On My Own Time

Chapter 9

Have you ever been in such an awkward car ride that you are seconds from opening your door and jumping out? That was me right about now. Victor tried to play music but that somehow made it even more awkward since he had a station on that played romantic music. I was more than grateful when we arrived at his place. It looked like nobody had moved into my old place when it was just my mom and I. I still had my copy of the key to the apartment. I wondered if they had changed the lock or not.

"Miss living there?"

I looked over to Victor to see him watching me from his side of the car. I wasn't sure if I actually missed it or not. I do like the new house. I did miss the moments with just my mom and I. Now, if Caden isn't around, it was my mom, Daniel, and I. But I was happy that my mom was happy.

"Its whatever," I finally said and grabbed my backpack, following him to his door.

There was no one else in the house as we entered. Victor seemed to be used to it since he didn't even bother to look around to see if someone was home. I knew Victor was an only child and that his mother was a lawyer and his father was a doctor. They were most likely never home which made me feel bad for him. He set his stuff down and walked into the kitchen, me slowly following his lead.

"So I didn't have enough time to cook you something but tomorrow I definitely will. Today we can order in something and I'll pay," he said, taking out two water bottle and tossing me one.

I fumble with it a bit until I got a good grasp of it, all with Victor watching in amusement. I gave a sheepish smile and took a sip of my water, looking around. The place was neat, very neat. It seemed that everything should be in its proper place but it didn't feel homey.

"We can go up to my room and start."

I nodded and followed after him, taking my water bottle with me since he took his. The silence was still a bit awkward but I was honestly trying to make it better. I gave a few smiles but then the image of him and the girl would pop up in my head. I shouldn't even feel upset since he actually isn't mine. Though he was flirting with me, it could've been meaningless to him. He probably didn't know the affect he had on me.

"So, this is my room."

He let me in first and his room was as neat as the rest of the house. He had the usual desk and drawers. His TV was mounted on the wall and his gaming counsels were on the small tv stand he had, his games most likely in the cubby. His bed was big, probably a queen size, with black and grey covers. In other words, this room was probably the most homey this entire place could be.

"So, my desk isn't that big so we can just study on the floor or my bed. My floor is very comfortable, just saying," he said with a chuckle making me crack a smile.

We decided to sit on the floor and he ordered the pizza from Domino's online while I set up the books. The homework was online but we had to actually get the textbook from the library. He opened up the homework while I found the correct chapter, doing a quick scan to know what the chapter was about. When he finally finished ordering, he looked at me and waited until I finished my scanning.

"So, what is hard?"

"Me," he said jokingly with a smirk.

I rolled my eyes and focused back on the book, trying to hide the small blush that ran to my cheeks. I tried to remind myself that he actually isn't interested and is just playing around. He moved closer to me so that we were almost touching and he reached over to the book in my lap, flipping a few pages until he got to a certain lesson.

"I don't understand this."

"Polynomials?"

"Yeah, that."

I gave him a side glance as I wasn't too sure about this. One of the few times that I secretly watched him, I saw him explain to a friend what a polynomial was. Either he forgot or he's messing with me. A polynomial involved graphs, I don't understand how hard it was to him. Did he teach his friends this wrongly? Was he lying to me? I had a feeling that he was lying to me and did know what this was.

"Victor?"

"Hm?"

I slowly closed the book and faced him. "You know what polynomials are."

"What? No I don't," he replied rather quickly.

I raised an eyebrow and he cursed and sighed.

"Alright, you caught me. I just wanted to hang out."

I gave a nervous chuckle and rubbed my arm. I didn't know what to say and I was feeling nervous. Thankfully the doorbell rang signaling our food had arrived. Victor got up without another word and went to grab the pizza. Maybe I shouldn't have said anything and went along with it. Did that mean he was embarrassed to say he wanted to actually hang out instead of make up the excuse of needing help with math? I wasn't sure how to feel at the moment but it wasn't a good feeling. When he came back in the room he sat back down, this time sitting right next to me and served me a slice.

"Since I don't actually need help, wanna hang?"

I took a bite out of my pizza and shrugged while nodding my head at the same time. He chuckled and bit his own pizza. We talked about random stuff such as our favorite color, food, animal, etc. I found myself forgetting what I had saw at the parking lot of the school and instead getting more interested in him more than ever. He gave a few flirty comments here and there but they were harmless. He was honestly a cool guy and he was secretly a romantic. He loved the movie titanic and of course asked if he could paint me like one of his French girls. I threw a pepperoni at him for that and he surprisingly caught it with his mouth. He then proceeded to tell me that wasn't all he could do with his mouth. My cheeks were definitely red by the time we finished eating.

"Well shit, this was fun," he said after a moment of silence.

My phone started vibrating and Sara's name popped up. Victor glanced at the screen and cleared his throat, adjusting himself on the floor. I let the call go through but she started sending me message after message and I was worried Victor would get annoyed.

"I'm sorry, I'll just see what she needs," I said and quickly opened the messages.

She was just bored and wanted attention. Of course. I turned my phone off of vibrate and changed it to silent and put the phone down. I glanced at Victor to see him playing with a string of a bracelet.

"She your girlfriend?"

"Who?" I asked, a look of confusion on my face.

"That girl."

"Sara? Oh no, she's just a friend."

He nodded his head and let out a 'mhm' sound. He couldn't be upset over this. If he was then I was sure I'd be upset because he was the one messing with another person. Oh great, here I am getting upset again. He sighed and gave me an actual smile this time.

"So, does this mean our deal is off now that you caught me?"

I chuckled and brought my knees to my chest, giving a shrug. I wasn't sure what to respond. Did he still want to hang out? Did I want to since it seemed like he was hiding me? I didn't know what to feel.

"Will it help if I said I wanted to hang out again? Tomorrow?"

I looked at him to see his famous charming smile. I couldn't stop the small smile that formed on my own lips. I knew I shouldn't but I wanted to agree. Gosh, this wasn't going to be healthy for my mentality. If he flirts with me every time we hang out my mind might try to form it to be him showing an attraction to me. Darn him.

"Okay."