Neighbors

Chapter 4

Calum led me into the main office to get my schedule, it wouldn't take long because school has been in session for about a month, and I'm probably the only new kid right now. I mean, there aren't many students who sign up late for a fancy private school.

"Hello, Mrs Burkley, I'm sure you remember me." Calum says to the Secretary with a mischievous look on his face. "She's new, and needs a schedule." He lightly grabs my shoulders and positions me in front of him so she can see who he's talking about.

"Name?"

"Andrea Conway." Mrs Burkley looks at her computer screen for a moment before heading over to the prehistoric printer that was positioned in the back of the office. Why they had such a crappy printer in this school beats me.

"Here you go sweetie." She smiles tightly at me, then hands me my schedule. "Today is the only day where your tardys will not count against you. And Calum, get to class." I snorted a little, and tried to pass it off as a cough, and failed miserably, when Calum made a 'call me' sign with his hands on our way out. There aren't words to describe the utter horror written across her face when she saw his flirtacious gesture.

Once the door closed behind us, and we were back in student territory, I burst out laughing at his antics. "She probably hates me now! Thanks a lot Calum." I punched him in the arm jokingly, and stole a glance behind us. Mrs Burkley was watching us with her brows furrowed. She mouthed 'get to class' to me when she saw me looking.

After a few more moments of laughter, Calum snatched my schedule from my hand and skimmed over it. "Okay so most of your classes are in C and E wings. You also have one in the D a wing, and one in the F wing."

I smile and nod at him, completely clueless as to what all of that means. He must have understood that I was lost, because he chuckled at my expression. "Don't worry, I have a ton of classes with you, I'll show you around."

"You don't have to do that Calum, I wouldn't want to make you late. I'm sure I can find my way around."

"The teachers here love me. They won't give me a detention, I'm positive." I grin and nod my head at him. Happy that he was willing to do that for me. Usually people would just ignore me and leave me to my own devices.

"I'll show you to your first period. Oh, and meet me outside the cafeteria before lunch. You're eating with me and my group whether you like it or not." My face lights up with happiness. I couldn't believe his kindness.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I scuffed my foot back and forth along the floor. Awkwardly awaiting the arrival of Calum and his friends. I wondered if they would like me, and if they were as cool, and accepting as Calum. After about a minute or so, I pulled my phone out of my pocket and checked my Twitter. Just so I didn't look like a complete loser while I waited.

"Hey Andy, sorry it took me so long. I had to find these idiots."

I turned off my phone, and looked up. There was Calum, and two other guys. They were undeniably cute, and honestly, somewhat familiar looking. All of them, even Calum. One had brown hair, and a bandana, which I'm surprised they let him wear here, and the other had hot pink hair. I giggled at that. How manly.

"Luke will meet us there, he had to grab his Calculus homework. This is-"

The boy with the bandana, cut him off, and offered his hand.

"I'm Ashton, and that dork with the pink hair is Michael."

"Maybe I wanted to introduce myself to her....." Michael pouted. "And don't hate on my hair. You're just jealous that you wouldn't be able to dye you're hair this color, and still be sexy."

I stifled a laugh. Is this guy for real?

I shook both their hands, and introduced myself.

"I'm Andy, if you haven't noticed that by now."

"Oh we know who you are. Calum hasn't shut up about the hippie girl who stared at the sun, all morning." Ashton teased Calum, and I couldn't help but blush. He was talking about me?

Calum akwardly cleared his throat. "I don't know about you guys, but I'm so hungry, I could out eat Luke. Speaking of him, he's probably waiting for us by now, lets go." He grabbed my wrist, and pulled me through the cafeteria doors.

Almost everybody, it seemed like, stopped what they were doing and looked at us. Calum and his friends must be insanely popular or something. Not that I'm surprised though, hotties always earn high positions on the high school hierarchy.

Calum paid no attention to them though, he acted as though they didn't exist. In fact, he seemed almost annoyed at all the attention he was receiving. That was actually quite admirable, I could name about 15 people off the top of my head back in Marquette, that would be milking this kind of popularity dry.

"Don't mind them, Andy. They just want something to gossip about." Calum said in a frustrated, yet gentle tone. I furrowed my eyebrows at him, suspicion written across my face.

"Why would I be something to gossip about? I'm nothing special, just the new girl..."

We reach an empty table, near the back of the large room, and sat down. Michael and Ashton, seemed to be deep into an immature conversation, because they completely ignored Calum and I, while laughing, and joking. I couldn't help but notice how funny Ashton's laugh was, it was more like a giggle. Regardless, it was insanely adorable.

Calum glances at me out of the corner of his eyes, in what appeared to be a skeptical expression, and looks like he's about to say something, when relief is suddenly written across his face.

"Hey Luke, this is Andy, the girl I was telling you about."

I tear my gaze from all the whispering faces, and look up to see who this Luke kid is. He was wearing black skinny jeans, with a hole in the knee, and a red flannel. His longish blonde hair was quiffed up, and there was a black lip ring at the edge of his bottom lip. I pretty much choked on air.

But that's okay, because he seemed just as alarmed to see me, as I was him. His blue eyes were wide, and he was nervously fiddling with the hem of his shirt.

"Oh, we've met." I say to Calum. I smirk, suddenly finding Luke's discomfort amusing, as long as he is more frantic than I, this will be fun. "Haven't we Luke?"

He bites down on his lip ring, and scratches the back of his neck akwardly. Michael, and Ashton were now wearing the same confused look as Calum. Apparently now that there is action in our conversation, they didn't care about their immature jokes.

"About that...."

"Guys, what's going on-" Calum trys to speak up, but I cut him off.

"No, no. Its fine. Just be sure to drop my mail off at my house when you have the chance. I didn't have the change to retrieve it, if I remember correctly." I say sarcastically.

Leaning back in my chair, I looked around the table. Everyone was wearing an extremely comical face, every boy, except Luke, you could tell, had a series of suspicious thoughts running through their heads. Some of them weren't too pleasant, you didn't even have to ask them to know what they were thinking.