Duke Kingsley is the reigning President of Goldwater Academy. He made sure everything was done in perfect order and only the highest standards were allowed to be portrayed by students.
He was Immaculate.
And I, Norah Saunders, am about to turn his...
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I shoved my volleyball uniform into my bag and reached for my ankle boots. "When a guy tells you that you bother them, what does that mean?"
Sarah looked up from her cell phone, confusion painted all over her face. "What?"
I exhaled after zipping up my boots. "If you and a guy are having a semi-okay conversation and he suddenly says, 'you bother me,' how would you interpret that?"
She smirked. "Were you two flirting?"
I cringed. "I wouldn't call that flirting."
"Were you two physically close?"
"I mean, there was a little space between-"
"He's probably developing feelings for you."
"What!" I shouted, my voice echoing in the locker room, and she cringed. "There's no way Duke would like, like, me." Why would she jump to the worst conclusion? This is not going to help my overthinking process later.
"Wait, Duke said that to you?"
"Yes!"
"Why are we shouting?"
I bit my lip to prevent myself from raising my voice and sat beside her on the bench. "I must be quite the headache for him to say that," I said softly. The thought of Duke and I getting romantically involved made me nervous and excited at the same time. What would that even look and feel like?
"Clearly. You better keep your distance from him, besides don't you have a date with Thayer? Why get worked up about Duke?"
"I'm not worked up about him and I thought I told you it's not a date. I don't know, I feel tired today."
Everything felt jumbled just because of that stupid rooftop hug. Why did he have to look at me like that? Then he basically lectured me in the auditorium because he was worried about me. But why? Was he simply invested but not in a romantic way? And it was in a romantic way, why did he say he was bothered?
"You need to get your head screwed on right."
I sighed. "Would it be that bad?" I bit my lip nervously and looked at her. "Duke and I...being together."
"You'd have a lot of enemies, that's for sure."
I frowned. "I've barely seen Duke hang around other girls."
"Have you seen the way they look at him?"
Right, I forgot about that. Though there weren't any drama queens claiming Duke as theirs, being in a relationship with him will certainly garner the attention I wasn't particularly fond of. It didn't matter anyway. I was probably over my head about this whole thing. Duke is a straightforward guy. If he wanted to date me, I'm sure he would've told me by now.
