the comments below what you think of them.

Also if you haven't voted, just click that lil' star at the bottom before you swipe up! This helps expose my book to as many wattpaders as possible.

Appreciate ya.

~ Robin ~