Chapter 10 - Chapter Ten

“Tiana Green, you are three minutes late!” Ms. Cutler barked.

“Sorry, Ms.” Tia slid into her seat.

“You’re late?” Carrie whispered to her. “You’re never late.”

“Well, I am now.”

“You were with Jet, weren’t you?” Carrie accused her.

“What? No!”

“Liar.”

“Fine. I was. So what?”

“What happened?”

“Nothing.”

“Don’t give me that shoot.”

“Well, he did my Maths homework for me.”

“Oh, very exciting,” Carrie said, rolling her eyes. “You tell me what happened between you and Jet right now.”

“Nothing!”

“If it was nothing, then you wouldn’t be late for school.”

“Carrie, stop being so damn intuitive.”

“Miss Green!” Ms. Cutler barked. “You’re seeing me after class.”

“Yes, Ms,” Tia said, glaring at her Carrie, who smiled sweetly back at her.

~

“You’re out late,” Jet mused, leaning against their tree.

“I had to stay behind to talk to the teacher.”

“What’s wrong?”

“Carrie got me into trouble, that’s all.”

“Well?”

“Well what?”

“It’s time for you to do that constructive thing that I had in mind.”

“What? Here? Now?”

“You heard me, yes, and yes.”

“Stop taking my questions so literally,” she muttered.

“Go on then.”

“Not here!”

“Yes here.”

“Why here?”

“Why not?”

“Because the whole school is out here!”

“So?”

“So they’ll see!”

He looked at her. “So?”

She stamped her foot. “I am not going to kiss you in front of the whole school,” she said in a low voice so that nobody else could hear. “It’s hard enough to do it when we’re alone in the first place.”

He smirked. “What’s so hard? All you had to do was stop controlling your urges.”

She rolled her eyes. “Whatever.”

“Go on then. I’m waiting.”

“No.”

“You promised.”

“No, I didn’t.”

“Fine, you didn’t. But you still have to.”

“Why?”

He grinned. “Because you know you want to.” He raised an eyebrow, his blue eyes sparkling mischievously.

She looked at him balefully, not saying anything because she knew he was right, and that he knew that she knew that he was right.

“Fine,” she muttered. She stomped over to where he was standing. She had to stand on one of the tree roots and on tiptoe so that she was tall enough.

He stood there, grinning. “Oh, and you have to take off your shades.”

She pursed her lips impatiently, ripped off her sunglasses and handed them to him before slipping her arms around his neck. She reached up hesitantly and kissed him. When her lips met his, heat shot through her, and it was like fireworks were going off inside her. She pulled him closer to her, the magical sensation taking over her and making her forget everything else.

He obviously felt the same way, because he was very responsive. Her weight was once again supported by him as her legs had once again failed to hold her up. She barely noticed the calls and the whistles from the people who were passing by.

After what seemed like forever, she reluctantly pulled away—she didn’t know why, she sure as hell didn’t want to, but she did anyway.

He had an arm around her waist that was drawing her against him and a hand up in her hair. When he sensed that she was pulling away, he loosened his grip on her a little.

“Well,” he said finally. “That was very constructive.”

“Yes,” she agreed breathlessly, grinning. “Definitely.”

“You should get back into class now. You don’t want to be late, do you?”

Dammit, she couldn’t keep the smile off her face. “No, I don’t.” She stepped off the tree root, her legs still feeling like jelly. She took her sunglasses from him and put them back on before turning around to her friends.

“Nothing going on between you and Jet, eh?” Carrie asked on their way back to the classroom.

“You saw?”

Carrie snorted. “Oh, please. Everybody saw. You two weren’t exactly hiding in a broom closet.”

Tia blushed and looked around. “Where’s Gary?” she asked Sarah in a low voice.

“Off sulking somewhere,” Sarah whispered in her ear.

“Ah. I suppose we should go back to the classroom now. I don’t want to be late again. Ms. Cutler’s going to bite my head off.”

When they got back, Gary was sulking at the corner of the classroom.

“Hey,” she greeted him.

“Hi,” he mumbled.

“Where were you at recess?” she asked him.

“Here.”

“Oh? Why?”

“I saw something outside that made me feel a little nauseous,” he muttered.

Right. “Oh.”

Just then Mr. Linkman walked into their classroom. “Ms. Cutler had an emergency to tend to, so you’re going to spend the next hour in silence doing some studying, okay?”

Everybody nodded, already taking out their phones, iPods, laptops and videogames.

Mr. Linkman nodded approvingly at them and walked out of the classroom again, and Carrie snorted and shook her head.

“The dude’s delusional,” she said, taking out her book.

Tia grinned in agreement before taking out a piece of paper and doodling. Something was bothering her. It made her uncomfortable. After a while, the discomfort grew and she shook her head as if trying to shake away the feeling, but it didn’t go away. She frowned and looked around and froze when she saw that Sherman was looking at her.

She pursed her lips and looked away, but out of the corner of her eye she saw that he was still looking at her. She looked back at him again, hardening her gaze. It didn’t matter whether she was wearing her sunglasses or not. People always knew a glare when it was directed at them. Sherman looked away then.

Good. She had found that slightly disturbing. As she continued to doodle aimlessly on her piece of paper, she saw that not only Sherman would sneak a look at her occasionally but Gary would too.

What was wrong with the world? Gary was supposed to be with Carrie. They were so perfect for each other that even their names rhymed. She stood up abruptly and headed for the bathroom so that she could daydream in peace and relive the memory of the kiss she shared with Jet.

~

Jet had work that night. Tia was disappointed but shrugged the feeling off. She phoned Sarah and Carrie up and asked them whether they wanted to go out since it was Friday night and they didn’t have school the next day.

Sarah declined, saying that her parents were dragging her to some far off place to go camping. Tia laughed and wished her good luck. Sarah thanked her and said that she was going to need it.

“So,” Carrie said, “what do you want to do?”

Tia shrugged. “Anything you want to do?”

“Not really. We can go to your house if you want. Where’s your Jetty?”

“It’s Jet, and he’s not mine. And he…he’s going out tonight.” Tia sighed inwardly in relief. “So yeah. You can come to my house if you want.”

Carrie shrugged. “Sure. You want to rent a movie?”

“Let’s go.”

When they got into the local movie rental shop, Carrie grabbed her arm. “Hey, look over there.”

“What? Where?”

Carrie grabbed Tia’s head and pointed it to the right direction. “It’s Jet. Next to that fat old man.”

“Yes, I see that,” Tia replied, annoyed, taking her head out of Carrie’s grasp.

Carrie wrinkled her nose suddenly.

“What?”

Carrie blinked a few times before answering. “This may disturb you, but…Jet is in the porno section.”

“What? No.”

“I hate to break it to you, love. That’s where he is.”

“But…he’s…what?”

“He is in the porno section,” Carrie said to her as if talking to a three year old. Even though nobody would talk to a three year old about porn.

“Yes, I heard. But…wait a minute, how do you know it’s the porno section?”

Carrie grimaced. “Because my brother used to go there and stare at the DVD cases. And because if you look really carefully you see loads of pictures of women with huge boobs wearing extremely little.”

“You have good eyesight.”

“So. Any thoughts?”

“No, he was probably just walking through it.”

“He just picked one up. The one with the lady with the biggest boobs, too.”

“Shut up. Maybe it fell.”

“He’s bringing it up to the till.”

“We are leaving.”

~

When Jet went into her room later that night after Carrie had left and sat on her bed, Tia moved warily away from him.

“What’s wrong?” he asked her.

“Uh, what? No. Nothing’s wrong. Why, is there something wrong?” Her voice sounded strangely high-pitched.

He looked at her suspiciously. “No, but you sound like an opera singer.”

She forced a smile. “I…was singing in the shower. Kind of got stuck in the vibe, if you know what I mean.”

He clearly didn’t. “Okay,” he said, looking into her eyes. “Tell me what’s wrong.”

She avoided his gaze. “You…uh, you don’t want to know.”

“I do.”

“No, you don’t.”

“Yes, I do.”

“You asked for it.”

“Yes, I did.”

“Um, when Carrie and I were out tonight, we…” she trailed off, looking for the right words. “What the hell were you doing in the porno section?”

Jet frowned. “What? What porno section?”

“In the movie rental shop. Don’t shoot with me, Jet. I knew it was you. You picked up the DVD of the girl with the biggest boobs and took it to the till. You were renting porn and watching it in my freaking house?”

Jet grinned. “No. I was watching it at school.”

“You WHAT?”

“Tiana, calm down. I was kidding. I work at the movie rental shop. The fat old guy asked me for help. I simply randomly picked one off the shelf and took it to the till so that I could rent it to him.”

A surge of relief washed over Tia. “You promise?”

“I swear on my life. Besides, I don’t need porn to keep me busy at night,” he said, grinning. “I’ve got you.”

She stared at him for a minute, and then kicked him off the bed. “Get out of my room.”

Jet got up, still grinning. “I was kidding.”

“I don’t appreciate your sense of humour.”

“Look, Tiana, I don’t need any of that stuff. I’m pretty sure that even you know that I can have any girl I want whenever I want. I don’t need that. I work at the rental shop, that’s all.”

Tia sat back on her bed and silently thanked God. “I do not appreciate you replacing porn with me.”

“That was a joke.”

“A very unfunny one.”

“It was crude. But it was funny. My jokes are always funny.”

“You love your ego.”

“It’s like my other half.”

“It probably is your other half,” she muttered.

“I heard that.”

“You were supposed to.”

Jet got up and sat down on her bed again. “I should go to sleep now.”

“Why? It’s Saturday tomorrow.”

“Early shift.”

“How early?”

Jet bit his lip. “At four?”

“In the morning?”

He nodded.

“That’s insane.”

He shrugged. “I’m used to it.”

“But it’s already eleven thirty. You’re going to get four hours of sleep max!”

“That’s why I should go sleep now.”

“Right. Well, goodnight.”

He leant down and kissed her briefly. “Sweet dreams, Tiana.”

She mumbled something in reply, not quite able to collect her senses just yet.

He laughed softly.

“It’s not fair,” she grumbled. “You’re always so calm and cool and collected afterwards. I’m so…not that I can’t even speak properly.”

He cocked his head to one side. “I may seem calm and cool and collected afterwards, Tia, but trust me, I am not.”

“Prove it.”

He cleared his throat uncomfortably. “I’d rather not.”

“Why not?”

“Because…then I’d have to show you something you…shouldn’t be seeing just yet.”

Tia raised an eyebrow. “Does it have anything to do with…where Bingo usually heads to whenever he sees you?”

He nodded.

“Right. Okay. No need to prove it. You can go now.”

He grinned. “I’ll see you tomorrow night.”

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