Hooked up | B×B

Hooked Up 05: Unwanted Feelings

|UNWANTED FEELINGS|

Jared stared off into space while the physics teacher Mr. Cossey droned on an about friction. The encounter with the new guy had unsettled him, and he was trying to figure out why. When their hands touched that second time, Jared felt as if he would tackle the guy — but not in malice. This strange urge to practically assault Rex concerned him, and Jared frowned inwardly at the thought that he might feel the urge every time the two got together for the project. Hopefully we can finish the project over text or something, he thought, trying to find a way around facing Rex as much as possible. It wasn’t like he hated him or something, but Jared couldn’t shake off this unsettling feeling that was triggered by touching Rex’s arm.

“Hey,” A person from his behind spoke. “What’s going on with you? You’ve been spaced out all throughout the class.”

Jared subconsciously shook himself and turned to Nick, who was conveniently his lab partner. The only reason Nick risked talking was the bell was about to ring and everyone was packing up for their classes. “I’m fine,” Jared assured him. “I was just thinking about what to do for Olivia’s birthday — it’s only in a week and I haven’t planned anything yet.”

Nick suddenly perked up as if he had just injected himself with coffee and started gushing excitedly. “How about you have a fash-mob party at your house for her birthday? I could plan it all — texts would be sent out to everyone just your address and a time, and then herd of people show up at your door to suprise Olivia!” Nick’s eyes gleamed in excitement as he thought of his brilliant plan that Jared guessed he had been planning for a least month. “It’s flawless. I’ll even get the cake and balloons.”

Jared just looked at Nick incredulously as they got up and headed to the door. “You’re crazy, you know that right?”

Nick practically got on his knees in the hallway and gave Jared the infamous puppy eyes that were trademark. “Please can I do it? I know you’ll never plan it because you hate parties, but Olivia loves them and I just happen to be the best party planner around. Come on, you know you can’t say no to this face!” He started quivering his bottom lip to prove his point.

Jared laughed and held his hands up in surrender. “Okay, God! Just enough of the puppy eyes. I can’t stand them. Anyways, I never said you couldn’t.”

Nick rolled his eyes heavenward. “Well, even if you hadn’t let me, I would have done it anyways and you would have still loved me. Now let’s got to English class before Mrs. Chen screw us over.” The bell was about to ring, and they weren’t close enough to walk the rest of the way to the class, so they were forced to run, and arrived as the bell blared in their eyes.

“Wow, Mr. Martin, Mr. Parried, I’m glad you made it on time for once. Please have a seat.” Mrs. Chen said with a grumpy tone in her voice. She loved writing up disciplinary slips, and today he was just denied two.

Jared and Nick sat down in two desks in circular layout and pulled out their notebooks to take notes on the seminar of The Sailor Who Fell From Grace With the Sea. When he looked up from setting up his desk, Jared noticed that Rex was only three seats away from him on the right, and that he was looking straight to Jared with a funny look. However, when he realized that Jared saw him, he quietly looked away and put on a bored face.

“Okay class,” Mrs. Chen said. “What do you think of Noburo’s relationship with Ryuji?”

Right away, people started firing off their remarks, but Jared held back, only commenting once or twice when he was picked involuntarily.

When class was over, Jared rushed off to gym class. He hated seminars because he always was forced to talk when he would have rather sat back and listened to everyone else’s opinions. In gym, they were playing badminton, and Jared was thankful that he wouldn’t be all sweaty when he left class to meet up with Olivia at lunch.