Page 3 of Fast Break
“Hi,” he says, his voice a nice, deep luxurious sound that reminds me of melted chocolate. “You must be JT.”
“Yes, JT,” I breathe, relieved that he must have been listening to the multitude of times I have corrected Mr Peters and his stubborn persistence in double naming me.
“Quinn,” he says, holding out a smooth hand. I stare at it for a second too long before engaging my mind and clasping his hand in a firm shake. His hand is warm and large, and it feels nice in mine but I quickly drop the contact and wonder why I am so weird.
I drop my backpack to the floor and slide onto the seat beside Quinn, just like I’d imagined doing in all those daydreams. Except in my daydreams I was a hell of a lot more suave than this.
“So, I wonder what you did wrong to have Mr Peters pair you up with me,” I say, trying a little too hard for the self-deprecating joke.
“Or what you did right to get paired with me,” Quinn returns, that soft, melty smile on his face. His lips are nice too, kind of pink and pillowy and I wonder what they would be like to touch. Okay, what the heck am I thinking now?
I force out a laugh and I know it sounds weird, but Quinn just indulges me as he picks up the sheet Mr Peters has dropped on our desk, his name next to mine on the top. Making us look all official.
“So, JT, how would you like to do this?” he asks, blue eyes looking up at me from under thick lashes.
Just me, sitting here beside the boy I’ve been secretly staring at all term, silently trying not to hyperventilate.
CHAPTER 2
quinn
Ihonestly have no idea why Mr Peters dropped JT Sterling on me. What does he think I am? A babysitter? I mean, to be fair, I don’t know JT at all. He could secretly be a genius for all I know. He literally joined the class only a month or so ago and all I know of him is that he is Trey Sterling’s cousin and one of those basketball jocks I don’t have much to do with.
The other thing I know is that his full name is Jethro Thomas, and he has corrected everyone any time they have used his full name. Which I don’t blame him for. That name is a mouthful.
The otherotherthing I know is that JT is drop dead gorgeous. He has this cute, cheeky grin and his face is young and just a little innocent with his head of wavy, dark blonde hair that is kind of curly but also kind of just scruffy. His eyes are green, and they twinkle when he laughs which happens to be pretty much all of the time. He seems like one of those perennially happy people that probably should annoy me but for some reason, he doesn’t.
In other words, he’s right up my alley.
I’ve noticed him loads of times in the schoolyard, strutting around with the basketball jocks while the popular girls all sigh after him. He’s probably as straight as his very straight cousin—the one who is currently glaring at us from the back row. But that’s fine. I am well versed in fancying guys who turn out to be straight so that’s no skin off my nose. I have no problems looking and not touching. Like JT, I also have plenty of offers in that regard so I’m not exactly hard up as far as attention goes.
He's shier than I expect though as he takes the seat alongside me, looking at me expectantly as though I hold all the answers to the universe. It’s kind of adorable. I had expected more arrogance from him but so far, he’s come across as shy and maybe even a little tongue-tied. Not what I expected from the guy who regularly tussles with his cousin in the back row of the science classroom and who walks the school corridors with his pack of basketball jocks who think they own the place.
I flick my eyes back to the instruction paper, reminding myself to stop staring at the cute boy beside me. I don’t know what Mr Peters was thinking but I do know this project would run a whole lot more smoothly if I hadn’t been paired with someone so distractingly cute as JT.
“Do you have any preferences?” I decide to ask, knowing one of us has to kickstart this discussion.
“Preferences?” he stammers, two light pink smudges appearing on his cheeks. Seriously, so cute.
“For what we focus on with the project,” I clarify, trying hard to keep the smile from spreading across my face.
“Oh, right,” JT replies with exaggerated enthusiasm. What did he think I meant? “What are the options again?”
“Well, we could do solar, wind, hydro or biomass,” I read from the paper between us. “Do any of those stand out to you?”
“Um,” he mulls, biting down on the tip of his pen and distracting the hell out of me again. “Can you choose? I’m not sure where to even start with those options.”
I bite down on my smile again which I have a feeling is something I’ll be doing a lot this term. “I wouldn’t mind focusing on biomass if that is something you could agree with.” Mainly because I know the rest of the class will shy away from it and choose one of the easier options and Mr Peters loves students who take the opportunity to be challenged.
“Biomass,” he mulls, pen between his teeth. “I have no idea what that word even means but sure, let’s do that.”
I lose my grip on my smile, but he is grinning back at me and suddenly he’s all I can focus on. He is simply gorgeous, and this project just got a hell of a lot more complicated for me. I’m well aware my GPA is currently neck and neck with Catherine Lowe for dux of the school and I need this grade to be good. I am also uncomfortably aware that I am relying on JT Sterling for maintaining my GPA, but I am also familiar enough with how group projects usually go to suspect I’ll be doing the majority of the work.
“So um, I know this is probably a really dumb question but what exactly is biomass energy?” JT asks, those pink splodges covering his cheeks again. Honestly, if any other student in this class had asked me this question I would have walked straight up to Mr Peters and demanded a new partner, his earlier warnings be damned.
With JT though? I just smile and start talking. “Basically it’s renewable organic material sourced from plants.”
“Right,” he ponders, scratching his chin with his knuckle. “And how does that become energy?”
