《Detention Room Above》

"Oh my God," Casey said, grinning, "—that was actually fun."

Ashley shot her a smug look while Blake glared at Casey, his jaw twitching. Jason was trying to hold in his laughter, his huge arms crossed on his chest. Ally had wandered off somewhere after the game. They were beaten; hard, as expected.

It was useless of Ashley to hope that they would go easy on them because they were newbies. 96-20 was not the definition of 'going easy'. Akira however, reassured her that she made the cut nevertheless, and that the game wasn't really that important. She glared at the guy for a whole half hour at that revelation for wasting her time, but as expected, he didn't spare her the light of day after or even during the game. His name was Seb apparently. She had come to that revelation after hearing his teammates call him as they asked for the ball.

"How did you not see me next to you?" Blake scolded, still holding his side.

Ashley and Jason exchanged a look, both of them grinning.

"I just didn't." was Casey's reply.

"You did it on purpose, didn't you?" Blake stated more than asked.

Casey smirked, "You were breathing down my neck."

"That guy was heading for a shot and I was trying to block him, Casey, why in the world would you elbow me for that."

At this point, Ashley and Jason were letting out soft, muffled chuckles, their faces red from suppressed laughter.

"Well I'm sorry I'm an anti-sport, I didn't know that."

"It was obvious!" Blake exclaimed.

"Not to me it wasn't."

And that's when Jason and Ashley lost control and broke into fits of laughter, causing the arguing old couple to jump. They doubled over and clutched their stomach, their laughter being the only noise in the court all of a sudden.

"Stop it." Blake barked, scowling, unknowingly fueling the laughter.

"Guys, everyone's looking." Casey whisper-yelled.

Ashley waved her hand, "Okay, okay." She said in between laughs and straightened up.

Jason bit his lip and straightened up as well, running a hand through his hair. He looked back at Ashley and they met each other's gaze. Once again, they broke into laughter that was even louder than before.

"Dammit." Jason said, his deep beautiful laugh mixing with Ashley's husky laugh.

Casey pursed her lips and looked at Blake. He glared at her.

"Great, now they'll never let this go. You just had to exaggerated it, didn't you?" Blake scolded as he shook his head. The slight tilt of the corner of his lips, however, told a different story.

Ashley's laugh turned into wheezing silently with tears welling in her eyes. Jason looked at her and grinned even more,

"What—your—your laugh—!" He tried, laughing even more. He was laughing so hard, that his eyes were almost closed.

Casey crossed her arms and waited, as did Blake—well one arm as the other was busy holding hi side.

Eventually the two sobered up, but the grins on their faces remained,

"You two argue like a married couple." Jason said, wiping the tears glistening in his eyes.

"An old married couple." She added, earning a glare from Casey and Blake.

🔱🔱🔱

Ashley had already put her stuff in her room, but was yet to meet her roommate. He or she wasn't there last night, fortunately for her.

The morning was also peaceful and the fact that there was no bathroom hustling like she had come to expect only made it better. Maybe she didn't have a roommate.

Her day had been going great, until she sat down for her Local and International Cuisines lecture class and everything went to hell.

She sighed as she looked at the words fixed on the door.

Detention

Well then.

Why they had detention at a university was beyond her, but Ashley would later find out the school wasn't too big on kicking students out; reputation and all that nonsense.

She's hardly been here for a week but managed to get into trouble already. It was all that lecture's fault from starting the argument. Ashley wished someone had warned her not to challenge the Mrs. because the moment she asked her a question, she got so quickly offended that her ears turns blood red.

The fact that she had only asked what international cuisines they would be dealing with just made the situation more absurd. When Mrs. Cleveland scrunched up her nose at her the second the question left Ashley's lips, she should have taken that as a sigh to stop. But when she questioned Ashley for not trusting the process and her teaching—despite the fact that this was the first class—she had tried to justify herself by saying that she was just excited to learn. She even played her '—so I can read ahead' card to please her and calm her down, but that only added more fuel to the fire.

Damn her and her beautifully long—legs.

Shaking her head, she gripped the door and pushed it open then she peeked inside. She blinked, expecting to see just a normal classroom with a handful of people rethinking their life and where they went wrong. If anything, she was a hundred percent sure that would be what she would be doing. What she saw however really surprised her. She looked back at the tag on the door in case she missed something.

Huh, she was in the right room.

Her shoulders sagged.

Smoke was the first thing she noticed as soon as the door opened. There was a long table to the left side of the room and about a dozen chairs that were pushed all the way to the right corner and furthest from the door. A handful of people were standing in front of both ends of the freakishly long table, with red cups both in front of them and in their hands. Ashley felt like she had walked into a very poorly decorated high school party. She shook her head before her eyes landed on a familiar clean shaved head and buffy figure. She did a double take when she recognized who this person was; her grip loosening on the door handle before it fell and slapped her thigh.

Is that Mr. Heine playing beer pong with them?

She blinked and pursed her lips in disbelief as she fumbled for the handle closed the door behind her. She shook her head and looked for a spot she could relax and shut her eyes for a while. She looked at the chairs piled to her tight and nodded to herself, frowning as she heard the soft, melodic sound of music from somewhere in the room. Letting out a sigh, she looked for a spot that was safe enough for the pile to not collapse on her while she minded her own business. Though, with the way things were going, she wouldn't be surprised if her bad luck still had more tricks up her sleeve.

She approached her chosen spot, that had on of the giant windows behind the seats slightly cracked open. Catching movement from her left, she stopped in the middle of the room and turned to look at whoever walked in after her. She pursed her lips when she saw the familiar giant that had the whole cafeteria in silence. 

Eros Huxley.

He had his hand on the door handle as if he had just walked in after her and Ashley couldn't help but cock a curious eyebrow at him. She could only wonder what he was doing in the detention room. She wondered whether he was the problematic type of student, but when he shut the door behind him and approached the lecturer, she slowly realized that it wasn't the case. He probably had business with Mr. Heine or something.

She looked away from him and closed the rest of the distance between her and the seats. Grabbing one, she set in on the spot she choose and dropped on it. Propping her legs on the window sill in front of her, she reached for her phone and her earphones from her pocket, chose a random playlist and leaned her head back; resting it on back of her chair. She closed her eyes and shut herself off from the world around her, hoping to stay that way until this torture was over.

Two hours to go.

Her peaceful moment lasted for about a minute or two—unfortunately—before she felt a presence hovering beside her.

She refused to open her eyes.

Maybe if I ignore them they'll go away.

Her right earphone was—surprisingly gently—pulled off causing her to jump. She had an idea on who this person was, but she really wasn't in the mood to talk and was still upset. Sighing, she replaced her right earphone with the one on the left, hoping he'll get the memo and at least leave her be.

Sadly, as she predicted, Eros pulled that one off too and this time decided to tap her on the shoulder. Ashley finally lifted her brown eyed gaze to meet his and sent him a small smile despite how she was feeling.

"Did you need something?" She wondered and frowned when his gaze flickered towards the seas in front of them.

He was silent for a few beats, as if he was actually thinking about an answer before he carefully grabbed a seat from the deserted pile and pulled it next to hers, sitting close enough that there wasn't any space between them and his leg brushed against her own.

"For you to remember."

Ashley raised a brow, "Remember what?" She asked, her gaze yet to steer away from his beautiful face.

He leaned back on his seat and wordlessly put one of her earphone into his right ear, placed his hands behind his head and shut his eyes. Ashley pursed her lips, pondering on what her move should be. Should she pluck out the earphone and move to a different spot, or sit back and take the other pair. She let out a sigh and did the latter, not feeling particularly energetic.

"Well, alright then." She turned back to her phone.

Halfway into the playlist, Ashley couldn't tell you what she had been doing on her phone. The whole half hour was spent with her desperately trying not to eye his very tattooed arms, that were exposed by the loose beige T-shirt he had on. She tried her best on to move her leg because of the dread of knocking his legs—that were concealed with black, fitted slacks—and waking him up. She took in a breath to calm herself down—and blaming the all girl's Academy she had been in since high school—and got a huge whiff of his attractive, strong cologne. She blinked and visibly shook her head in an attempt to stop herself from acting up.

Why am I like this?

"Terrible." His deep voice said while he shifted his position and pulled on of the seats in front of him closer than rested his elbows on it. His eyes narrowed as they adjusted to the sudden light.

Was he actually asleep?

"What?" She said and cleaned her throat seconds after her reply sounded strained and raspy, like a dying llama in Minecraft. She pursed her lips, feeling her cheeks burn with embarrassment.

"Your music." He said, keeping his gaze in front of him.

"Then give me my earphone back." Ashley suggested, keeping her eyes on her phone, and ignoring her heart pounding in her ears and screaming at her to run away from this man and the unusual effect he had on her.

Eros stretched out his long, crossed legs beneath the seat and completely disregarded her statement, "Why are you here?" He asked as he sat up and finally lifted those hard eyes at her.

Ashley immediately looked away and cleared her throat, not wanting to slip up again, "If I had known detention was like this—leave alone that there was detention—I wouldn't have snapped at my Cuisines lecturer." she said, frowning as she remembered the argument after momentarily forgetting.

"Mrs. Cleveland?"

Ashley nodded with a sigh as she took off her right wireless earphone and stuffed in her right pocket, feeling that they were suddenly too noisy, "The one and only," she paused, finally meeting his eyes once again, "—I—I assume."

"She is useless." He said, though his voice sounded far away as his eyes searched hers.

Ashley gulped and looked away first, feeling overwhelmed with the heavy eye contact from that close. Holding his gaze was one thing, but keeping it and paying attention to what they were talking about was proving to be difficult the more it went on.

"Oh? How so?" Ashley asked, as her eyes moved on their own and lowered to his broad, full chest, where even more ink was winking at her from beneath the first few bottoms of his shirt. 

This man, she wondered, he's dangerous.

"If you must know," he paused as if he was coaxing her to look back at him. He inched closer towards her, making Ashley hold her breath as he stopped with his lips a hair's width away from her neck. His warm, peppermint breath fanned her cheek and jaw, and his lips brushed her neck when he spoke again,  "—she is not qualified to lecture."

Ashley gulped and her heart almost burst out of her chest right there and then when the small action was enough to brush his lips with her neck once again.

"What—," She paused and carefully cleared her throat, her head stiff and unmoving as she spoke again, "—what do you mean? Then why is she here?" Ashley stuttered, too flustered to react to both the suddenly spilled tea, and comment on how close he was.

Eros leaned his head back finally realizing what he was doing, but stayed close enough to just barely cross over the line of her personal bubble. Ashley pursed her lips and took a deep breath, a part of her disappointed that he moved away. She made the mistake of looking at him and challenging his eyes once again, only for her breath to hitch at the unexpected intensity of his gaze. Eros then lowered his gaze to her lips, and seemed to darken before he snapped them away to their original target.

"She's the director's conquest. I doubt I need to say more." He finally answered his deep, smoky voice blessed her ears and almost making her purr in content. Ashley had forgotten her question at this point and could only nod.

Her breath caught when he lowered his eyes onto her lips again and begun to lean his head towards her, taunting her. He took his time however, as if giving her a chance to tell him off—which if she was honest, wasn't likely to happen. She was held in place as if he had cast a spell on her somewhere along the conversation.

She wanted him to kiss her. There was the usual, most logical part of her that knew that she shouldn't let this happen, that Eros was the type of guy who had a lot of tricks up their sleeves. She tried to reason with herself and telling herself that people in the cafeteria reacted to him that way for a reason, but she wasn't that strong. She wanted to give in, because her heart wanted to, even though it knew that it would be broken in the end.

She was smart enough to know that it wasn't because he was respected, but rather that he was feared. There wasn't a single smile in that room when he walked in, and though people looked at him, she could see that they were being wary of keeping their gaze.

The bigger, more illogical part of her was drawn to him. There was something oddly familiar about him but she couldn't tell if she really knew him from somewhere or not. Could that be what he meant about wanting her to remember? Ashley frowned, knowing that there was no way she could have forgotten a face like his if she ever bumped into him.

Without thinking, she let her gaze lower to his lips as they got closer, his hand—that had suddenly been around her chair—made its way to the back of her neck. She gulped as she grew more desperate to feel those soft looking, rosy lips of his. His hold on her neck tightened as he brought her gently towards him, letting out a somewhat shaky breath that Ashley almost missed. It made her wonder if she affected him, just as much as he affected her.

Their lips finally touched and Ashley's chest swelled up with anticipation and a pleasant wave of desire that shot right down to her toes. Just as he felt his lips touch hers, he was gone.

Almost as if he was never even there to begin with and in his place, was nothing but a cold breeze hitting her side were he had blocked it.

She frowned and opened her eyes which she had no idea were closed and pursed her lips. She looked away from him and sat up straighter on her seat, her cheek burning hotter than before.

"Eros." A new voice called.

Both of them turned to the new voice. Eros' face remained stoic and impassive, as if he wasn't just about to kiss her, as if he hadn't been affect in the slightest, so much so that Ashley almost doubted it did. She raise her eyebrows and smiled at the man who interrupted them—or rather, that didn't?—and sent him a nod, to which he replied with his own.

Sebastian Greenwood.

His face revealed nothing as per usual, and Ashley considered writing a petition to rename this school into Stoic Academy, seeing that this was the go to expression on everyone's face. He was dressed in a whole dark blue suit, with a black tie, black shoes and his jet black hair was pushed back and exposing his very small forehead.

Lucky.

"—It's about—," he trailed off, sneaking a glance at Ashley so fast, she almost missed it,"—Gregor." He continued, his gaze now on Eros who nodded and got on his feet. Ashley raised an eyebrow, surprised that the knew each other, but once she though about how similar they seem she understood why.

She watched Eros rise on his feet and walk away first without as much as a glance, an apology, or a goodbye aimed at her. Ashley then looked at Seb, who blinked once she caught her staring and watched as he waved at her and followed after his friend, who was already out the door and out of there. She let out a huff and crossed her arms over her chest, completely dumfounded. 

Well bye.

Jerk.

It was then that she heard the low hum of music and the pressure of something hanging in her ear. She slapped her hand on the left side of her face—a bit to hard for her liking—and pulled it out.

When did he put my earphone back in my ear!

Don't tell me he wasn't planning on kissing—

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