Chapter Seven

The rest of the week passed by pretty quickly with the two teenagers still closer to each other since they no longer had a project for school to work on. Their texting conversations had actually turned into a place where they played twenty questions to get to learn more about each other.

As the end of the week neared, Vanessa was excited for this weekend as her parents were supposed to take her driving finally. She couldn’t wait as she had been waiting months since her birthday to finally spend some time behind the wheel.

The teenage girl walked into the school on Friday morning with a smile plastered across her face, knowing she would be driving in a little over twenty-four hours. She walked to her locker and unlocked it, grabbing her books and stuff for her first period before making her way to the classroom with a bit of pep in her step.

The dark haired teen saw this from where he was behind her, also making his way to the classroom and wondered what had made her so happy this morning as he had never seen her this happy before. As he entered the classroom behind her, and made his way to their usual seats in the back he could see the smile that was on her face. It wasn’t like a huge smile, that would get everyone’s attention but it was definitely noticeable to the people who had paid Vanessa any attention during the past week or so that she had been going to the school.

“Well I see you’re very happy about this weekend. Did you make up your mind about going to the party or not tomorrow night at my place?” He asked her in a teasing tone as he took his seat next to the girl.

She looked over at him, as having not been paying much attention before. “I’m not going to the party, I told you this yesterday.” She said, as she continued to smile.

“Then what has you in such a good mood this morning? If I didn’t know any better I would have thought that you robbed a bank or something and were now filthy rich.” The male told her, causing her to laugh at his statement.

“Obviously if I had robbed a bank I wouldn’t be here, I would be in like Costa Rica or somewhere else besides this town. But if you must know what has me so happy, my parents are finally taking me driving tomorrow and I’ve been bugging them to take me driving for months. So this is a huge deal to me, cause I haven’t been behind the wheel of a car once since I turned sixteen.” She told him, in a loud and excited tone. The girl immediately realized how loud she had been, and looked around the classroom to see if she had caught anyone’s attention. Not noticing anyone’s attention on her, she turned back to the boy sitting beside her.

He smiled at her answer, knowing that her parents were very busy as she had told him before, so the fact that her parents were making time for her made him happy for her. “That’s great news, if you ever want extra lessons just let me know. I’m a pretty good teacher, and driving is easy.” He told her, and her smile hadn’t faltered at all at his words.

“Thanks, you must have a lot of faith in me to let me drive your shiny black Tesla.” She told him in an amused tone.

“Well I think you’d be a better driver than Axel was when I was teaching him how to drive. Just don’t tell him I let you drive my car, or he’ll never shut up about it.” Xavier said in an amused tone as well.

“I’ll keep that in mind, if I take you up on your offer for the extra driving lessons.” She told him, as she felt her phone go off in her pocket.

She took it out of her pocket, to see a message from her Dad stating, ‘family meeting when you get home from school today’. “Uh oh.” She said as she quickly messaged her Dad back saying that she would be there.

“What’s wrong?” He asked her, his smile falling at the girl’s words.

“My parents have called a family meeting tonight, that usually only means one thing.” She said, as she looked up at him, showing him a sad smile. “It was nice knowing you, Mr. King.” She said, as she put her phone away back in her pocket.

Xavier’s eyebrows furrowed a bit. “Could it possibly be anything else besides that? I mean not to question your parents’ skill or whatever you call it, but you guys just got here. Could the case have really been that simple?” He asked her, slightly concerned he would suddenly never see the girl that has taken up so many of his thoughts ever again.

“It might, but I doubt it. They’ve never called a family meeting for anything else before in the past. As to their skill level, they’ve cleared a case within a couple of days before some cops didn’t want to believe that their own friends could have committed the crimes that they had done. Fairly easy to figure out who did what when you bring in an outsider that isn’t emotionally attached to anyone at the precinct.” She told him, as her smile faltered a little bit.

“Well, will you let me know what they say afterwards? I need to know if I’m turning my party this weekend into a goodbye party for you.” He said, giving her a false amused tone.

“Uh sure, but even if I’m moving away you can’t just throw a party I'm not going to at all about me leaving this town. More than half the people here don’t even know who I am since many of them weren’t very welcoming.” She told him, in a serious sounding tone now.

“They just don’t really like change, which means they are missing out on meeting an amazing person such as yourself.” He said, with a sad smile on his face.

The girl’s face turned a slight pink at his words, as she slightly turned away from the boy beside her. Wasn’t he trying to flirt with her, or was he being genuine? She couldn’t tell, and as she was about to ask him the bell rang and class started. She made a mental note to ask him about it after class if she got the chance.

As the minutes passed by, and the period came to an end she grabbed her things and turned to Xavier, but he was already out the door on his phone with someone. She decided to wait until later, knowing that it might be a serious conversation and her mind still hadn’t fully wrapped around the last conversation she had overheard him have.

The boy saw the girl pass him in the hall, sending him a small smile as she made her way to her next class. “So will you be taking the job?” Asked the stern male voice on the other end of the line.

“When is it again for? I have plans this weekend that I can’t change.” He said to the man on the phone. He never entirely knew who called him from the Organization when he got a call for a job, but it was always the same guy.

“It’s for whenever you feel like taking care of it, as per usual with jobs. Just got to get it done soon before they hand the contract off to someone else.” The man told him, as he heard typing in the background.

“Yeah, I’ll take it, send the information to my house and I’ll get it when I get home from school. Anything else?” He asked, as he made his way to his next class knowing by now that he was probably going to be late.

“Nope, that should be all.” The man on the phone said, causing Xavier to hang up on him and walk through the now empty hallways a little bit faster. He didn’t want to be late for class.

He just barely made it to his second period class as the bell rang and he was only mere inches into the room. The teacher turned to look at him. “Take your seat Mr. King.” He told the teenager as he began his daily lecture on something that Xavier hardly paid any attention to.

His thoughts were drawn back to the look on Vanessa’s face right before the bell had rung to start the first period. She had been blushing, had he caused that with the statement he had said to her? In what way had he meant the words he said to her? He spent the rest of class pondering over this, never fully getting an answer out of himself.