Forbidden Law (An Alien Love #1)

Chapter Four

The teacher stared at Jace.

I hid my laughter by coughing into my elbow. I couldn't help reacting to the stupidity of the female attraction to the obvious alluring effect of alien beauty. Jace looked at me with worry and I nodded at him reassuringly, fighting another fit of laughter. I'm sure my face resembled a ripe tomato.

"And your name is..." Mrs. Salazar asked. She was a slender woman, fresh out of college. She was the type that didn't speak "carb" or "common indulgences of life."She looked at Jace as if he were a cheeseburger to an anorexic supermodel. That resulted in a suspicious pang of annoyance, but I was still too distracted by the inappropriateness of the situation to acknowledge its' presence. The classroom was still filing in in a stream of chatter and scraping chairs. Heads turned as eyes lingered fixedly in Jace's direction; I guessed curiosity and the odd bewitching lust that seemed to plague the school today were main causes.

"Jace," Jace replied in a confident smoothness that left no room for doubt. His gaze was sharp and careful as he studied her. Mrs. Salazar seemed ready to topple over, so leaned on her oak desk for support. She nodded hurriedly.

"Of course. Very...very nice to meet you." The breathless quality to her voice didn't escape my notice as she blinked slowly in an attempt to show off her makeup skills. Jace didn't take the hint. The teacher put a hand to his shoulder, steering him towards an empty chair. Her hand lingered for a moment too long to be normal. "You can sit next to Skyler here," she gestured towards me, now just noticing my presence with a dismissive passover of her eyes. I shrugged and led him the rest of the way to my seat in the back of the room. People gawked, all the girls trying to look more attractive by sitting up straight and smoothing their hair. I rolled my eyes for the hundredth time this morning and sat down.

Jace settled down in his chair. looking at me expectantly. I nodded to the front of the room, towards Mrs. Salazar. "Now we learn. All you have to do is remember everything relevant to the subject at hand. That's how you learn." I took out my notepad and showed it to him. "Just write down the topics and details that you think are important. Unless you can remember every single thing." Which he probably could. I mean, I did too to a degree.

All through the period, he would glance at me to see what I was doing. I smiled and showed him that I was taking notes, and he would do the same. Several times throughout class, the teacher would "stride" or "pace" down the isles of desks, ours in particular. When the bell rang, his eyes shot to the ceiling with alarm.

"What is that alarm for?" he asked as we stood up. I laughed.

"That would be the bell. It signals the starting and ending of each period."

He nodded, now understanding. Girls watched and whispered from their lockers as we walked to our next class. I saw Isabella Simpson looking at him with calculating eyes. She was the head cheerleader, along with class president and known homecoming queen. She was well known for her rather blatant entitlement for all things "male."

Jace paid no mind to her as we passed. I watched gleefully as a flash of anger and confusion crossed her face. Not that I'd ever spoken more than three sentences to her in my whole high school career, but I contemplated the possibility of her ever being slighted by anyone here. But as I watched, her current jock boyfriend, Michael Lanser, slung an arm around her slender waist. If she had, it definitely wouldn't have been by any prospective boy toys.

********************************************************

At lunch, three different tables of kids offered Jace a seat, making him stand in the middle of all of them in a confused war of tables. I tugged on his shirt sleeve and promptly won it with unnecessary smugness.