Grace

Four

Toby walks into his Science class and notices the usually empty seat next to his is taken by the girl from Lunch.
Grace.
As he moves closer, he takes in her features. They're delicate and pretty. Her eyeliner is lightly winged at the outer corner of each eye. Her lips are nude and soft-looking.
She carries that vintage vibe.
He likes it.

"Hey" He smiles as he pulls out his chair.
She looks up sharply from her notepad. Her face softens, and her smile seems to illuminate the whole room.
"Hi" She smiles, stretching the sleeves of her grey cardigan and holding them over her hands in her fist.
"So, are you new?"
"Yeah, I moved here from New York" Her smile wavers.
Toby's eyes scan her body. Under her grey cardigan she's wearing a white lace dress, white frilly socks and Timberland boots.
"Nice boots" Toby points to her feet. "I'm Toby." With a goofy smile, he stretches out his arm and offers his hand for her to shake.
A light giggle escapes her lips.
"Grace" She smiles, shaking his hand.

"Good afternoon class. Please take out your planners" Their teacher, Mr. Vale's voice booms.
Grace pushes her notebook to the side and puts her white diamanté pen in her mouth to free her hands so she can get out her planning book that the school provided her with.
Out of her peripheral vision, she notices the slight movement of Toby's arm shoot up into the air.
Mr. Vale allows him to speak.
"Sir, there's a new student" Toby says excitedly.
Grace smiles and lightly shakes her head. She feels her ears heat up, and she hides her face with her hair to cover her crimson cheeks.
This boy got easily excited over anything.
"Ah, I see you're making her feel welcome" Mr Vernun smirks. "In that case you two can work together on the project"
Multiple groans are released from their classmates. Comments like, "Project?! Ugh",
"I though Toby was dating Emma..." and
"Really Mr. Vale? Why do you hate us so much!?" caught Grace's attention.
"Emma?" She whispers to Toby. "Emma Orlande?"
He nods. "You know her?"
She nods.

Mr. Vale proceeds to give them information about the project they are being assigned, as he reads out the partner lists.

"Um, hey, I prefer to finish projects before they're due in; it's less stress..." Grace whispers. "Do you wanna get together after school today or something?"
And straight after she says it, it sounds like she was asking him to a study date. She mentally groans, but surprisingly, Toby eagerly agrees.

Maybe making friends isn't so hard here.