Love is a Crime

Ditching School

I was up ready and waiting Ryan far earlier than I care to admit. I've got the butterflies again as I watch his car pull into my driveway, already holding the other boys. I'm disappointed to discover that Adam snagged the front seat so I'll be riding in the back with Jack.

Not that I mind, Jack is a cool guy, but there's this whole crush thing I have going on and I kinda want to sit with him.

"You ever ditched before, Zoe?" Adam asks me, smirking as if it's my first time.

"I've ditched loads of times, maybe more than you," I reply confidently, smirking as Ryan and Jack laughed with me.

"Feisty one you've got," Adam says, turning to Ryan. Ryan shoots Adam a glare and Adam shuts up.

Ignoring it, I turn to Jack.

"Got any ideas for a song we could play? The talent show is in less than a month," I feel the need to point out. Various groans escape the mouths of the boys and I glare at them.

"Yes mother," Ryan answers, looking at me in the rearview mirror. I narrow my eyes at his reflection and he turns away, I'm guessing he's smiling.

"Seriously though, we can't perform without a song," I sit back in my seat as the boys begin to throw around ideas.

Rock songs come up and so do hip hop and some other genres. All genres I'm okay with singing, except for one thing, they're only picking out songs sung by males.

"Um, what about female artists?" I ask after the third Justin Timberlake song was suggested.

"Female?" Adam asks me incredulously, looking at me as if I had grown another head.

"Yeah, Lucy Hale, Katy Perry, Pink? I mean, I'm female so wouldn't it make sense?" I reasoned. The boys seemed to think about this for a minute before they all had the "a-ha" moment.

"Oh, why didn't I think of that before!" Adam exclaimed, smacking his forehead.

"How did you guys even make it to eleventh grade?" I joked, smiling. The rest of the boys were laughing with me as we pulled into Ryan's driveway.

We piled out of his car and raced into his house, Adam and Jack barreling toward the basement door. I was about to head after the idiots when a strong hand grasped my arm and pulled me into the kitchen.

"I thought you could help me get the drinks?" He suggested, giving me his million dollar smile, an actual smile. He turned and opened the fridge. My heart skipped a beat and I nodded my head, pulling soda out of the fridge.

"Cat got your tongue huh?" He joked. I smiled and put the soda on the counter.

"Nah, just saving my voice," I said, it only being half true.

"Sure," he said, skeptical. I looked down at the drinks and popped the tabs, pouring them into cups.

"I'm ready," I grab two cups and Ryan grabs the other two.

We walk down into the basement to find Adam and Jack sitting with their instruments with bored expressions on their faces. They jumped up when we came in and started prepping for a song.

I place the drinks on the table and sit down at the keyboard. I play a C chord to discover that it was already adjusted.

"What song should we try, guys, and girl," Adam says, chuckling and looking at me. I shrug my shoulders and turn back to my piano music, studying the table of contents for a good song.

"What about page 28?" Jack pipes up and I glance down to see that page 28 was Domino by Jesse J.

"We should do that one for the talent show!" I exclaim, excitedly flipping to the page in the book.