Marshall

    The first thing I noticed when the Rodriguez’s front door swung open was her. She was wearing tattered looking superhero pajamas that maybe looked a little too small, showing off her more than amazing figure and nice…assets. Not that I was complaining or anything.

  It was a sad weakness of mine that I couldn’t help but stare in raptures at Avery Rodriguez any chance I got when no one was watching.

  This sadly happened a lot, though.

Avery Rodriguez was smoking hot.

   But not that I would ever say that out loud, of course, because Avery was “one of the guys” and it was in the Bro Code that you didn’t date one of the guys… or some shit like that. I had no freaking clue. Whenever she was involved, my thoughts were more screwed up than I’d care to admit.

  “Marshall, quit drooling,” Nick Petrolas said, reaching over to whap me upside the head.

I jerked around in my seat to glare at Nick furiously, completely pissed off. Being ragged on for a hopeless crush I’d had since the fourth grade wasn’t exactly how I wanted to start off the first day of senior year, thanks very much.  

  “Piss off, Nick,” I muttered, slouching forward in my seat dejectedly.

 “I don’t understand why you don’t just freaking tell her how you feel,” Nick continued on, clearly not seeing that I was so not in the mood to talk about this. “She obviously digs you too, but you’re just too much of a – “

 “Way to go, Jack. It’s not even seven thirty in the morning and you’ve already got her cussing you out in Spanish.”

 I sent a silent prayer to every god or goddess or whoever the hell was out there that Justin Richards had chosen that moment to step in, wrenching open the driver’s side door to his crappy but reliable truck. Nick, thankfully, was cut off from saying anything else.

 Jack Wilson smirked as he slunk lower in his seat in the back. “It’s a record I try to beat every day, Justin, my man.”

 Justin rolled his eyes, clearly not amused. “I’m not messing around. Something’s seriously going on with Avery right now and she doesn’t need to keep being harassed by you assholes.”

 “Hey!” both Nick and I exclaimed in unison. “I haven’t done anything!”

 “Yeah, right,” Justin snorted, shooting me a look. “Marshall, you’re probably the cause of it all.”

 “Me?  What the hell are you on about?”

 “I told you!” Nick crooned from the back seat, banging a fist into the roof of the car. “I told you she digs you, Marshall!”

 “I liked you better when you weren’t dating Laila,” Jack chimed in. “You’re too thoughtful and serious and shit all the time, Justin.”

   Justin responded to that comment with a hand gesture that he definitely must have picked up from his girlfriend.

  Laila Hayes may have been a delicate, soft, pretty little thing, but she had a foul mouth to match her even worse temper. It was probably because she was just the slightest bit Italian. And if anything, our man dating her was probably the best thing to ever happen to him. She’d changed him in more ways than one. With Laila around, Justin wasn’t so much of a dick and he’d learned a few life lessons that he’d definitely needed to know.

  Surprises just come in different packages, right?

I was abruptly yanked out of my muddled thoughts by the sound of the front door slamming shut and a howling little devil storming her way down the driveway to the truck.

 I swallowed hard, completely distracted by what Avery was wearing.

 She was wearing the shortest pair of jeans I’d ever seen on her before, showing off her smooth, tanned legs. Her shirt was a soft cottony white that clung to her curves in all the right ways, making me all the more aware of just how gorgeous she was. I was surprised to see that she’d forgone the use of her glasses and had let her hair down from its normal twist so that it fell down to her shoulders in glossy waves.

 I fought back a groan.

 If there was really a god out there, he should have smote me right then and there.

 To add to more of my miserable morning, Avery wrenched open the passenger side door and gave me a look that could’ve killed a crying infant.

   “Move over, Marshall,” she barked. “I’m not sitting in the back with those comemierdas.”

I just sat there, immobile, completely at a loss of what to do.

  “You’d better listen to her, Marshall,” Jack taunted, purposefully raising his voice. “I think she’s PMSing. She might hit you with her bag or something.”

  “Vete a la mierda,” Avery spat in Jack’s direction as she pulled herself into the truck when I finally managed to force myself to move over.  

   I had a sneaking suspicion that Avery had just said something insanely insulting to Jack, but I wasn’t about to complain. The guy needed to be put in his place more often than not.

  Justin fought back a snort of laughter as he pulled the truck out of the driveway while Jack and Nick exchanged blank looks.    

 “What does that even mean?” Jack inquired, genuinely curious.

  Avery’s answer made my ears burn red – a sad reaction that happened whenever I was embarrassed.

   I dropped my head back against the seat and tried not to focus on the girl who was squished against me beside the window.

  Nick, Justin, and Jack kept up a string of conversation as we drove towards the hell hole they called a school. I remained quiet, lost in my own thoughts, wondering how this day was going to go.

 It wasn’t like I was nervous or anything. I’d long since passed the stage where new teachers and different new kids intimidated me beyond belief. Now I couldn’t care less. I was going to be keeping up the same routine I had started my freshman year – keeping my head down and getting my work done, but still enjoying myself at the same time.

  The only downside to this whole plan was that it was sort of hard to remain inconspicuous when you were friends with Nick Petrolas or Justin Richards. Both of their parents had more money than God and pretty much every girl at our high school had experienced their first “romantic” day dream about them.

 Jack Wilson, Alec Hastings, and I were the lowly sidekicks who kept to the sidelines…well, as much as three teenage boys could.

 It felt like a lifetime might have flashed before my eyes when we finally reached my favorite (not) place in the world – Lincoln High School.

 The second Justin killed the engine, Avery was yanking off her seatbelt and whipping open the passenger side door in a desperate attempt to get out as fast as possible.

  I stared after her in amazement before things finally kicked into action and I scrambled out after her with my school things, trying to keep up with her.

 “Avery! Hey, Avery!”

 Avery’s grip tightened on her bag as she stopped in her tracks before turning around.

 “What?”

Her tone was less than pleasant.

 I stared blankly at her, my stomach dropping, not even sure of what I was supposed to say.

 She gave me a pointed look, an eyebrow raised. “Well?”

 “What’s with you today?” I blurted out without thinking. “You seem especially pissed off.” 

  Avery’s dark eyes widened in shock as she frowned, her lips turning down in a pout. “Really? I hadn’t noticed.”

 I scoffed, making a face. “Avery, seriously. Be real with me here, okay? “

 “Nothing’s wrong, Marshall,” Avery groaned, rolling her eyes. “I’m seriously fine. I gotta get to class now, okay?”

 Before I could even say anything to that, she spun on her heel and started walking off.

“I’ll see you at lunch,” she tossed over her shoulder before she disappeared into a clump of people swarming towards the entrance doors.

 I stood in the middle of the parking lot, staring after her in amazement.

What the hell had just happened here?

 “I hate to say I told you so, man,” Justin said, clapping me on the shoulder as he stood next to me. “But…I told you so.”

  I cut my eyes to him in a sour look while he shrugged sympathetically in response.

   I sighed heavily.

School sucked.

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  So I'm hoping that you guys, as readers, like Avery and Marshall almost as much as you like Justin and Laila. 

 And don't worry about "One Of The Boys". I know I'm probably notorious for starting work on Wattpad and then deleting them, but it's only because I usually find something I don't like about them and then get annoyed so I delete them. Pretty lame, I know, huh?

 Anyways, any comments, rates, or reads are greatly appreciated! (: