The Thing About Three

chapter four | new guy

DALLAS AND I only had two classes together when he was in high school, which really wasn't supposed to happen with him being two grade levels above me.

It happened because of Spanish. I was taking Spanish at my old school before I moved mid-semester, and naturally was put into Spanish 1 at my new school, despite it being a strictly junior/senior class at Denton High. Luckily, Dallas had it with me. I'll never forget how happy I was to look across the sea of upperclassmen and see his smiling face as he pointed to an open seat next to him. We also somehow managed to get the same Spanish 2 class the next semester, and I couldn't have been happier.

One memory that I'll forever hold on to happened in the third week of our first class together when I started doodling in my notebook while the teacher played a movie that was spoken in Spanish only. I filled up the entire page with doodles, very aware of Dallas watching me draw the entire time. I remember my back aching from how perfectly I tried to keep my posture under his gaze.

Afterwards, I gave the drawing to him and he stuck it in the front of his binder for all to see. He added more to his collection over the years and even started pinning some of them to the corkboard in his office.

Now, I always doodled with him in mind. I even added a little heart somewhere in every one of my drawings—my way of telling him that I'm in love with him.

If he caught on to my small display of love, he hadn't let it known.

Right as I was adding the hidden heart into one of my drawings at work one Saturday morning, Noah Caraway waltzed in.

I did a double take when I saw him, a panicked sort of excitement rushing out of my heart and through my veins. I quickly masked it by trying to seem laid back and neutral, but my left leg bounced up and down behind the desk separating us in anxiety.

"Hey," I greeted, "ya got car trouble?"

"Nah," Noah said back. He had on a lazy grin, his hands tucked into his jeans as he sauntered up to my secretarial desk. He folded his arms and set them on the top of the desk, leaning in towards me. "I actually have lady trouble."

My heart beat faster. "Really?"

He nodded, his grin turning flirty. "Yep. There's this real pretty blonde that won't go out with me. Any advice?"

"Hmm," I hummed, looking away as if to think—in reality, I was trying to calm my erratic heartbeat down. "Maybe you should try flowers. I hear girls love flowers."

"Flowers," he repeated. "Yeah, I'll have to try that. What kind of flowers?"

"White daisies," I told him.

He leaned in a little closer, his face coming within inches of mine. "Thanks for the advice, I'll have to give you some of my own."

"Really?" I asked, my voice coming out much flirtier than I had intended. "And what would that be?"

"Well—"

"Noah," Dallas's voice cut through the small space between us, sending us apart.

I rolled back in my chair as Noah straightened and took a step back. I felt dirty, like I had been caught red-handed. Like this situation was a lot more serious than it actually was.

Dallas didn't seem perturbed in the slightest by our earlier position, and I did my best to snuff out the part of me that wished he was bothered by it.

"Hey, Whitlock." Noah smiled, tipping his chin in Dallas's direction. "I'm here five minutes early—does that get brownie points?"

"You already have the job, man, you don't need brownie points," Dallas said back.