Chapter 7

Ray

I saw Hope walking towards Shawn and Balfer's table along with Sophie and Laura. She walked ever so slowly with the utmost grace in each step that she took. She swung her hips from side to side with a grin on her face as if she was ready to pounce on her prey. She reached their table and sat without even asking. As the table was next to us so we could hear the whole conversation and see the drama like we were in the front row watching the drama in the theatre. She extended her hand towards Shawn and said

"Hello! I am Hope."

He looked at Balfer and hesitantly shook her hand and replied. "Hi, I am Shawn." And immediately took his hands back. Hope looked a little shocked at that gesture but it looked like she quickly dismissed whatever negative thought she had going on in her head by slightly shaking her head. Laura and Sophie immediately cooed in their introduction and all the while Shawn was a little uncomfortable and Balfer unbothered.

"Making a move to hunt down her next target I suppose!" I heard V say.

"Yeah! How can she miss a rich and handsome dude?" Replied Liz chomping down her lunch while we three looked at her with a puzzled face. Liz looked up to see our faces, swallowed her food, and continued

"What you guys did not know? Apparently, his dad was stuck in some deep shit in his business back where they stayed and so they had to move. Balfer's dad is his dad's cousin and close friend so he helped in relocating them here. He helped him set up business here in less time and got your mom to get that house next to Balfer's for them" she said looking at me.

"My goodness! How come you know so many details?" I asked

"When you two were busy introducing yourselves to him and Nao was busy avoiding Balfer and burying herself in her book, I caught up on gossips with the other girls in the class." She said winking at me.

Soon we finished our lunch and headed back towards our class for the remaining lectures. Before leaving however I gave one last glance towards Shawn’s table and saw Hope still trying to impress Shawn, Laura and Sophie still trying to help her, Balfer still ignoring them and Shawn still being uncomfortable and I felt really bad for him. When we returned to class I saw Shawn almost running and crashing on his seat as soon as he reached the classroom like he just saw a ghost. Soon I saw Hope and the two others following after her and looking in our direction and had the murderous look on her face when she saw me. So now I understood why he was acting like that and I looked at him and he had slumped so low on his seat to avoid Hope’s gaze I felt like laughing looking at his condition but I decided to control.

“Hey, everything alright? I asked.

“Yeah, everything is alright!” He said with a fake smile. I decided not to bug him anymore on this and soon our next class began.

Soon our first day of school came to an end. The whole while I caught glimpses of Shawn sitting beside me and admiring his beauty as much as possible. The other while daydreaming. It was becoming hard for me to concentrate today. Between the lectures when we had free time it was decided that we were going to a cafe after school which Liz saw was opened recently near our school and said we should give it a try. So post all the lectures we were packing our bags and getting ready to leave. I bid my goodbye to Shawn as soon as the last lecture end and watched him leave with Balfer before Hope could make her move and saw V smirking at me. Can she not figure out all these things? This is so embarrassing!

As we were walking out of the building and had almost reached the exit, we bumped into one of the professors. Prof. Price. He was our history teacher. Nobody here knows his last name. He just goes by his first name. We sometimes feel he has got some kind of connection with Hope and her family because he often visits them. But that is just an assumption which we all have. He likes us to call him Price without any formalities or honorific. We find him to be quite cool and someone who understands how to teach us, teenagers, a boring lecture like history and convert it into a completely fun session. But there was something about his personality and aura that was enigmatic and confusing. His looks were mystifying to us. He was tall and his taste in fashion was quite trendy and he wore clothes which perfectly suited his personality. He had a muscular body. He used to sport a thick beard which made him look captivating. Unfortunately, he doesn't have those beards anymore, but still, he looks fascinating, no doubt. But the most appealing feature was his eyes which was light brown and would shine like it was golden when under the sun. We all loved his eye color. Though I have a different eye color too which is quite rare. But I liked and admired his eyes a lot. In short, he was every girl student’s dream professor and we felt very lucky.

We apologized for bumping into him and he flashed his smile and said its OK.

“Well, I hope your first day was good?” Price asked.

“Yes it was, and we are happy to know you are going to teach us this year too,” said Liz with starry eyes.

“Yes, we understand the subject better when you teach us,” said Nao, nudging Liz to come back to her senses.

“Oh, it's nice to hear that. I will make sure that you get to understand everything in this year’s syllabus as well and get good marks.” said Price and turned his attention towards me. With a very serious expression now and started saying “It is getting late, you guys should head home without roaming around here and there and head straight towards your home. This town is not that safe place for young girls like you all.” I felt intimidated and just nodded because I felt I was falling short of words.

“Yes, we are headed home now. See you tomorrow Price” replied V and we all said our goodbyes and immediately rushed out.

“That was strange” I blurted out as soon as we were out of the school gate.

“Yeah, weird!” commented Nao “But he is weird so I guess we can expect that from him. Right?”

“But he is usually someone to lift our mood and make us relaxed than someone to intimidate us” I replied.

“Yes, Ray is right. But let us just ignore him and go to this Cafe first. We need to go there and try milkshakes. It's Yummy and the cafe is really cool. I just hope it is not full and we find a place. It recently opened and I went there with Dad 2 days back when he came to know about the cafe.” said Liz.

“Yeah, let us go. We need some milkshakes after this tiring day and so much running!” said V and we all laughed.

The cafe was hardly 5 minutes walking distance from the school and it was already filled with the students from our school. But luckily we found a table at the far end corner of the cafe and immediately rushed to sit down. Liz and V went ahead to order milkshakes and some snacks for all of us while Nao and I decided to stay back so that we don't lose our table and seats. While we both were waiting for Liz and V, I was admiring the cafe and Nao was on her cell phone probably informing her mom regarding our whereabouts. I noticed Shawn entered the cafe with Balfer and his friends and smiled at him. He looked at me and gave a slight smile and immediately turned his gaze away towards Balfer and they started talking. I felt that weird but then I ruled it out because of course why should he be all friendly with me outside the school. It is not as if we are friends or something. We are just classmates and he belongs to a more popular group and I am probably a nobody plus Hope is all over him.

“Are you catching feelings for the new guy?” I heard Nao ask me.

“Nope. Why do you ask?” I replied or more like asked back.

“You seem to look at him with starry eyes when he is not looking and gets all shy around him and I saw you daydreaming during the lecture which is not quite you because I know you pay attention during classes and I prefer reading your notes when I miss out on something. And now you looked quite hurt when he did not return the smile like you when he entered.” Nao stated

“He looks good and I do admire him. I am not hurt or anything. And I definitely do not have feelings for him. As for daydreaming, it was just day one today. I will surely be making proper notes from tomorrow.” I replied

“Good. Because if he is anything even remotely close to what and how Balfer is, I am going to slap the shit out of you till even the slightest feelings are out of your system.” she answered which made me widen my eye and reply “Oh My God! So violent! Don’t worry, will not catch feelings, if at all I catch feelings will let you guys know so that you all can find out if he is anything even remotely close to what and how Balfer is” I replied and we both laughed.

“Good. Because the last thing I want is any of you guys getting hurt.”

Soon Liz and V were back with Chocolate Milkshakes, some fries, and burgers for each of us.

“I was really hungry and the smell was divine so couldn't resist the urge to buy the burger,” said Liz.

“Nice. Even I was getting hungry by waiting here. Let us dig in!” replied Nao. And we all started eating and talking and gossiping as soon as we saw even Hope was there in the Cafe. By the time we decided to leave it was already 4 in the evening. We spent a good 3 hours at the Cafe and had two rounds of burgers, fries, and milkshakes. We then thought of going to the park because we couldn't get enough of each other. I quickly dropped a message to mom so that she didn't worry about me if she happened to reach home before me. By the time we left the park, it was already 7 in the evening and my battery was drained. We got a call from Nao’s mom which made us decide that it was high time we head back home.