"you're cute when you ramble"

It had been a week and strangely Carson, Jett and May have been spending their lunch times with me. Thankfully no one approached me during the past week but I did hear a few rumours sprouting behind my back, but they weren't too bothersome. Every day, I gradually felt more and more comfortable with these people who used to be strangers. I occasionally stuttered but I spoke more now.

Carson and I are a quarter way through finishing the Business assessment since we were given the past few lessons to work on it. I barely spoke though, only answering questions and suggesting things when necessary and that wasn't very often and I can now see why Carson moved up to this class.

Now I was sitting crossed legged on the wooden bench with May sitting next to me while Jett and Carson plonked themselves on the gravel. Jett was using his thumb to scroll down on his cracked phone screen.

I didn't even need to ask him how it broke because my constant and curious stare was enough for him to give me a whole story on how he cracked it and got punished, although I found the punishment quite useless.

"So... I was sitting in my bed, playing the most addictive game in the world and this bird starts chirping. He was perched on the tree branch and it was as if he asked for it. Of course, I tried reasonable ways to shut the little bitch but he wouldn't. I banged on the window a ca-trillion times and he wouldn't zip his shit. I couldn't take it so I opened the window and chucked my phone at his head." Jett had explained. He was clearly fond of swearing; something I didn't like but knew that I couldn't stop anyone from doing it.

May had given him a disapproving look.

He shrugged. "I wasn't thinking. He was so annoying."

"Clearly you weren't thinking at all." May rolled her eyes showing that she was definitely used to her boyfriend's theatrics.

That conversation happened a few days ago and I still couldn't get over the fact that his phone still lived since he fell from at least five or six metres from the two storey building. And the bird is also very much alive after successfully dodging the phone, much to Jett's dismay.

"Cat or dog?" Jett asked, looking up from his phone. We were now playing 'This or That?' with questions from a random website Jett had googled. "I'll say... Dog."

Carson doesn't hesitate and answered. "Dog."

I shrugged. "I don't know...Dog?"

"Dog's win." May clapped her hands together. "Next one."

"Hard one...Marvel or DC?"

"DC," May answered immediately. "Have you seen Superman's abs?"

Jett smirked. "You've seen mine."

"Unfortunately," May grunted before turning to Carson. "Which one?"

"Are you talking about Marvel and DC or Jett and Superman's abs?" Carson raised a brow, a teasing tone lacing his voice.

"Marvel and DC," May deadpanned.

"I'll go with Marvel," Jett interrupted.

Carson shrugged. "Same. Marvel it is."

Then everyone's eyes were soon glued to me. They happened to do this a lot so I had luckily amended to it by actually answering if they had asked a question and stuttered less too.

"I...don't know," I mumbled quietly.

"Come on Iris. I need you to say DC so we can tie. I don't want to lose," May pleaded and being the dramatic person she was, she grasped my arm with her two hands and shook it gently and then banged her forehead on my shoulder repetitively.

"I don't know," I repeated. "I can barely tell which one is which. I mix up all the characters and end up combining them together. I thought Wonder Woman was a friend of Spiderman or something."

May stopped hitting her head and then the boys looked at me with surprised expressions on their face.

"Okay...moving on..." Jett dragged out and I smiled timidly.

"Netflix or YouTube?"

"YouTube is dying but I'm too poor to get a Netflix account." May listed out the reasons in a slight whiny voice. "So I always use Jett's account." She grinned.

"Netflix," Jett said, looking up from his phone.

"Netflix," Carson agreed.

The last choice was mine and I couldn't decide. I've never seen Netflix and I barely touch YouTube unless it was a research task for school and YouTube provided the correct information.

I smiled sheepishly. "N-None?"

Jett was the one who reacted first, in less of a question and more of a shouted exclamation. "What do you mean none!"

"I don't watch anything." I shrugged, playing with the hem of my grey baggy jumpy, which covered almost half of my jeans.

Jett burst but May interrupted curiously. "Then what do you do in your free time?"

"I read and draw."

"Why would you waste perfectly good time drawing and reading!" Jett shouted, a little too loud and again, not seeming like he was asking a question but accusing me. He's been doing this for the past week so I had got used to it and now know that it is just his personality.

May slapped him lightly on his forehead. "Don't be rude."

Jett simply grumbled.

"Have you seen her drawings?" Carson suddenly popped in, lifting a brow at Jett.

Jett shook his head.

"Then you wouldn't understand why she would spend her free time doing what she loves and is skilful at," he said, but his attention was now on me as if he was speaking to me directly. His eyes shone with admiration and a smile, not a smirk, but a warm smile was fixed on his face.

Running was something I found much easier than solving an equation in maths. But when you're running when your holding at least five books who each way a tonne then that is a lot harder than solving a stupid maths question.

I needed to return all the books back to the school library but I already stayed back five minutes in class. Unfortunately, the library was closing in two minutes because they were starting to renovate the place today so if we needed to borrow books, then we would have to walk five minutes to the local town library.

Turning around the corner, my vision was blinded by something that struck me.

I prepared my whole body for impact by squinting my eyes harder and hugging the books closer to my chest, as if it would comfort the fall I knew I was about to experience within the next millisecond.

Just before I hit the ground, I felt something warm wrap around my torso and hold me up.

Soon I was staring into his green eyes. They were so full and luminous like the colour of morning grass still moist from the previous night. Little swirls of white and gold danced around and a shimmer of light glossed his eyes.

Who else owned such magnificent eyes like Carson?

No matter how many times I ordered my brain to look away, it refused, taking this small chance to examine something beautiful and rare.

A few moments later, I felt warmth creep up my neck and passed my ears, causing my skin to turn a rosy colour after realising the position we were in. We were in those ending ballroom dance positions, his hand was flat against my back and the rest of his arm wrapped around me. I was titled halfway, almost to the ground and he was leaning very close to me.

I eventually became aware that we were practically twenty centimetres apart, by then it would have been a few seconds of extremely awkward silence before I coughed, attempting to clear my voice, "S-Sorry."

Carson must've realised too because his cheeky grin was back. "Tsk. Tsk. Tsk. It's only been a week and I'd already had to catch like twice. Will it be every Tuesday then? Perhaps Wednesday too?"

I gave him a weak smile. "Sorry. I'm in a rush."

"To do what?" He asked, furrowing his brows.

What was I doing? I was in a rush to do...

"No. I'm late. I'm late. The library's going to close. I need to return the books or else I'll have to pay. I'd forgotten to return them three weeks after I was supposed to. If I don't... No. No. I'm going to get into trouble." I rambled hopelessly.

"You're cute when you ramble." Carson laughed lightly, before flicking his wrist and checking his gold watch. "You've got a minute or two. I'll help you carry the books. We'll get there in time."

I nodded thankfully and handed him a few books, but giving him less than me because I don't want to be rude.

I saw Carson roll his eyes before picking up two more books in my pile and stacking them on his, leaving me with only one.

I opened my mouth to object but he obviously saw it coming.

He shot me a small grin. "Don't argue. Just run."

a/n: vote and comment x