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“You were friends for a long time, then? Were you together when I met you?”
My head tipped back with laughter. “Oh, hell no. We’ve only been together a couple of months. It was a friends-to-lovers situation.”
“I love that trope.” Sergio’s face lit up.
I scrunched my face. “You love the friends-to-lovers trope? Like in romance novels?”
“The road gets boring, Cee. Which means you’re going to tell me your real-life romance story to entertain me.”
“I am?”
“You are. Start at the beginning.”
Knowing I wasn’t getting out of this without a fight, I gave in.
Five
Then:
It was my freshman year of high school, Elijah’s second freshman year.
He wasn’t all that into school.
I was new to public school, having begged my parents to let me be ‘normal’ and leave private schooling in the past. Eleanor, the older sibling, didn't have the option of going to public school; our parents always had different rules for our upbringings. With her away at college, I found being myself easier, especially in this new environment.
Eli sat in front of me in history, next to me in English, and was in both my study hall and gym class. The first few weeks of school, we hadn’t really spoken all that much. I made friends with a couple of girls on the cheerleading squad who gave me all the essential inside details about my new classmates. They told me I should avoid Eli, as he was a known player despite his lack of scholarly prowess.
Or maybe because of it.
Eli was one of the popular guys. He had an easygoing manner to him and was very attractive in the way fifteen-year-old boys could be to fourteen-year-old girls. He was of average height, with dark hair and eyes. Like most other high school boys, he wore either jeans or basketball shorts and a t-shirt. He showed up late to most classes, usually with a girl hanging on his arm and a sarcastic retort for any teacher who asked where he had been.
Elijah Jenkins was trouble, and I loved trouble.
A month into school, we had a test in history. As usual, Eli was not at all equipped for class. He turned to me and asked, “Hey new girl, got a writing implement I can borrow?”
I looked up to meet his deep brown eyes as I dug around in my backpack and pulled out a highlighter and a pen. Hiding the pen, I offered the highlighter. “Here. You can use this.”
He smiled at me, and my whole body flushed. “I was thinking more like a pen or pencil, but desperate times, I guess.” He shrugged, reaching out to take the proffered implement, and I pulled it back.
“Oh, like this pen?” I feigned innocence and held it just out of reach.
“The new girl is feisty.” He leaned his elbows on my desk and looked me over just as the teacher came up to his desk to break up our conversation.
I looked up at the teacher Eli seemed perfectly comfortable ignoring. “I was just loaning him a pen.” Eli used that as his cue to acknowledge the intruder and take the pen I held out.
“The hot new girl was just giving me a pen,” Eli repeated with a mischievous grin. I felt the eyes of the entire class focus on us, and I blushed.
“Just get to work, Mr. Jenkins. Stop flirting with the ladies.” The class chuckled as I tried to pretend this wasn’t happening.
After class, Eli ran up behind me. “Yo, new girl!”
I turned to face him. “I have a name, you know.” Fellow students passed by us on both sides.
“Catherine, right?”
“Yes, but no one except my parents calls me that. It’s just Katie.”
“Well, just Katie.” He took my hand and kissed the back of it. “I’m Elijah, and it is very nice to meet you.”
