Playing Criminal

37 - Playing Romantic

Crap. Crap. Crap. This can not be happening to me.

I frowned, looking in my binder frantically. There is no way I lost the ten pages of hand-written biology notes I’d done the day before.

“Are you fucking kidding me,” I muttered under my breath.

Berkeley already hated my guts and had recently threatened me that I’ll be torn into pieces as he watched (and most likely laughed). There was no way I could lose his homework…

Shit.

How many people even have to worry about turning in assignments to someone who hates you and literally wants to watch you be tortured by an animalistic set of gang members?

Not that many, I’ll bet.

I rifled through the set of papers one more time. Everything else was in perfect order, except for that one goddamn set of notes.

I groaned, rubbing my temples and then sighed.

Okay, it was 7:00 so I had an hour until I had to be sitting in Mr. Berkeley’s office, homework in hand.

I could do it.

Retracing my steps from the day before in my mind, I figured the only place the paper could be was somewhere in the hallway or the gym.

However, after a good ten or fifteen minutes of walking up and down the hallway and another good ten minutes of surveying the gym, the paper was nowhere to be found.

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.” I repeated as I tugged on the sides of my hair.

My steps heavy, I resigned myself to catching a quick breakfast before class. At least if I was going to get yelled at, it was going to be on a full stomach.

However, instead of receiving a nice, calm breakfast in the cafeteria, I pushed open the cafeteria’s large double doors to find a complete mob. Everyone was standing in a group eagerly chatting while Mrs. Murphy looked on with an evil eye.

What the…?

Finally, a set of broad shoulders I’d recognize anywhere turned around.

Jack was wearing a plain black t-shirt that accentuated his muscles and his hair was gelled in a way that was…well…kind of sexy. For him, this was dressed to impress.

Upon seeing me, Jack burst out into a huge grin, giving me full view of his pearly whites.

“Princess!” He said loudly as he approached me, still grinning his billion watt smile.

“Yeah….” I replied, a bit taken aback by the way the mob’s attention was now focused on the two of us.

“Where’ve you been?” Jack asked, smiling softly as if he was hiding some secret joke.

“Oh nothing- just looking for something.” I shrugged, pushing my hands into the pockets of my cardigan.

“Hmmm.” Jack bit his lip just above his lip ring, catching my attention. “…were you by any chance looking for this?”

From the back of his jeans, Jack pulled out a packet of paper.

I frowned, looking at it closer until I recognized the messy scrawl. “My notes!” I exclaimed, reaching out for it. “How did you-“

Just then, Jack pulled his hand up so that the papers were out of reach. “Not so fast, Princess.” Jack grinned, his eyes catching the light wickedly. “I have a proposition for you.”

“What kind of proposition?” I asked warily as I eyed the eager smiles on the crowd.

Oh, god, please tell me this isn’t….