The moment Tom had grabbed her hand and pulled her over the table towards him kept plaguing Angie's mind. Because as crazy as it sounded, in the moment, despite all her suspicions and doubts, she'd wanted him to kiss her, she'd wanted to run her hands through his hair, melt into him.

Which was beyond stupid. Because she didn't know him, didn't trust him, didn't even have an opinion about him. He was too random, too unpredictable, too... fun. Tom was a man of extremes.

But she liked that. Because he was fire, he was danger, he was a challenge. A challenge she was willing to accept.

"What's wrong with me?" She groaned.

"Nothing's wrong with you. You like hanging out with him, you find him interesting, you apparently wouldn't mind making out with him." Kay smirked as she said the last part.

"But that's so not like me," Angie groaned. She was focused and mature and goal oriented.

"Angie, you're a sixteen year old girl. There's no like you." Kay smiled bitterly. "Have fun, go with your gut. If you like him, take a shot. It's not like you're signing up for forever. And even if you are..." Her voice cracked. "No one gives guarantees that it will happen. So just live how you want, while you can. Make friends, crush on a hot guy, let loose once in a while."

Angie nodded. Kay was right. She should stop taking everything so seriously and just live in the moment. She shouldn't be looking for anything permanent. Because high school, her possible new friends, Tom... they were all fleeting. And Kay was a perfect example of that.

Childhood sweetheart? Gone. New love? Gone. Friends? Gone. Still she moved on, could smile. Because in a couple of years, both Danny and Kyle would probably be bitter sweet memories.

Why not make some of her own?

With that thought in mind, Angie approached the new day of school with more optimism than ever. Because except for the biology snag, everything was going according to plan. And biology would no longer be an issue soon, thanks to the projects she'd worked on with Tom.

She stopped by her locker to deposit her books, when the boy next door looked to her surprised.

"Hi there. Haven't seen you before. You new?" he asked, raising dark, bushy eyebrows.

More likely a little late. "Sort of," she answered with a shrug. Her first impulse was to analyze the newcomer head to toe, but she fought it, determined to have a more relaxed attitude.

The guy was taller than her, but not by much, had dark brown hair and grey eyes and was grinning at her. His front teeth were a little crooked, but it added to his overall charm. What took away from it was the heavy gold chain around his neck, visible in the plunging neckline of his t-shirt. He also wore shorts and loafers.

"I'm Ross." He reached out his hand.

Angie almost took a step back, but steeled her spine and shook his hand instead. "Angie."

"Short for Angela? That's so pretty. Though if it were me, I'd shorten it to Angel."

She snorted. This guy was so full of cheese. He grinned at her, apparently pleased with his little joke.

"If you're sort of new, maybe you could join us for lunch," he continued.

His use of us stopped her creep-o-meter from bouncing off the charts. She should chill anyway. It's not like she'd let him start hitting on her anyway, and so far he seemed nice and harmless.

"Okay, maybe." She usually retreated to the library for lunch since she didn't buy anything from the cafeteria and crammed homework in every available minute, but maybe that should change, too.

So four hours later, she actually sat down at a table in the all-green cafeteria, with Ross and a short, voluptuous girl with a brown bob who he introduced as Lily.

"It's weird that we haven't seen you around," Lily commented, stirring her salad with a plastic fork.

"I'm usually pretty focused on school work," Angie answered, writing her latest English essay.

"We can see that," Ross said with a smile. "It's cool, really. We all spend so much time fooling around and then wake up in senior year that our GPA isn't what we expected."

Angie smiled at them, relieved that they weren't bugging her or making faces that she was writing instead of eating with them.

Lily launched into a story about how her latest crush had just ignored her when she said hi and Angie had to admit she liked these two. They were nice, laid back, and gave her a lot of information about school life. And being in the cafeteria wasn't bad, even if it felt like she'd walked inside a giant cabbage and she kept scanning the room, hoping to see Tom.

Though he was probably outside again, winning some other unfortunate jock's lunch or studying, or just laying on the grass, looking up at the sky and thinking. About what, she couldn't even begin to guess.

As she returned her attention to her homework, half listening to Ross talking about how he almost set fire to his friend in chemistry, she realized that after yesterday, she missed Tom. A little. As in she wouldn't mind running into him. Or just catching a glimpse of him, really.

Ugh, I'm so pathetic. He probably didn't give a crap about her. Did it matter? If she wanted to see him, maybe she should go see him. It was Friday anyway, so he was at the club for tonight. All she had to do was convince Kay to go along with her...

"No." Kay shook her head, wiping her hands on her apron. "No freaking way."

"Come on, Kay, it could be fun," Angie pleaded. "I'll ask Tom to put on 90s hits again."

"No. I've been through this before, people dragging me along for the ride because they supposedly wanted to make me feel better when all they actually wanted to do was hook up."

"That's so not what I'm doing--"

"Hey, shut up and listen." Kay fixed her with an intense light blue gaze. "Go to the club. Find Tom. Hang out with him. Hook up with him if you want. Don't drag me into it, that's all I'm saying."

Angie groaned, but could totally see Kay's point. The only bad thing was that if she went there and Tom didn't want to hang out, she'd be alone in a sea of drunken teenagers. You'll just go home. Yup, she'll do that. Why was this so difficult? She'd always done everything alone. And it always made her an easy target.

By the time eight o'clock rolled in and she took off her waitress uniform, she still hadn't made up her mind if she wanted to go to the club or not. Deciding to just roll with it and see where her feet took her, she waved goodbye to Kay who still had two hours left on her shift, and headed out.

She froze. Right next to the door, rolling his skateboard back and forth with one foot was Tom. He grinned when he saw her and pushed off the wall.

"This place?" he asked. "Does it have good food?"

"It's actually pretty good." Angie watched him carefully, wondering why he was there. "What are you doing here?"

"I wanted to see if you lied and sent me to the wrong place."

"Why would I do something like that?" She narrowed her eyes at him. "Did you give me wrong information?"

He laughed. "No. But I wouldn't put it past you to send me on a wild goose chase. Just for the lols."

Angie smirked at him. She wouldn't have done that. She was honest to a fault and only ever lied by omission, but she kinda liked that he thought her capable of something so devious. "Weren't you supposed to be at the club tonight?"

"My shift starts at nine. I'm heading there now. Coming?"

"Are you asking me out?"

"Do you see any flowers?"

Damn, right, flowers. "So what is it then?"

He raised his eyebrows, probably surprised she'd asked. With the sunglasses, she couldn't be sure. "Do you or do you not want to go dance? Why does it have to be anything?"

Good point. Very good point. So she shrugged and started walking towards the bus stop. Tom caught up in an instant, rolling on his skateboard.

"Wanna ride with me?" he asked casually.

"That thing is tiny."

"Trust me, we'd fit." When Angie stared at him skeptically, he sighed and hopped off the board. "Fine, we'll walk then."

She'd wanted to take the bus, but walking worked, too. She was safe with him and she'd save up on bus fare.

"So, how was your day?" she asked conversationally.

"Really? Wanna talk about the weather, too?"

"What do you want to talk about then, smartass?"

He hummed, drumming his finger on his skateboard. "Can you actually ride anything?"

Random crap it was, then. "I guess I can ride a bike. And rollerblades."

"Aw, you'd be so cute on rollerblades."

She shoved him, almost pushing him on the street. "Stop patronizing me."

He just laughed like the ass he was. "I'm not patronizing you. I really think you'd be cute. With a pink helmet and pigtails."

"Okay, now you just made it kinky."

Tom put his hand on her shoulder and nudged her against the nearest wall. Angie opened her mouth to protest, but the breath caught in her throat when he leaned over her. He didn't touch her, but was so close, she could practically feel his body heat.

"You think that's kinky?" he whispered in her ear. His hot breath sent shivers through her. "You have no idea."

Her brain jammed. She knew she should say something, do something. Push him away. Pull him closer. Yell at him.

"Hmmm." He pulled back and tilted his head. "I was expecting at least a kick in the nuts. What happened?"

What? "If you expected me to hit you, why did you do it?" Her voice came out hushed.

"Because I'm crazy and I like a challenge and..." He bit his lower lip. "I dunno. Just felt like it, I guess."

"You are an extraordinarily random man." Angie pushed herself off the wall and took in a deep breath. Her heart finally stopped pounding.

"Too true," he said with a grin.

They continued their way in silence. Angie could barely concentrate on walking, her mind still buzzing with what just happened, her body still feeling his heat. What was this? What was going on?

Why are you overthinking it again? Would an answer actually fix anything? Nope, only confuse her more. So she forced her mind into standby mode and enjoyed the rest of the walk, making small talk about what they did in school that day and the weather.

The bouncer greeted them at the door and Tom hurried to his station. Angie waited by the stairs, wondering if she should follow him or go home or just stay a while. She didn't get to decide before he ambled down the stairs again.

"Right, let's go have some fun!"

"Wait, what?" She stared at him as he took her hand and pulled her on the dance floor. "What about your job?" she yelled over the heavy beat.

"I'm already doing my job," he yelled back. "I've made mixes that last for hours. I usually catch up on homework."

Huh, interesting. He wasn't catching up on homework now, but rather spending time with her. Since she knew how much time and effort keeping a perfect GPA took, she appreciated the sacrifice he was making. For her. To hang out with her.

"Thank you."

"For what?" He took her hand and spun her in place. "I haven't done anything yet."

She laughed and let him twist and turn her any way he wanted. He was a great dancer and she loved being there with him. Even more than with Kay. Because she felt safe, no one came on to her, and she could just let loose and have fun. It was Friday night, she was dancing with a guy she liked. Life was beautiful.

And she'd never seen Tom so happy and relaxed either. The smile on his face seemed to freeze time, light up the place. His touch was like fire, his laughter better than any music and he set her free.

Angie threw her hands in the air and twirled to the music, and for a moment it felt like she was flying.

Tom disappeared every hour or so to take care of the music and by the time midnight rolled around, she felt sorry to go. But she was tired and giddy and didn't want to ruin it by falling asleep on the dance floor.

He joined her outsider when she left, to say goodbye.

"This was fun," she said truthfully.

"Yeah." He rubbed the back of his head and for the first time, she thought he looked a little nervous. With the sunglasses, she couldn't tell. "You're a really good dancer," he finally said.

"I'm a good dancer?" Tom couldn't just dance. He could break dance. And walk on his hands apparently. And do so many neat tricks to various beats.

"Well, yeah." He grinned at her. "So, um, I was wondering..."

Angie lifted her eyebrows. What was he doing? Finally asking her out?

"There's a dance competition in three months and I signed up for it. There's also a couples section, but I don't have a partner. Would you like to be my partner? We can split the prize."

Angie stared. She felt the need to rewind and hear him say it again. "You want me to dance with you in a competition."

"Exactly. Prize. Spilt."

"How much are we talking?" She hated herself the moment the words were out. He didn't know she was poorer than dirt and she wanted to keep it that way. No pity, no temptation. But she'd still come off like a douche.

Tom raised an eyebrow, very obviously not impressed with her question, but answered it any way. "One grand, so you'll be taking five hundred home if we win."

Her eyes widened and her jaw dropped. "Five hundred dollars?"

"No, five hundred chicken. And they throw in a small goat if you're spectacular enough."

Farm animal jokes aside, that was a lot of money. A whole load of money. There's were so many things she could do with it. If they won. But they couldn't if she didn't say yes.

"Sorry, it's just seems like a lot. Sure, I'm in."

Tom nodded, but didn't look exactly thrilled. "Okay, I'll catch you in school and we'll discuss the details. G'night." And without a second of hesitation, he went back in.

Angie nibbled on her lower lip, regretting her outburst. But as she made her way toward Kay's place as quickly as possible, she had to admit somethings bothered her more. She knew his shift wasn't over, that he couldn't leave the club and that he'd already probably put his job in danger by hanging out with her, but she wished Tom would've at least shown a little worry that she was wondering the streets alone at night.

🔱🔱🔱

Behold, a long chapter! Can you believe it? No? Well, it's real.

The plot is starting to move with the pace of a snail on Red Bull, so yay for that. At this point I'm mostly concerned about character development and if you're all aboard thr Tangie. And if you're not, why? Which one of them is actually bothering you?

Thanks so much for reading. Now give me blood!