Simone

"Hey you!" I said as I grabbed Aria from behind.

She jumped at my touch, clearly startled. She shot me a dirty look. I smiled innocently in response.

"What?" I asked.

Aria shook her head and turned back to her brown bagged lunch. "You scared me. I thought you were-that you were-"

She had trouble finishing the end of the sentence. "Lemme guess. You thought I was tall, gorgeous and had a penis."

Aria's eyes widened at my bluntness. "Simone!" She looked around to see if anyone had heard but there were only two of us at our cafeteria table. Everyone else was busy chatting away. She lowered her voice to a whisper, "What if someone heard you?"

I rolled my eyes. "Please, you know how self-absorbed teenagers are. Do you really think that someone would be interested in what we had to say?"

She thought about it for a little while before she answered. "No, I guess not."

Aria went back to her brown bag, rifled through it and pulled out a tuna sandwich. I snatched it out of her hands and took a big bite before I handed it back.

"Hey!" She shouted, "Those are my favorite. When are you gonna learn not to take things out of my hands?"

I rolled my eyes. "Tuna sandwiches are my favorite too Aria. And to answer your question, what's mine is yours and what's yours is mine. Remember?"

That was the pact that we lived by ever since we were kids. Since we liked a lot of the same things we shared everything.

She shook her head and took a bite from the other side of the sandwich.

Ask her.

The question had been digging through my mind since yesterday. What happened with Nate? And why hadn't she said anything about him yet? Did she tell him about me?

I took a breath and asked, "So, I texted you last night and you never replied."

"Oh yeah. I was super busy and didn't really check my phone before this morning."

"Too busy to text your best friend?" I teased and nudged her with my elbow. "What were you doing all night? Thinking about Nate?"

I bit my lip and studied her reaction. I knew that I was up all night thinking about him and his sexy smile.

Aria's ears reddened in embarrassment and her cheeks flushed a perfect peach-strawberry colour. "O-of course not."

The pit of my stomach dropped. She was lying. I knew her too well to know that when she froze when answering a question, her response was usually false.

I didn't like that she wasn't honest with me. And I certainly didn't like that she had Nate on her mind all night. I forced a cheery smile anyway.
"So you were thinking about him then."

She blushed harder, giving me all the evidence I needed to see her transparent feelings out on full display.

"What did you think about?" I pressed, "All the steamy sex you could have with him between the sheets-"

"Simone!"

I raised my arms in surrender. "Okay, okay. Sorry."

She twirled a piece of her hair nervously and stared at the table like it was the most interesting thing in the world. "It's not like what you think. I only thought about if I should've agreed to let him give me a ride home. I said no."

"What, why?"

She worried her bottom lip and looked me straight in the eyes. Her hazel orbs filled with discontent. "He rides a motorcycle," She finished.

Well that was a surprise. My close friend and cousin got into a bad motorcycle accident. The outcome was a busted bike, six stitches, and a broken leg. Motorcycles were also prone to more accidents than cars. In my opinion, it wasn't worth the risk.

"A motorcycle huh? Good thing you didn't get on," I said.

Aria took another bite from her sandwich. "Yeah. I knew you wouldn't approve since you had to deal with your cousin's accident. That's why I didn't get on."

I smiled. "Good girl."

In the midst of the conversation neither of us knew that someone had approached us.

"Is this seat taken?" The voice asked deeply and pointed to the seat next to Aria.

I looked up and saw Nate right in front of us. He grinned at us and I got to see all his pearly white teeth. His hair was thick and I suddenly had the strong urge to run my hands through his mane. He was tanned, like he had just come from Florida or something. I performed a quick once over and checked him out. He was lean but still muscular, like a swimmer, and there wasn't an ounce of fat on whatever pieces of skin that I could see. All in all, he was gorgeous.

And totally my type.

Aria didn't say anything and instead just went back to her sandwich, her ears were turning red.

I reached across the table and stretched out my hand.
"Simone Miller," I said with my best flirtatious smile.

Nate shook my hand; his hands were soft and firm. He smiled at me.
"Nate Marks."

I giggled behind my hand. "Yeah, I know who you are."

He seemed surprised. "Really? Did Aria tell you?"

I flashed a grin. "She also told me that you wanted to bang her."

Aria shot me a furious look, her face turned a cute shade of crimson.

Nate seemed stunned and rubbed the back of his neck in embarrassment. "That was a joke."

I shot another one of my signature smiles. "I'm sure it was. I also heard you were expelled and got into a fight on your first day here."

Nate was taken aback but quickly recovered. He glanced at Aria and jabbed his thumb in her direction.
"Did Aria tell you that too?"

"Nope. Heard it from along the grapevine. Around here, everyone knows everything about each other."

"Perks of living in a small town," He said sarcastically.

I laughed flirtly, "Exactly."

Nate picked off the pepperoni on his pizza before looking at me with his beautiful blue-grey eyes.
"You know, that explains a lot. This morning I asked a girl where I could find the gym and she looked at me like I was a ghost."

Aria stared down at her tuna sandwich but I caught her crack a smile.

"Wow. Sounds like people are really afraid of you."

I looked around and saw just about everyone's eyes staring at our table and whispering secret messages to their friends behind their hands. Nate turned around to see what I was looking at and immediately the onlookers averted their eyes.

Nate turned back to me. "Any idea how to change their minds?"

"Y-you can stop getting into fights at school," Aria mumbled as she tugged the edge of her shirt nervously.

Nate clapped his hands together.
"She speaks!"

Aria looked at him straight in the eyes. It was the boldest move I'd seen her make. Even though I was jealous at them for connecting I was proud of Aria for her attempts at confidence.

"I-I can talk. I just don't like to..." Aria said softly.

Nate looked puzzled. "You seemed to be speaking just fine when you were alone with Simone."

A burst of excitement rushed through me. He remembered my name! Omg.

Aria turned to me. Her eyes pleaded me to help her.

"We grew up together so she's fine with talking to me" I explained,"But she's not good with strangers."

Nate took in the last bite of his pizza and stood up to take his tray back to the cafeteria. My heart sunk when he winked at Aria.

"Hopefully we won't stay strangers for long."