The Girl in a Hoodie

Chapter 3

Riley's POV:

As James and I walk through the empty corridors, I walk over to my locker and he follows along behind me.

"Hm, locker 273, my locker is number 274," he tells me. I roll my eyes and smirk as I enter the combination and open it. I sling my bag off my shoulders and open the zip to take out my English, Maths, Art, and History books before placing them back into my locker. I sense James's eyes still on me as he watches contently.

"May I help you?" I ask in a half-sassy tone when I turn around to face him, holding my chemistry book in one hand and the other buried in my pocket.

"Yes actually," he says. I raise an eyebrow. "How do you find out your code for the locker?" he asks, making me roll my eyes and sigh.

"You mean your locker combination?" I inquire. He tilts his head slightly to the side.

"Yeah, that."

"You seriously don't know?" I question but he just shrugs whilst smirking.

"No one told me it," he points out, so I roll my eyes once again.

"No one tells you it, James." He gives me a puzzled look as if I had just said the most confusing statement either, so I continue to speak. "You make it up yourself, something that you'll obviously remember, and then it will stay your code for the rest of the term."

"Oh. You see, now that makes sense," he says, before turning to face his locker. He quickly glances into mine and notices a picture stuck on the inside. "Who's that?" he asks.

"Lucia Arnolds?" I say in a 'duh' tone. He looks at me, clearly not knowing who she is. "You don't know her?" I practically shriek.

"Uh, no? Who's Luca?" he asks. I frown whilst crossing my arms over my chest.

"Lucia!" I shout. "She's only the best mathematician in the entire world!" I tell him. For some reason, I could be myself around James and I'm not too sure why. Suddenly, I was just saying all these facts and stuff and he wasn't judging me one bit. Not yet, anyway.

"Oh, so you're one of those maths nerds?" he jokes before I look down, feeling majorly embarrassed.

"Is that a problem?" I quietly murmur.

"Nah, that's fine. Hopefully, it means I can learn a lot from you." I smile slightly before shutting the small door of my locker. The bell rings and I turn around to make my way to class. "Hold up," I hear him say from behind. He rushes over and then slings an arm around my shoulder with a grin on his face. "Someone's in a hurry," he adds. I roll my eyes but then we both continue walking.