Secrets of the Sun: Play Magic Book 1

Chapter 3

Present Day

"Hey, Vanessa, wait up." Mike jogged up beside me in the breezeway. He'd just gotten a haircut so he was nicely trimmed. His jeans fit snuggly on his slender legs, and he had a red T-shirt that was a bit sweaty at the armpits from how hot it was outside. "You didn't hear me calling you?"

"Yeah, but I also heard the two-minute bell ring, so there's that." I'd made the mistake of using a flat iron on my hair this morning but North Carolina humidity had a way of twisting my hair back into curls.

"We walk to class every day and now all of sudden this? Something wrong?"

I looked at him, still hurrying through the breezeway and taking a right at the end towards the 100 building. "Yeah, something's wrong. I called you three times last night and didn't get even a text back."

"Last night??" He looked through his phone.

"Don't act like you didn't get it because you sent me to voicemail."

"You wanna know where I was last night? Take a look at this." He shoved his phone in my face just in time for me to see a selfie of him and Leila Swan — the most beautiful girl at Broughton High — locking lips at the kegger from Stacy's house the night prior.

I rolled my eyes. "Hashtag gross, hashtag TMI."

"You kidding me?" He slid his phone into his back pocket. "That's straight-up hashtag killing it! The Leila Swan came up to me last night at the party that you skipped and one, let me kiss her and two, let me take a pic! We're basically in love."

"Well, good for you. Hope she doesn't get bored and dump you in a week. If not, that would be a record."

Just as we walked into history class, Mike shrugged and said, "We've already made it to day two. Only five more to go."

"And if she dumps you?"

"Then it will have been the best week of my mother fu—"

"Mr. Montague, I see you don't have your bookbag. Am I to believe that you neglected to bring in your research paper?" Mrs. Gayle stood with both hands planted on her enormous desk. Her gray and black hair showed her age, her slender figure and toned physique made her look younger than the forty or so that she actually was. She was dark-skinned and beautiful with very few age lines. She eyed Mike over her Versace — yes Versace — glasses as he took his seat in the third row of the class.

"Michael," she said again, offering a pregnant pause to really stab him this time, "everyone else has turned in his or her paper. Am I to assume that you are not a part of said everyone?"

The class was quiet. And I, who was only one seat away from him, mouthed with the universal sign for telephone, "That's why I called you."

"Michael...?" Mrs. Gayle let his name linger.

"I..." Mike squirmed at his desk. "I'll bring it tomorrow, Ms. Gayle."

The class remained silent. Bringing anything in late without a legitimate excuse — doctor's note, death in the family, school closing — was unacceptable. And it had to be legitimate and practically notarized. So yeah, Acts of God barely made the cut. Any assignment that didn't meet that criteria received an automatic 20% deduction for the first day late and an additional 5 points off for each day it was late up to three days. Then, it was a zero. Oh, and no papers were accepted via email. Mrs. Gayle's reason was that in her high school days, she didn't have email so we needed to experience "the dark ages of communication" as she called it.

To Mike's response, Mrs. Gayle frowned with a dismissive eyebrow raise and went right on with the lesson covering The Depression and Hitler's rise to power.

Before we knew it, the bell rang and the halls were teeming with students.

"I can't believe you, Mike."

He slid on his ball cap, but a somber expression took over him. "Listen, I know this thing with Leila, well...that it's only temporary. But look at me. I'm not the bee's knees when it comes to attractiveness. Think about it; she could be with Erik or Josh or even Lyndon if she wanted. Heck, and even those guys are beneath her in my opinion. But hey, I figured I could give it a shot and enjoy the fact — that for one small stint of time — somebody of that caliber was legitimately into me."

I looked him over unsure of how to respond. He certainly had his issues but Mike was anything but beneath Leila Swan. "That's not what I meant," I finally said. "I meant I can't believe you left your research paper at home. You realize it's fifteen percent of our final grade, right?"

"I'm not worried about that." He shoved through a few students who were heading in the opposite direction. "I've gotten 90s and 100s on everything else in the class. I'll be fine. And for the record, I never said the paper was at home."

"What did you do with it then? Left it at Leila's party?" I rolled my eyes.

Mike scratched the back of his head. "Uhhhh..."

"You have got to be kidding me! You didn't even do it, did you?"

"I got busy..."

"Busy doing everything except the one thing that matters! Mike, there's no way you can finish a 12-page research paper before Mrs. Gayle gives you a zero."

"Ms. Gayle can do whatever she wants. As long as I pass the class, that's all that matters. Ay, what are you up to tonight? A couple of us are going to Bojangles'. You up for it?"

"You can't be serious." I turned to him and poked him in the chest to emphasize my words. "I'm not going anywhere with you until you finish this paper. I refuse to enable you to fail." With that, I left him and headed to Spanish.

He called after me. "A C is not failing, just so you know."