Mrs. Dabbs shoots him a smile as white as the board behind her. “Thank you, Mr. Dylan.” She turns to me. “Miss Conrad, may I suggest you use the weekend to study for my class since you are clearly too distracted by your doodling”—she sweeps her arm in my direction, making all the blood in my body converge in my face—“to pay attention to my lesson?”
I untuck my wavy brown hair from behind my ears to curtain off my glow-in-the-dark complexion, then spend the rest of class with my head bent over my book, attempting to memorize equations, which clearly won’t serve me considering my choice of career.
The second the bell rings, I toss my stuff into my fabric tote, impatient to escape this torture session.
“You’re really into music, huh?” Ten asks, halting my escape. He’s reading the flowy lyrics I inked on my bag—the chorus from my favorite Mona Stone song.
Startled he talked to me, I don’t immediately answer. Finally, I say, “It’s my life.”
He puts away his books slowly, as though trying to drag out the moment. He’s probably waiting for the classroom to empty so he doesn’t have to chat with anyone else on his way to the cafeteria.
For some reason, I follow up my comment with, “The quote under my picture in last year’s yearbook said:Angie Conrad likes music more than she likes people.”
A corner of his mouth quirks up, and I blink, because the beast is smiling. Ten hasn’t smiled once since arriving at Reedwood. At least, not at me.
I stand up, hoisting my tote onto my shoulder. “Doyoulike music?”
He evens out his already neat stack of textbooks. “No.”
My head jerks back. “How can you not?”
He slides his books into his backpack and zips it up. “Do you enjoy the sound of a car alarm?”
Sets my teeth on edge. “Does anyone?”
“My point exactly.”
He’s standing now, so I have to crane my neck to look at him.
“Are you seriously comparing music to a car alarm?”
“Maybe.”
He tumbles several notches down in my esteem, not that he was that far up to begin with.
“Wow.” I shake my head and start walking toward the door of the now deserted classroom, but because I can’t leave well enough alone, I wheel around. “You can’t possibly dislike every type of music.”
He lifts his hands and starts ticking off his fingers. “Rap, country,classical, and jazz suck. Ballads and soft rock are tacky. And don’t get me started on pop, hard rock, or R&B. Oh, and disco should be outlawed.”
I hoist my bag farther up my shoulder, fingers clenched so hard around the fabric handles they’ll probably tear.
He smirks, as though he gets a kick out of being a total jerk. “You seem really upset by this.”
“I am!”
He stops right in front of me. “Why?”
“Because… because…” I release my bag’s handles and drag my fingers through my hair a little roughly. Why am I trying to reason with this guy? “You know what, forget it. To each their own, right?”
I turn around and take the high road—or at least the one that leads away from Ten.
6
Crushes and Crushing Comments
I meet up with Rae by her locker, which is plastered with pictures of boy band members with swooping bangs, dazzling white teeth, and hard lines of muscles. I bet Ten abhors boy bands too.
“How was calc?” She waggles her brows.
