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quinn

I honestly have no idea why Mr Peters dropped JT Sterling on me. What does he think I am? A babysitter? I mean, to be fair, I don’t know JT at all. He could secretly be a genius for all I know. He literally joined the class only a month or so ago and all I know of him is that he is Trey Sterling’s cousin and one of those basketball jocks I don’t have much to do with.

The other thing I know is that his full name is Jethro Thomas, and he has corrected everyone any time they have used his full name. Which I don’t blame him for. That name is a mouthful.

The other other thing I know is that JT is drop dead gorgeous. He has this cute, cheeky grin and his face is young and just a little innocent with his head of wavy, dark blonde hair that is kind of curly but also kind of just scruffy. His eyes are green, and they twinkle when he laughs which happens to be pretty much all of the time. He seems like one of those perennially happy people that probably should annoy me but for some reason, he doesn’t.

In other words, he’s right up my alley.

I’ve noticed him loads of times in the schoolyard, strutting around with the basketball jocks while the popular girls all sigh after him. He’s probably as straight as his very straight cousin—the one who is currently glaring at us from the back row. But that’s fine. I am well versed in fancying guys who turn out to be straight so that’s no skin off my nose. I have no problems looking and not touching. Like JT, I also have plenty of offers in that regard so I’m not exactly hard up as far as attention goes.

He's shier than I expect though as he takes the seat alongside me, looking at me expectantly as though I hold all the answers to the universe. It’s kind of adorable. I had expected more arrogance from him but so far, he’s come across as shy and maybe even a little tongue-tied. Not what I expected from the guy who regularly tussles with his cousin in the back row of the science classroom and who walks the school corridors with his pack of basketball jocks who think they own the place.

I flick my eyes back to the instruction paper, reminding myself to stop staring at the cute boy beside me. I don’t know what Mr Peters was thinking but I do know this project would run a whole lot more smoothly if I hadn’t been paired with someone so distractingly cute as JT.

“Do you have any preferences?” I decide to ask, knowing one of us has to kickstart this discussion.

“Preferences?” he stammers, two light pink smudges appearing on his cheeks. Seriously, so cute.

“For what we focus on with the project,” I clarify, trying hard to keep the smile from spreading across my face.

“Oh, right,” JT replies with exaggerated enthusiasm. What did he think I meant? “What are the options again?”

“Well, we could do solar, wind, hydro or biomass,” I read from the paper between us. “Do any of those stand out to you?”

“Um,” he mulls, biting down on the tip of his pen and distracting the hell out of me again. “Can you choose? I’m not sure where to even start with those options.”

I bite down on my smile again which I have a feeling is something I’ll be doing a lot this term. “I wouldn’t mind focusing on biomass if that is something you could agree with.” Mainly because I know the rest of the class will shy away from it and choose one of the easier options and Mr Peters loves students who take the opportunity to be challenged.

“Biomass,” he mulls, pen between his teeth. “I have no idea what that word even means but sure, let’s do that.”

I lose my grip on my smile, but he is grinning back at me and suddenly he’s all I can focus on. He is simply gorgeous, and this project just got a hell of a lot more complicated for me. I’m well aware my GPA is currently neck and neck with Catherine Lowe for dux of the school and I need this grade to be good. I am also uncomfortably aware that I am relying on JT Sterling for maintaining my GPA, but I am also familiar enough with how group projects usually go to suspect I’ll be doing the majority of the work.

“So um, I know this is probably a really dumb question but what exactly is biomass energy?” JT asks, those pink splodges covering his cheeks again. Honestly, if any other student in this class had asked me this question I would have walked straight up to Mr Peters and demanded a new partner, his earlier warnings be damned.

With JT though? I just smile and start talking. “Basically it’s renewable organic material sourced from plants.”

“Right,” he ponders, scratching his chin with his knuckle. “And how does that become energy?”

“Well, it can either be burned by direct combustion into heat or converted through chemical or biological processes into liquid or gas fuels,” I explain.

“Right,” he repeats, still mulling before those bright green eyes of his spark to life. “Is this like those green city buses that run on garbage?”

“Exactly,” I smile, showing way too much encouragement over something we learnt last year. Although to be fair, JT wasn’t here during that syllabus, and I can’t blame him for that. It’s probably why Mr Peters paired him with me in the first place.

“Okay,” JT smiles, suddenly more confident with our choice of subjects. “I think I can work with this.”

I just grin and pull out my laptop, not minding this partnership pairing at all. And I assure you, that’s an academic first for me.

JT and I spend the rest of the lesson jotting down some ideas, but time gets away from us before we settle on anything specific. He has more ideas than I expect, and even though half of them are way too outlandish for a school science project I am glad for his enthusiasm.

It is just before the bell rings for the end of class that I turn to look at him, trying not to focus on the way his teeth are sinking into the tip of his pen.

“I’m not sure how much further we’re going to get today. Do you want to make some time to catch up after school so we can plan this project out?”

“Sure,” JT says, sitting higher in his seat. “I have basketball three nights a week though but I’m free Tuesdays and Thursdays.”

“Three nights a week?” I repeat, slightly surprised at the demands of his sport on his time.

“Yep,” he returns. “Training on Mondays and Wednesdays and game night on Fridays. We also have voluntary training sessions on Sunday mornings but they’re voluntary in the same way oxygen is for breathing.”

I realise I’m smiling as JT talks, those expressive green eyes filled with light, his love of basketball shining through. “Ah, I see,” I nod. “So not voluntary at all.”

“Bingo,” he grins and my heart jumpstarts in my chest. Ridiculous, really.

“So tomorrow then?” I hedge. Tomorrow will be Tuesday, and I really want to get this project underway.

“Sounds great,” he replies. “Um, where should we meet?”

“You can come back to my place if you like,” I offer. “It’s just me and my mum and she works shifts so it’s usually pretty quiet.”

“Definitely your place then. I have two younger siblings and it is never quiet at my house.”

“Alright. You want to give me your number and I’ll text you my address?” I keep my tone as casual as possible even though my heart has upped its pumping rate. I don’t know why. I’m literally asking the guy to come over to work on a science project. It’s not like it’s a hookup or anything.

“Sure,” JT says, pink lining those cheeks again as he fumbles with his phone, dropping it in the process. I pick it up from the table and hold it out for him, his eyes fixed to the table as he mumbles out a thanks . He unlocks his phone, and I enter my details into his contacts and hand it back. He dials my number and I hear it ringing in my backpack before he hangs up.

The bell tolls and we both reach for our bags and stand. He’s smaller than me which I’m a little surprised about considering he’s on the basketball team and the rest of those guys tend to be huge, but I kind of like that about JT. It’s only an inch but I like the way his green gaze turns up to me, that original shyness back in place that we had somehow smoothed over while we worked together. And don’t ask me why but I love that little hint of shy from him. It’s completely at odds with the types of guys I’ve been with in the past but it’s adorable on JT.

Damn, I really hope he’s not as straight as I think he is.

Neither of us has moved when his cousin reaches us, arms wrapping around JT as he claims him back from me. JT startles before laughing and shoving his cousin off his back. I just watch, not sure of my place there anymore as JT is subsumed by his large group of overly loud friends and he disappears into the corridor, just one backwards glance spared for me.