Petals and Thorns / l.h ✔️

3

~Juno's POV~

I arrived at school a little bit later than usual, parking my car in the usual spot I parked in the lot. After the little back and forth I'd had with Luke, which felt like had taken forever to actually get through, I had promptly left and drove here immediately.

I got out of my car and grabbed my backpack, slinging it over my left shoulder before I shut the door and locked my car. As I headed inside, I heard the bell ring and I hurriedly rushed through the crowd, heading towards my first period class, which was a computer typing class. It was very easy, luckily for me.

After I entered the class, I took a seat at my desk and grinned at one of my best friend's Reba, who I had known for five years now. "Hey, Re." I greeted happily, scooting my chair in under the desk. She looked up from her phone and looked confused at first, but then her brown eyes landed on me and she beamed. Her short, dark hair was voluminous and soft looking as it bounced. "Hi!" She beamed up at me, ever the beacon of light. Reba was a beautiful girl in general, but her smile made her a million times more beautiful. It was quite unfair, honestly.

Reba was tall at about five foot eight and had a slender physique, with long legs and long arms, a tiny waist. Her skin was a deep brown due to the fact that she was Indian and she had dark brows that she shaped with makeup but didn't pluck. She actually had very nice natural brows, with a perfect arch. I had to pluck the life out of mine to get them as arched as they were and it took me a while to figure out how to pluck them in the right shape for my face. Reba had full lips and a sharp jaw, with beautifully white teeth.

"Where have you been? I didn't see you before class anywhere." She asked me, pouting slightly. I smiled and shrugged my shoulders, taking off my backpack so I could hang it over the back of my chair. "I was late. Slight problem with the babysitter." I said, moving the mouse around so the computer screen would light up.

She cocked her head to the side and moved her mouse around as well, making the screen light up like mine. "Is everything okay? How is Nylah, anyways?" She asked, curious. She had met Nylah before and liked her as well, though she certainly didn't know or see her as often as I had. "Actually, Nylah isn't babysitting anymore." I answered with a sigh, opening up google chrome. While the page loaded, I looked over at Reba and saw her brows furrowed, looking confused. "What? Why?" She asked.

I shrugged and leaned back into my seat, crossing my arms over my chest. "I don't know, actually. She probably got a better job or something. Maybe she went off to college. I know she'd been debating for a while about what she wanted to do." I responded, shrugging my shoulders. I still wasn't exactly sure why Nylah had quit babysitting, but obviously if she was happier doing other things, that was what I wanted. Nylah was quite a nice girl and that was part of why I liked her so much, other than the fact that she'd been pretty good with Anais.

"Oh." Reba said with a little frown. "So, if she's not babysitting for you anymore, then who is your new babysitter?" She asked, interest in her eyes.

A small scowl formed on my face and I leaned forward when google chrome finally loaded on the screen, typing in the website we always went to for our typing exercises. "Some guy named Luke." I muttered bitterly, looking over at her while the website loaded.

Sensing the bitterness in my voice, her lips twitched up in amusement and she cocked a dark brow up at me. "You don't sound very happy about that." She mentioned, making me shrug lightly. I pursed my lips and tilted my head back over the back of my chair, the edge of the chair digging into my neck a little bit. "He's irritating." I stated, causing her to snicker. The sound of her laughing made me frown as I turned my neck to look at her, a grin on her face as her brown eyes met my blue ones. "Why are you laughing?" I grumbled, sitting up more in my chair.

Reba's brown eyes flickered with amusement. "Because it's funny seeing you worked up over your babysitter." She laughed, placing a hand over her mouth to try to stop herself from laughing when I glared at her.

"I'm not worked up over him." I huffed, scooting my chair in more as I frowned. She snorted and rolled her eyes, beginning to type in the name of the website as well, clicking enter on the keyboard to go to the website. "You're huffing and puffing. You're worked up." She retorted, making me roll my eyes and gently shake my head. "Whatever." I muttered.

"Why don't you like him?" She asked me after a moment, the bell ringing above us to let all of the students know they'd better be in class by now or they were tardy. I sighed and tapped my nails on the surface of the desk, looking down at my fingers. "Because...he's just...annoying. I mean, the first thing he said when we met was basically to stop looking at him and let him inside." I scowled at the memory, shaking my head to myself.

Instead of sharing my irritation, she just laughed, making me grumble to myself in frustration. "Well, maybe you were making him uncomfortable by looking at him." She giggled, but I just rolled my eyes. "I highly doubt that." I responded dryly.

She snorted and looked over at me, her gaze boring into the side of my face. "I think you're being too hard on the guy. You only just met him, Juju. Give him a chance." She said, the nickname making me cringe. She knew that I hated being called that. I frowned and stopped tapping my fingers on the desk, sighing. "I guess." I mumbled.

The teacher, Mr. Kurt, stood up from his desk chair and demanded everyone's attention, stopping Reba and I's conversation where it was. He instructed us to go to a certain section on the website and we all began to do our typing exercises, spending the majority of the class typing as we were supposed to.