Not His Girl

Unexpected Partners With Quick Access To Phone Numbers

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Excuse the mistakes

Dedicated to hb_writes who created the wonderful banner on the side-->

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I was not in the mood for history right now.

Last night, I had gotten maybe five hours of sleep total. I’d stayed up until two in the morning, slaving over an English paper that I had procrastinated on. The lack of sleep was totally my fault, but that wasn’t exactly going to stop me from being grumpy and exhausted.

So, frankly, sitting in a 45-minute class where my teacher pandered on about a bunch of treaties, all of which seemed to occur in either Versailles or Vienna, did not seem that attractive to me. That said, I had to go to class, but I was going to take my sweet time getting there from lunch. 

Olive was home sick today, and Duke had been eating lunch with his football team so they could go over some plays, so I had eaten by myself during lunch. I didn’t really mind eating lunch on my own, since I could usually get a lot of homework done, and I also didn’t need to worry about having super great table manners. I was content at lunch.

However, after the bell rang, signaling the end of the period, I groaned and closed my math notebook. I shoved it in my backpack and walked out of the lunchroom, dumping the remnants of my food into a trashcan.

I head down the hallway towards me locker, and when I turned the corner, I saw that Duke was standing where my locker was, waiting for me. I stopped a couple feet away and tipped my head to the side as I looked at him.

Duke wasn’t paying attention, since his eyes were glued to the well-worn pages of a John Steinbeck novel he had been working through recently, and I couldn’t help but chuckle at how intensely he was reading his book. Whenever I caught Duke reading, it was apparently always during an intense part, and he would always be squinting and pursing his lips.

“Hey stranger,” I said, announcing myself as I approached my locker.

“Bitch,” he muttered, shaking his head and not looking up.

“Excuse me?” I asked, my eyebrows shooting up as I stared at him, very much taken aback. After hearing my voice again, this time a little louder and harsher, Duke looked up at me, and it took him less than a second to realize what he’d said.

“No, no, no!” Duke said quickly, slamming the book shut and stepping closer to me. “I was talking about Cathy,” he stated, holding up his book, “Not you, Harper, I swear.”

“Ah,” I replied, leaning against my locker with my arms crossed against my chest, “and what did this Cathy person do to deserve being called a bitch?”

“Burned down her family home,” Duke said, and I nodded slowly.

“What a bitch,” I conceded, serious for a moment, and then I grinned. I started spinning my combination into my lock, and I asked, “so what brings you to my locker at this fine hour, boyfriend?”

“Well, girlfriend,” Duke replied, and I could tell he was grinning from the sound of his voice, “I have a free period now and was wondering if you wanted to come hang out with me.”

“I would love to,” I said as I grabbed my books. “But,” I drawled, closing my locker and turning to face Duke, “I do have class now, and there isn’t really a chance in hell that you can get me to skip.”