by Amy Sparling
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Copyright © 2018 Amy Sparling
All rights reserved.
First Edition March 2018
Cover design by Amy Sparling
Cover image from BigStockPhoto
Typography from Font Squirrel
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems -except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews-without permission in writing from the author at [email protected].
This book is a work of fiction. The characters, events, and places portrayed in this book are products of the author’s imagination and are either fictitious or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.
Chapter 1
Asha
There are three thousand students at Briggs High School, and I am just one of the many who will be trying to get into a good college on scholarship. I’m not in the top ten percent—not yet anyway—and I’m no star athlete that’s guaranteed a free ride. And despite what my mom likes to tell me, I am not all that special. Honestly, even my mom doesn’t seem like she believes it all that much anymore. I am just Asha Bronte, basic boring sophomore. One of the three thousand. I don’t stand out. I blend in.
For some people, that’s fine. That’s all they care about, is blending in and never being an outlier who gets noticed. But that’s not good enough for me. Blending in doesn’t get scholarships. Sure, I’ll probably be accepted to the universities I apply to, because I’m not aiming for the ivy league or anything, but once I get accepted, there’s no affording it without a scholarship. I need a scholarship.
My parents are the best. They’re supportive and fun, and still married despite how most of my friend’s parents have divorced or split up. But my parents never did well in the finances part of their life, and we all pay for it. Daddy is a mechanic at a shop owned by some jerk who never gives him a raise despite the fact that he does all the work. My dad desperately wants to own his own shop one day, but there’s just not money for that. Mom works at a waitress at local diner, and sometimes her tips are good, but mostly they’re not, and her feet hurt all the time and she keeps saying that working this job over the age of forty is the worst thing ever. When I get into a good college, I’ll get a good education, and then a good job, and I’ll pay for Daddy’s new mechanic shop and I’ll make sure Mom gets to retire early. Until then, I’ll keep working my ass off.
It’s the first day of school, and I’m over the moon excited with my new position as Officer in dance class. I’m grinning like a crazy person as I lean forward in my vanity mirror and apply some mascara. It was the last week of school last year, when Mrs. Johnson pulled me aside and told me the good news. I’d been chosen as officer. Only seven girls get that honor—one for each dance class—and I am one of them. Being Officer means I lead the class in warm ups and cool downs and I help Mrs. Johnson teach new dance moves. I also coordinate our pep rally dances, fundraisers, and charity work that we do throughout the year. Being Officer means I’ll have one more stellar thing to add to my college applications.
Scholarship, here I come.
Because my parents are always broke, I get the fun joy of riding my bike to school each day. I mean, I could ride the bus, and sometimes I do when it’s raining outside, but I prefer the workout of my bike. (And the fact that I get to avoid Beau, my lame ex-boyfriend, who also rides my bus.) I take my time, pedaling leisurely so that I’m not drenched in un-ladylike sweat by the time I get to school. The ride home is different, and I’ll gladly take the sweat over getting home earlier. But at school, I need to be professional and put together always. I am an Officer now, and I have to lead by example.
The first day of school is always fun because it’s a shortened schedule, that has the first two hours open for people to change their elective classes or rearrange their schedule. Then we go to all seven class periods but only for like thirty minutes each, so it’s not really school work. The teachers introduce themselves, pass out the syllabus, and then we move on to the next class. Tomorrow the homework will be handed out and notes will be taken and the drudgery of school life will become official. But for now, it’s fun.
And it’s even better than fun for me, because I get to sit at the dance table in the main hallway, which is lined with tables for every class there is. Mrs. Johnson offers me some coffee from the Keurig she keeps in her office and I feel important now. I’m one of her trusted students, and I get more responsibilities and free coffee. Awesome.
There are papers all over my table, and I try to keep them organized. Once the first bell rang, the main hallway became a frenzy of students rushing around trying to get the class they want. The rule at Briggs High School is that all classes are first come, first serve. If you miss out on the popular ones, they’ll be gone and you’ll be stuck with something stupid like health technology. Gag.
Dance is popular, but not nearly as much as the other classes because it’s only girls that sign up for it. My classes fill up quickly, but there’s still some openings because some girls want to drop dance for something else. For the first hour, another officer named Melissa joins me to help out, but she’s a senior and it’s like she’s already checked out for the year because she spends the whole time on her phone, only putting it down to chat with her friends when they stop by.
It’s a lot of work, keeping track of names and classes, but soon the two hours are almost over and the hallway is practically empty. Some teachers have packed up their tables and headed to their classes already. I check the time and see that the bell will ring in two minutes. Time to pack up, too. I gather my papers with the names of all the students that will now be in Mrs. Johnson’s dance classes and stack them neatly on top of each other. I’m vaguely aware that someone is walking toward me, but I figure they’ll keep going. And then I hear a sigh.
“Dance?” a guy says. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
I look up, prepared to smack whoever just dissed my favorite class, but when I see him, I forget all about what I wanted to say. He’s definitely a new guy because even though there are three thousand students in my school, I’d have recognized him if he’d been here before. He is unbelievably attractive, like Instagram model hot here, and he should not be hanging out in my small town boring school.
“Dance is awesome,” I say, finding my voice again.
The guy snorts. His dark hair is buzzed along the sides and he shakes the top part out of his eyes in a way that makes me wonder if he knows how hot he is when he does that. Who am I kidding? Of course he knows. Guys this hot aren’t oblivious to it.
Chapter 2
Liam
“Dance is not awesome,” I say, lifting an eyebrow in that way my ex used to say was too cocky for my own good. “Not if you’re a guy.”
“Plenty of guys dance,” she says, getting all defensive. Maybe she’s right, but those guys are professionals. And they don’t go to school here, where I’m guessing there’s not a single guy enrolled in these dance classes.
The bell rings. “We have to go to first period,” she says, holding the papers tightly to her chest. “Sorry you can’t complain about dance any longer but I have to go.”
I heave another sigh. “Wait. I… I need to sign up.”
Her pretty brown eyes nearly pop out of her head. “You want to sign up for dance?”
&n
bsp; “I don’t want to,” I say. I nod toward the administrator who’s standing a few tables down talking to a teacher. “I was just informed that there are no more elective classes open.”
Screw my parents for doing this to me. They took forever to choose a place to live, settling on this damn town in the middle of nowhere when we could have gone anywhere else, and then they were too busy with everything else in the world to bother enrolling me into school. They waited until the last minute—aka: like fifteen minutes ago—and now I’m stuck signing up for some stupid ass elective when I could have had baseball or woodshop or anything else. I’d even take some dumb cooking class over this. I’d take damn near any other class.
“Well, you’re in luck,” she says, her pink lips tipping into a smile. She’s cute, even though she looks a little too tightly wound. I wonder if all the girls in this school are as cute as she is. Maybe small towns have some benefits to them after all. She puts a piece of paper down on the table in front of me, and holds out a pen. I take it, and my fingers brush against hers, and I didn’t mean to touch her but now that I have, my thoughts get a little fuzzy for a second. Her skin is smooth. I bet she smells as good as she looks.
I clear my throat and try to make sense of the paper.
“There’s one spot left in eighth period,” she says. “You’ll be in class with me, and I’m the Officer, so it’s nice to meet you. My name is Asha.”
“That’s a cool name,” I say, shrugging the hair out of my eyes again. “I’m Liam.”
“Like the One Direction guy?” she says.
“I’m not nearly as rich as he is,” I say and she laughs. “But I am better looking.”
Her cheeks turn a little pink. It’s a good look on her. I meet her eyes for a second and then she jumps when another bell rings. “Oh, that’s not good,” she says. “You need to hurry up or we’ll be late to our next class.”
“Aren’t we already late?” I ask.
She shakes her head. “That’s the two-minute bell. It means we have two minutes to get to class or then we’ll be late.”
I shrug and start writing my name on the paper. “It’s the first day. They won’t care.”
“They totally will care,” she says, her voice a bit panicky. “Most teachers hate it when you’re late and you get detention for every tardy slip you get. We need to hurry.”
I take out my paperwork from my pocket to find my student ID that I have to fill out on this form. She’s bouncing on her toes a little and I can tell it’s driving her crazy that she might be late on the first day of school. What a little goody two shoes. It’s just high school. It’s literally the last easy thing you get to do before you have to become an adult with jobs and responsibilities and taxes and shit. She should take it easy.
“Just tell them you were helping the new guy,” I tell her as I fill out the sheet. Admittedly, I’m taking a little longer than I should just because it makes her so annoyed.
“Please hurry,” she says, her eyes darting up and down the hallway as if she’s calculating how quickly she can run.
“So what does Officer mean?” I ask.
“It means I’m like the assistant teacher, and my grades reflect on how well I keep the class in control.” She’s talking faster now, obviously not in the mood to small chat with me. “Are you done yet?”
I take the paper and hand it over to her. “Oh thank God,” she says, snapping it up quickly. She turns to leave and I call her name.
“Asha, your pen.”
“Keep it,” she calls out, already powerwalking down the hallway.
I slide the pen in my pocket and grin as I watch her perfect ass sashay away in that pink dress. I’m not ready for this conversation to be over, and I wonder if she’d be any nicer to me if she weren’t in such a hurry. Desperate to keep her attention, I glance down at my schedule and jog after her.
“Do you know where the English hallway is?” I ask, even though I’m not an idiot and could figure it out myself if I wanted to.
“What teacher?” she asks.
“Emerson.
She glances over at me, almost accusatory. “That’s my English class.”
“Lucky me,” I say.
She doesn’t seem to notice my flirty banter because all she says is, “You can follow me.”
“Thanks,” I say, falling into step with her. “At least most of my classes don’t involve tutus.
She rolls her eyes. “We don’t wear tutus in dance class. Well, not most of the time.”
I have to try very hard not to picture her in something as revealing as a few layers of see-through fabric. She’s gorgeous, don’t get me wrong, but I need to be a little less skeezy if I want to win her over. She looks like the kind of girl who wouldn’t appreciate my dirty mind.
“Doesn’t matter what you wear,” I say, twirling the pen she gave me in my fingers. “I won’t be doing any of that shit. I’ll use the time to do my homework or something.”
She stops dead in her tracks. We’re right in front of the door to our first period English class, and the bell rings. “You will not be doing homework,” she snaps, her eyes wide. She slips into class and chooses one of the empty desks that’s far away from any other empty desks. I don’t have time to tell her that she’s wrong. I’ll be doing whatever I want in eighth period. Because I’m sure as hell not dancing.
Chapter 3
Asha
I can barely focus on Mr. Emerson’s welcome to class speech. My mind is reeling with what just happened between me and that new guy. First, he shows up at the very last minute and insults my dance class, and then he wants to join it. I guess he had to, because the school doesn’t allow you to have an empty schedule. It has to be all filled up with electives until your senior year when you can have a partial day at school so long as your core classes are filled. But still, it’s his fault he didn’t get here in time to pick a class he’d like better than dance. And yet he’s going to take it out on me by saying he won’t dance?
He has another thing coming to him if he thinks he can sit out and do homework in the class. Not. Happening. Normally I wouldn’t care one bit if some jerk guy wants to ruin their grade and flunk a class, but this class matters. I am the Officer, and that means my grade is based solely on my responsibilities. I don’t get graded on the dances or stretches or routines. Mrs. Johnson chooses people like me to be the Officers because we grew up taking years of dance classes outside of school already and we know all that stuff. We’re practically teachers ourselves, which means we don’t get graded on pliés or chasses, but on how well we handle our classes.
The whole thing is based on teamwork, organization, and participation. Last year, Lindsay Chan got in a huge fight with another girl in her class over some guy they liked. As revenge, the girl purposely messed up all Lindsay’s dances. Because Lindsay was Officer, she got a C in the class for not being able to keep everyone working as a team. If I have a student who won’t participate, then my grade goes down. I am not failing a class and ruining my scholarship chances because of Liam.
I take a deep breath and try to focus, telling myself it’ll all be okay. He’s probably just trying to act cool and he’ll cave and do the dances once class begins. Mr. Emerson asks Liam for his new student paperwork, and he gets up and walks right past me to the teacher’s desk. I inhale the sweet yet manly scent of his cologne. Oh gosh. I shake myself. I can not get a crush on this new guy.
But it’s really hard not to notice him. All the girls in my class have clearly noticed him, and some are undressing him with their eyes. I don’t need to do that because the parts of him you can see with clothes on are still pretty damn sexy. He’s a little muscular, with sculpted arms and wide shoulders. He’s wearing slim fit jeans that he totally pulls off, and a plain black T-shirt. I glance up when he walks back to his desk and his eyes are on me. Shit. He caught me staring at him.
He winks as he walks by. I feel my cheeks go totally red. Ugh. I hate my body for betraying me like this.
>
The rest of the day goes well enough. I don’t see Liam in any other classes, and there’s only a small bit of awkwardness when Jenna corners me in lunch to “congratulate” me on making Officer, but she doesn’t seem very sincere. I know she also wanted the job, but I guess Mrs. Johnson didn’t think she was ready.
In seventh period, I summon all of my courage to be confident in my first day as Officer. But it’s not really that hard. Because of the shortened schedule, we only have enough time for Mrs. Johnson to talk to the class about what we’ll be doing all year, and then she has me hand out packets. While she explains the dress code, which is black tights and a black tank top, Liam looks up. His eyebrows shoot straight to the ceiling.
“Um, Mrs. Johnson?” he asks. “Is there an exception for boys?”
Some of the girls giggle. No doubt we’re all thinking the same thing. It’s weird for a guy to be in this class. But he’s cute, so I don’t think anyone will be rude to him. Mrs. Johnson looks at me. “What do you think, Asha?”
This is my first official task as Officer, I realize. She’s asking my opinion and I think she’ll agree with whatever I say. I look at Liam, who gives me a pleading gaze. I know he doesn’t want to wear skin tight leggings and a tank top, and I wouldn’t want to see him in that, anyway. Although his arms would probably look pretty good…
I take a deep breath. “Black shirt and black athletic pants,” I say.
Mrs. Johnson nods. “Sounds good. And welcome to class, Liam. I’m happy to see someone breaking the gender barriers. There are plenty of male dancers in the professional world, and I’m glad to see one in my class.”
I look at Liam, expecting him to thank me or at least look grateful that I went lenient on him for the dress code. Instead, he shrugs and slips an earbud into his ear, ignoring the last few minutes of Mrs. Johnson’s speech.
