Starr Academy: College Life {Part One}

Starr Academy: College Life- Chapter Twenty-One

Twenty-One

"And why do I find you like this again?"

I looked up from my desk and over my shoulder. Ian smiled and held up a single blue flower with a small bow. "I thought I'd try again to sweep you away and get you to relax."

Sighing, I shook my head turning back to my work. "Sorry, but I have too much that needs to get done."

Jerking my hands away as mist lifted up from the corners of my desk, I growled under my breathe. "GUYS! I told you to stop doing that. I really have to get this done before I fail a class."

Ian turned me around smirking. "And by failing, do you mean getting anything lower that an A?" He held up the flower. "All work and no play makes Hope sad most days."

No matter how much I could try, when he does that, I just have to smile. He knows how much I love rhyming and to hear others do that too. Though that one was a bit childish, it was cute. To change that rhyme around to use right now was sweet.

He caressed my cheek with the pedals of the flower. A smile on his face. Nageria swooping in to land on his shoulder and again rub his cheek. "Come on. One teeny tiny get away to recharge. Somewhere soothing and soul enriching. I know you need it."

I frowned as I touched the solitary flower. "But I just got caught up on when I missed classes. I've never been behind like this."

He knelt down in front of me and took my hands so we were both holding the flower. "I think it is a good thing that you're not three chapters ahead. Now you're experiencing what it is to be a real student and how everyone else struggles to make deadlines. You needed this for so long. Even a great student like you needs to know that they don't have to be ahead all the time."

He rose and pulled me out of my seat. "But for right now lets forget about school and what you have left to do. Because of right this very second, you are going to relax and unwind."

"So what is this? A spontaneous date?"

Ian smirked over his shoulder as he pulled me out of my room and down the stairs. "If you want to call it a date, I'll leave that up to you. But I would call it 'Hope's day out'."

"Makes me sound like that baby movie."

He chuckled opening the front door. "But there is nothing baby about you." He stopped next to his car that was parked right in front of the house. "You are a great woman." I blushed as I slipped into his car after he opened the door for me like a gentleman.

Turning around to look in the back seat of his always clean car, I saw a picnic basket with a folded up quilt tucked under the handle. The basket wasn't the wicker one one would think of as a traditional picnic basket. No, it was a different style, but you knew it was a picnic basket at first glance. Warm picture frame wood panels made it up with a craved wooden handle.

"Don't worry, I've brought a few books if you feel like reading under a beautiful tree or we could rent one of the row boats and relax out on the lake."

"I've never been out on a row boat before."

That made him smile. "Then we will have to do it at some point today. Today is to get you to just unwind and breathe. A good bit of sunshine won't hurt either."

I leaned over and placed my elbows on the center armrest and my chin in the palm of my hands. Staring right at Ian as he drove. "And what is for lunch?"

He blushed and I thought he looked cute as he chewed his bottom lip a little. "That's a surprise and I warn you now, it's simple." Ian looked even cuter as he drove trying not to glance at me as I smiled at him where I was. Just to see him squirm was too cute.