Of Hotshots and High School

Chapter 5

Chase's POV

Seeing Rory walk into woodshop this morning was like getting a present. Sure, she was new, but I could already tell that we'd be friends. And she was fun to tease. And I retract yesterday's statement saying that she was only cute. Yeah, she was cute, but today she'd seemed beautiful. In a sort of fierce, mess-with-me-and-I'll-punch-you-again kind of way. I liked it. After Mr. Hansel's demo today was over he assigned me to help Rory catch up to the rest of the class. It was my "punishment for talking." Really though, I was the best and farthest ahead in the class and he knew it. I was always getting assigned to help someone with something.

"First, you've got to pull up that pretty little death trap of yours," I pointed to Rory's long brown hair. "If that got caught in a saw..." I grimaced, and Rory chuckled.

"What do you think this is for?" Rory joked, snapping the hair tie that was on her wrist. "Honestly I'm more of a 'ponytail-all-the-time' kind of person myself, but my mother refused to let me leave the house this morning until she deemed me presentable." She made a face and I crinkled my eyes as I thought of the exchange between Rory and her mother.

"Personally I'd say you look better than 'presentable,' but if it makes you feel any better, I'm sure you'll be so covered in sawdust by the time class is over that nobody else will notice." I wanted to give her a compliment but keep it light at the same time. She really did look good. Obviously her mother had good taste. Rory laughed.

"Honestly, that does make me feel a little better," Rory said with a bashful grin as she pulled her hair up into a messy ponytail.

"Well let's get started then!" I grabbed Rory's hand and pulled her through the classroom into the shop. "Operation: Make Rory Less Presentable is a go!" Rory rolled her eyes and laughed. 

I took her into the shop, showed her around, and helped her get started. We cut, jointed, and planed her boards. It was really nice to have someone to talk to as I worked. She was funny and smart and had had a really interesting life. She told me about the 3 other high schools she'd gone to, about growing up with a movie star mother and a famous director for a father. She was shocked when she learned that I hadn't known who her mother was.

"You seriously have never heard of Maggie Landon?" She asked it as if it was more preposterous to not know who Maggie Landon was than it was to hate pizza. And believe me, I love pizza.

"I'm sure I've heard of her, it's just that the name isn't ringing any bells at the moment." I stated sheepishly. Rory face changed from shocked to thoughtful.

"You know, that makes me surprisingly happy," Rory finally said.

"Why?" I was confused. I'd thought she was annoyed at me.

"Now I know that you won't be one of those guys who tries to be my friend only so that you can drool over my 'excessively hot' mother every time you come over." Rory grimaced.

"Gross. Has that ever actually happened?" Honestly, with Rory there I couldn't believe that any guy would be drooling over her mother, no matter how stunning she was.

"Three times," she stated simply. "Imagine my surprise when I finally took my new 'friend' who had the potential to become 'boyfriend' home to meet my mother and discovered that he really didn't care about me at all. And the fact that it happened more than once? Talk about awkward." She tried to laugh it off, but I could tell that it was something that really had bothered her.

"That's terrible." I said, and I meant it. "Honestly, any guy who used you to meet your mother was an idiot." I couldn't imagine anyone passing up Rory for her movie star mom. Rory was one of those people who demanded attention, whether or not she meant to. And in a good way. She was funny, nice... maybe a little violent, but it was one of the things that added to her personality and made her unique. Any guy would be lucky to get her attention. It made me mad that someone would be that terrible to her. But then again, I thought, some of the best girls fall for loser guys. And that thought made me think about Adelaide. Was I one of those losers? All I knew was that every once in a while it seemed like Adelaide thought I was. But we were going out tomorrow. And I'd be better. She deserved it.

"People will go to great lengths to meet a celebrity." Rory stated with a shrug, pulling me out of my thoughts.

"Well it's a good thing that I don't pay much attention to celebrities then," I replied on a lighter note, locking eyes with her. It made me happy to see her smile, even if she did roll her eyes afterwards. She had really pretty eyes. They were a dark green, with a tiny bit of grey around the edges. Like a forest in a storm.

I was surprised to hear the bell ringing to end class. It had seemed to pass so much quicker than usual. But then again, I had never had such an interesting person to pass the time talking to before.

"You know, " I told Rory, staring into those fascinating eyes of hers, "I'm really glad you're here." I was totally sincere, and I could tell that made Rory a little bit uncomfortable from the way she ducked her eyes and her cheeks blushed. She stayed quiet and so I stood up to leave. She was still standing there in the shop by the time I'd put my supplies away and grabbed my backpack. I shook my head and started out into the hallway. Girls. I'd never understand them. At least Rory felt a little easier to understand than Adelaide. Seriously, half the time I couldn't decipher how Adelaide was feeling. It was definitely a sore point for her. But I was trying, really I was.

"Chase," Rory's voice called me back and I turned to face her. The look she gave me was a little shy, but definitely honest.

"I'm glad you're here too." She stated it in a matter-of-fact way, but still it pulled my lips into a smile.

"See you at lunch?" I was hoping the answer would be yes. I didn't really understand why, but I knew for a fact that I wanted to get to know Rory better. And there was definitely a lot there about her to learn.

"If you insist," Rory dragged out the last word, pretending to be irritated. But she was smiling.

"I do." I used my 'this is not up for debate' tone that I typically reserved for the 8 year olds on the soccer team I helped coach. Rory rolled her eyes. Those eyes. Truly, I'd never seen any like them. Always so expressive and just full of a light that I hadn't known could exist...

I forced myself to leave then. Honestly, I had no idea why I was thinking so much about Rory's eyes. I guess I just liked eyes. Not in the morbid-sounding way. That had been one of the first things to draw me to Adelaide, actually. She'd had the most beautiful, crystal clear blue eyes. But after dating for over a year I now realized that I couldn't really remember what they looked like. I could just remember that they at least had been beautiful. And it bothered me that I couldn't remember. Saturday, I told myself. Everything will be better after your date with Adelaide on Saturday.