The name "Mr. Palazzolo" was scrawled across the whiteboard in large, uneven letters. I couldn't stand substitute teachers. They yelled too much, were in a permanently bad mood, and never knew what they were talking about. This one didn't look much different, but this was Current Events so a competent teacher wasn't really necessary anyway.

"Weir," Mr. Palazzolo called out. Maverick raised a hand, already having slumped back into his chair with his feet kicked up on our table.

I was balanced on the far side of my seat, trying to avoid any unnecessary proximity to him. It had only been a day since he had cornered me at my locker, but I was already exhausted from this constant anxiety. As if the bags under my eyes weren't bad enough already. I didn't need to lose my precious hours of sleep in lieu of staring at my ceiling and worrying myself sick over Maverick's unspoken threats.

I had developed the unfortunate habit of glancing up to see if he really was staring at me as much as my overactive imagination screamed that he was. I was going to have to work on breaking it. There was no point in constantly checking anymore; every time I looked, he was staring right back.

Youngblood was the last name on the roll call, so after Mr. Palazzolo received his last echo of "here," I jumped out of my seat to grab a newspaper, swiping up my things and bolting to the back of the room where Ellie sat.

Our substitute cleared his throat loudly, a cringe-worthy, wet sound that left Ellie scrunching up her button nose. I glanced up and found that the balding man was staring directly at me.

"You will all be sitting in your assigned seats today," he said pointedly. His voice sounded like his vocal cords were scraping against his throat.

My shoulders sagged, dismay flashing over my features. Without thinking I glanced over at my seating partner. Maverick craned his neck over his shoulder to link eyes with me, a hint of a grin playing on his lips.

Great.

I shuffled back to my seat while the sub droned on about all the rules we have had recited to us since kindergarten. I'm surprised he didn't include "keep your hands and feet to yourself." I let my books drop onto the table and fell into my seat, blowing a strand of brown hair out of my face with a short huff.

"Guess you're stuck with me, huh?" Maverick teased. He was still reclined far back into his chair, but he leaned towards me as if to increase the intimacy of the situation. The sound of his voice crept across my skin and left goosebumps in its wake.

I had my eyes trained straight ahead but all my focus was to the far left of my peripheral vision. Maverick was still grinning, I just knew it. He was enjoying my discomfort way too much, and all too openly.

Maverick went to make a swipe for my newspaper, but I snatched it away before he could. He might be terrifying and a potential psychopath, but I wasn't about to let him walk all over me. He could possess this school all he wanted, but he didn't own me.

"Relax, Angel, I only wanted the sports page. You never read it anyway."

I narrowed my eyes. Sure, I was about as unathletic as they come so it wasn't an unreasonable conclusion to make, but it didn't sound like an assumption coming out of his mouth. Since when was he keeping tabs on what I did and didn't read?

"It's Angelica," I said pointedly, but unfolded the sports section from the rest of the newspaper and slid it over to him.

"What? You don't like Angel?" he asked. That same, infuriatingly cocky smirk tilted his lips. "I think it's kind of fitting."

"It's awful."

"It stays."

I shook off his comment and opened my newspaper to the Business & Finance section, trying to settle into my seat. It was difficult with Maverick's dark eyes still on me.

"I don't think you're going to find anything in there about selling pot, if that's what you're after."

I ignored him, tossing the paper on the table so I could rummage through my bag for my earbuds, but my cheeks were already flushed. I wanted to hit myself. He was just some dumb jerk. Why was I letting him get inside my head?

I jammed them in my ears and scrolled through my phone until I found a song with enough electric guitar and loud vocals block everything out. Before I could crank up the volume, Mr. Palazzolo was standing over my table like a vulture, his hands planted firmly on his hips and a scowl sculpted into his face.

"Put that away, young lady."

"Mr. Montgomery always lets us listen to music," I said. I was trying to sound more respectful than I felt, coating my features in a polite mask. Underneath I was bubbling with irritation and exasperation.

First I have to get harassed by Maverick, and now the substitute too? I began to wonder if this was karma working against me for becoming a part-time drug dealer or if I just had plain bad luck.

"Then you can listen to music tomorrow when he gets back," the substitute returned, his voice as grating as ever. "Put that away before I have to confiscate it."

I shoved my phone back inside my bag, the earbuds bunched up along with it. When the man finally retreated, I slumped back into my chair, aiming a hard scowl at his back. Drug dealer or not, I so did not deserve this.

"Just out of curiosity, how does someone like you get into selling weed anyway?" Maverick asked, his voice much too loud for my liking. There was something about the way he said someone like you that made my stomach squirm.

"I told you, it was just one time to help out my cousin," I said. I was turned away from him, bent over my notebook paper and quickly scribbling some facts from the article I read.

"Right," he said, drawing out the word. He clearly didn't believe me.

Did I really care? I didn't owe Maverick anything. He can think whatever he wants about me.

"Have you even been high before?" Amusement played through his words like a melody and glinted in his eyes. That infamous smirk was back and it sent a wave of nerves down into my stomach.

"I'm not talking about this with you."

"If you don't tell me, I'm just going to have to start guessing," he warned. A moment of silence passed as I pointedly ignored him and began working on my assignment again. My grip around my pencil was uncomfortably tight, but I couldn't manage to relax.

His eyes swept over me, narrowed in concentration as he sized me up. I tried to brush off the heat that washed over my skin, trailing after his burning gaze.

"I'm going to say... no," he decided, but a wild grin broke out across his face when he caught my sideways glance at him. "Wait — you have, haven't you?"

I almost groaned out loud. For once in my life, could I refrain from wearing every thought and emotion that passed through my head on my face? I had been an easy read my entire life, and while it was a good motivator to keep me honest, it didn't help much in situations like these.

I left my hair curtain my face, surely a blazing red by now, as Maverick released a low, crackling laugh. Why did even his laugh have to be so goddamn attractive?

"What were you like?" Maverick dropped the mocking edge to his voice and his words were left coated in just plain curiosity.

I wanted to tell him I was a wreck. When my cousin talked about marijuana he failed to mention that while it makes most people relaxed, it can also heighten anxiety in others. I fell into the "other" category.

All it took was one hit out of some contraption he cooked up in a used 2-liter bottle for me to lose my cool. Sure, I was nervous before we started, but afterward I was one hundred and five pounds of sheer panic.

It was the first and last time I ever got high. I planned on keeping it that way.

Of course, I didn't say any of this, so he answered my silence by hooking his fingers under the seat of my chair and dragging me closer. I avoided his eyes, but I didn't have to look to know that smile that spelled trouble was on his lips.

The chair leg knocked over my bag as he tugged me close, spilling out a few loose items, my phone and earbuds among them. There was no room to reach down and pick up my things without my head hovering around his lap, which was just about the last place I wanted to be.

His fingers were still hooked around my chair. There was no backing out of this.

"Come on, Angel. Don't be shy."

"Don't call me that," I snapped. He stared me down, amusement still swimming in his eyes.

He was an arrogant jerk who never fully grasped the concept of personal space, but he was an arrogant jerk that made my heart leap into my throat. I tried to swallow it down.

A faint beep sounded from beneath his chair and he broke his stare to reach around and swipe up my phone, the screen illuminated with a new message. He swiped to unlock it and tutted his tongue as he read the text.

"Hey! Give that back."

He pulled it out of my reach, then flipped the screen in his hand, holding it out so I could read it. There was no contact name, just a string of numbers I didn't recognize, but the message itself was pretty clear.

heard u could hook me up with some mary jane

"Angel, I thought we talked about this," Maverick said, pulling my phone out of reach once more.

"I'm not the problem. It's the rest of the school who didn't get the memo."

"Yeah, well they're about to," he said, already typing out a response. Before I could get a look at it, he flipped my camera to selfie mode and held it out wide. "Say cheese."

He gave a sarcastically enthusiastic grin to the camera while I ducked behind my hands. So he was going to chase away all my inquiring customers with ironic selfies and cyber threats? Awesome.

"Hand it over," Mr. Palazzolo said, and open palm held out to Maverick. It was too late. The message had already been sent.

"It's not his. It's mine," I said. His hand remained outstretched, unwavering. "I wasn't using it. He took it from me."

The substitute turned his lined face to me and adopted a condescending tone. "He wouldn't have been able to take it if you didn't have it out in the first place. You can get it back from the main office when the school day ends."

It took every ounce of self control I had left to not scream out in frustration as Maverick handed it over. He slumped back in his chair and turned to me, his mouth pulled to the side in an expression of mock sympathy.

"Tough luck."

Was every day going to be like this now that I was on Maverick's radar? I was starting to miss being a nobody.

I scooted my chair back to my side of the table and reached down to scoop up my fallen bag and the few spilled items. As my fingers chased down a tube of lipgloss, Maverick swiped up a thin, leather bound book.

"You have a diary?"

"It's a journal," I corrected sharply and snatched it away from him before he could leaf through its insides. I already knew my poetry was embarrassingly awful, but I didn't need Maverick to confirm that fact for me.

He held his hands up in feigned surrender.

I tore my gaze away from him and tried to concentrate on the assignment in front of me, but every inch of me was focused on whether his gaze was still burning into me, or if it was simply my imagination.

I kept my head down and my eyes trained on my paper when he kicked his chair back and walked around mine. His fingers brushed my back as he passed and he leaned down close to my ear.

"See you around, Angel."

And then he was gone.