Just Because (Interracial BWWM)

Chapter 5

Duke wasn't really sure what it was about this girl. About Braelyn.

Sure, she was cute.  Especially for a black girl. He never really found them that attractive, but then again, all the black girls who showed up on his radar had done so by being extremely obnoxious and loud. Not Braelyn, though.  They'd been in Honors English together for a solid month or so, and today was the first time he'd even known she was in the class. Maybe that was because the class was his very first block, and he had the tendency to Wake&Bake before coming to school.  He zoned out in English. And Calculus. And Physics. The only thing he really gave his full attention to was baseball, and by that time, his high was gone anyway.

Today, however, he'd woke up too late to smoke, and had thought that today would be a total drag. \Until he saw her walk into class.

"So, w\hat do you want to do?" Her voice snapped him to attention.

"What?"

Braelyn rolled her eyes at him. She didn't find him too charming, he could tell. That was something that he liked about her, oddly enough.  She was making him work for it. "I asked what you wanted to? for the Soundtrack Project, or weren't you paying attention?"

Feisty. Duke liked his girls with a little snap. "I'm sure you'll come up with something. I have complete faith in you, babe."

Braelyn laughed humorlessly. "Cute."

Duke winked. "You really think so?"

"No." she looked up at him across the desks they'd pushed together. "Let's get a few things straight here. 1: If you think I'm going to do this project by myself, you're wrong.  I know who you are, and I'm not like everyone else you've worked with. Either you work, or you won't get the grade."

Very feisty. Duke could see what Jake saw in her, even if Jake couldn't recognize it. The girl was cute, and quick-witted. Not too many girls around here were like that. Oh yea, she had definitely caught his eye. "What the other thing?" he cocked an eyebrow.

"Don't call me 'babe'." she spoke, not even looking up from the paper she was writing on.

Duke couldn't believe she wasn't even slightly interested in him. He was cocky, but this was a fact: Any girl who had ever talked to him had had some type of interest in him. But not her. She wasn't even responding to his flirting. Not yet, anyway.

"So, who am I? Since you know me so well?" He prompted.

Braelyn let out an exasperated breath, looking up at him. An overly excited look came to her face, and the voice that she spoke with reminded him of a dumb blonde he used to fuck.

"Oh my god! You're like, Duke Brandon. Captain of the baseball team. Super popular. You sit at the 'cool kids' table with the football players and the cheerleaders. You're like, small town royalty." Her face and voice went back to normal. "Did I miss anything?"

"You forgot top 10 in our class, and absolute hunk." He winked.

She did not look amused. "Have you seem The Great Gatsby?"

Which one? Robert Redford, or Leonardo DiCaprio?"

That seemed to surprise her. "You've seen the Robert Redford version?"

"Yea. My mom's really into movies." Which was a lie. His bitch Mother was too busy screwing pool boys in the Bahamas to watch a good film. But he wouldn't tell her that he was a film nerd. Only Jake knew that. "How about this," he proposed, "How about you come over this afternoon, and we watch both of them? Then we can try and decide what songs go with which scenes?"