Roses

Chapter 4: James

I do really wonder what my delightful girlfriend is doing without me. Probably at some party I guess, seems to be all she ever does on a Friday night. It's a wonder to me how she keeps her grades so high when she's out all Friday night and nursing a hangover on Saturday.

"Mate, we should get going the group's waiting for us." Matthew throws my jumper at me and gets up to open the door. I smile and slip it on before following him. The hotel the school booked is rather nice I guess, well it's clean, which is better than I expected. As we reach the foyer I can see the other ten or so students from various schools and a chaperone teacher all gathered as a group but all chattering in several smaller groups. Mr Chevy looks up and catches sight of us.

"Ah here we are, James and Matthew are here! We're good to go but the bus is coming late!" he acts stressed but we all know that deep down Mr Chevy is super relaxed. "Well, maybe we should start with a few getting to know you games! Come on then all of you, in a circle!" Like little primary school aged kids we all slowly form a circle.

"Name, instrument and another fact about yourself. I'll start, Mr Chevy, trombone and I have a soft spot for junk food." We could all see that last fact visually represented by the size of his stomach. There was nothing bad about it though, kind of gave him that happy Uncle kind of look.

"Well I guess it's me next," Matthew says with a small smile "Matthew, cello, I can't live without my lucky leather bracelet." He holds up his arm and shows an intricately weaved leather arm band that his mother had made for him just before she had died from cancer. He never takes it off, except for the shower, even then he makes sure it's in his line of sight.

I could see a few girls in the group survey him with interest. All probably trying to working out how to get closer to him. Matthew's always been a bit of a catch. He still has never been in a proper relationship yet, he doesn't like things getting too serious, especially not in high school.

"Alright well it's me." I clear my throat "James, piano, and I'm sorry to break it to you ladies but I'm taken." This earns a good humoured chuckle from the group but I swear I can see one or two girls looking slightly disappointed.

We go around the circle in similar fashion and learn about some of the interesting characters in our group. Janice who has five older brothers, Leonard who hates the smell of celery, Tim who's a sucker for a good old dad joke, the list goes on. It's all fairly light hearted and happy until we reach the final person. A girl. Dark hair cut into a stylish bob, eyes that look like they could potentially be dangerous and a mouth that is constantly set as a smirk.

"Grace, flute, I'm not here to make friends." she flicks her gaze around the group but lets it rest on me.

:-:

"Dude the way she looked at you." Matthew grins at me. "She's not here to make friends alright, if you catch my drift." he wiggles his eyebrows around in the most comical way, I almost choke on my dinner.

"Matt she knows I've got a girlfriend." I roll my eyes at him.

"Yeah so does the entire group after you told everyone, why would you do that? I've never seen a group of girls so disappointed." he smirks and continues scoffing down his meal at such an alarmingly fast rate I'm amazed he doesn't choke.

"Hey guys got some extra space? This cafeteria is so crowded." I look up to see Leonard with a few other guys in tow. Tim, Fred and Byron I think.

"Yeah man tons of space, nobody at this American school wanna go anywhere near the weird Aussie kids." he gives them a food filled grin and I can see Leonard and his friends starting to slightly regret their decision to st with us.

"Don't mind him he's a nutcase. Hey, Leonard right?" I try to act at least marginally more normal than Matthew.

"Yeah! This is Tim, Fred and Brent." Ah so his name is Brent, whoops.

"That Grace girl is a bit scary isn't she?" Tim says as he plonks himself down next to Matthew.

"That's exactly what we were talking about!" Matthew says but it sounds incredibly muffled from all the food.

"Yeah but she seems to have all eyes on you James." Brent says in a quiet voice. This is the first time I've seen him talk apart from the introduction game.

"Agreed." Leonard says with a small smile.

"You guys are idiots, I have a girlfriend anyway." I try to make it seem like I don't care but it kind of bothers me really.

"Ha doesn't seem to matter to her." I throw my fork at Matthew for his comment.

Truth be told I've had girls chase me before, even though they are fully aware of my relationship with Victoria. They didn't bother me much because all I had to do was clearly show them that I wasn't interested and then they would slowly back off. There's something about this girl though, I think she's going to be a bit harder.

"What's your girlfriend like then James?" Leonard says, making me lose my train of thought.

"Oh don't get him started, he won't shut up." Matthew says but Leonard just looks at me with more interest than before.

"Well her name's Victoria and I suppose she's alright." I say trying to keep it short to prove Matt wrong.

"Is that it?" Leonard looks a bit disappointed "Not even a picture?"

To my surprise Matthew is already thrusting his phone under Leonard's nose. The entire group leans in and surveys it. We look so happy. We took the picture at the beach, sand covers our faces and Victoria's hair looks windswept. Victoria is smiling and I'm planting a kiss on her cheek.

"She's hot James!" I don't know who said it but I agree, wholeheartedly. She's perfect.