My Beautiful King

Chapter Seven

"Alright class," our Geography teacher, Miss Everett began. "I need you to work on a small presentation about the early 20th century voyage to Antarctica in groups of about... Six."

"Oh!" Hayley cried out. "I wanna go with-"

"No Hayley," Miss Everett said sternly. "I'm picking the groups solely by name-out-of-a-hat."

The whole class groaned and grumbled at Miss' revelation. I secretly celebrated. I may be friends with Zayn now, but it didn't guarantee him picking me to go in a group with him.

"Group 2," Miss Everett's voice shattered through my daydream. "Go sit at the table on the left side of the classroom."

"Come on Ash," Zayn said, tapping my shoulder.

"Huh?"

"We're in a group together; me, you, Becca, Alex, Hayley and Maisy Mouse."

I looked at him bemused. "Maisy Mouse?"

"Yeah," said Zayn casually. "Britney or whatever her name is."

Bridget.

-x-x-x-x-

Hayley pressed her face against my arm as we both squealed with laughter. Alex, an extremely tall member of the popular crew, was quite the joker. He kept the whole of our group bursting into bouts of chuckling. Except Bridget, obviously. I think she was deliberately suppressing a smile.

"How tall are you, Alex?" I asked feeling brave enough to strike up conversation.

"Um, about 6"1," he replied, as he flicked his coffee-brown 'swishy-hair' out of his eyes.

"Wow," Hayley gushed. "You're soooo tall, Alex. I wonder how big your-"

"Jheeze!" Zayn interrupted from the other side of the table. "Can we not go into discussion about that?"

"Yeah Hayley," Becca snapped from her comfortable position next to Zayn. "It's not as if you don't know how "big" it is. We all know you've already fucked him!"

Hayley and Alex both looked at each other and blushed bright red as Zayn laughed and jeered. I found myself blushing a little too. But then again, I blushed at practically anything.

"That was ages ago Becca, you know that. Why was it even fucking necessary to bring it up?" Hayley quipped.

Becca looked at Hayley harshly. "Why is it necessary for you to be sitting next to Ashley instead of me?"

"Behave, Becca." Zayn muttered into her ear. I felt a razor-sharp pang of jealousy at their closeness, even if he was defending me.

Hayley opened her mouth to speak but Becca put up her hand and silenced her.

"Actually don't answer that," Becca continued. "That was really rude to both you and Ashley, I mean sorry Ash." She turned to look at me. "We've completely got off on the wrong foot. Since you've been hanging out with us, I've realised that well, you're not that bad. How about we become friends, yeah?"

She held out her hand and I gawked at it suspiciously. How much did I honestly trust Becca Thomas? But then again, how much did I honestly like the idea of being on Becca's good side? I liked it a lot. I extended my hand, expecting a handshake but received a playful high-five instead. Hayley, Alex and Zayn applauded teasingly.

"So I hear you're getting a Blackberry?" Becca said to me, tossing her glossy naturally chestnut hair over her shoulder. "Such a shame, I have an iPhone, if I had a Blackberry I would've added you on BBM!"

"Well," I spoke. "I haven't even asked yet-"

"Ash is adding me on BBM first, right?" Zayn asked, leaning over to touch my hand with his. I gulped loudly and murmured an agreement. I'd have to make it first priority to ask my parents for a new phone tonight.