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Story: Of Pranks and Passion
CHAPTER THREE
EASTON
The packet of notes felt heavy in my hand as I walked to my next class.
I still didn’t get it. I didn't even know the guy existed, and suddenly he was offering me notes for the shit I missed?
What was his goal? Did he somehow figure out who I was related to and hoped to make a connection to my family?
People weren’t that nice without a damn reason.
My next class, like all my classes, was boring as hell.
I spent most of it looking at the notes the kid gave me.
Not just a photocopy of what he’d done before.
They were carefully hand written in neat print, with highlighted bits to mark different sections and topics.
He even starred the stuff he thought was important.
It must’ve taken him a while to do the first time, so it begged to question why he went through the effort to do it a second time just for me.
We hadn’t even spoken to each other before today.
It irritated me the rest of the afternoon, and when I saw him in my last class of the day, hiding in the back with his head down, I weaved through the desks and sat next to him again.
Part of it was intrigue, part suspicion.
If he was looking to make some kind of connection, I wanted to clear that shit up fast. I didn’t do connections to my family.
And I took issue with anyone trying to use me to get to them.
I couldn’t count how many fights I got into as an angsty teenager whenever I realized that’s why people were approaching me.
The only people who didn’t give a shit were my friends.
The kid didn’t look devious at first glance.
He didn’t look like he’d harm a butterfly, to be honest. He was small, probably five eight max, and thanks to a t-shirt and jeans, I could tell he wasn’t built.
Not a physical threat, at least. He had curly brown hair and wide chocolate eyes.
His pale skin was prone to blushing, and he turned bright red when I sat down next to him.
I studied him with a frown. Was that response embarrassment over trying to use me? Or was something else going on?
I didn’t hear a single word of the lecture, and when the class was done, he scurried away like a scared mouse. I followed him at a more relaxed pace, my eyes locked on him even when my phone went off in my pocket. I put it to my ear, following the kid through the quad toward the library.
“What?”
“Hello, little brother.”
I made a face. “Jayden. What do you want?”
“Oh, come on. Be nice,” he teased. “Dad told me you started college. I wanted to see how it was going. I know you hated going to school.”
Jayden wasn’t a bad guy. He just didn’t back down when I refused to do the brother thing with him.
He basically bullied me into liking him, which, when I was younger, was annoying as hell.
As an adult, I’d learned to roll with my brother’s weird insistence that we be at least friendly to each other.
“It’s fine, I guess. Weird.”
“Weird how?” he asked. I could hear papers shifting in the background.
He was probably still at work. All of my old man’s kids worked in the family business, except for me.
A Fortune 500 company had plenty of open jobs, but I wasn’t interested in the corporate world.
I was pretty sure my old man was relieved when I told him.
I didn’t fit in with the corporate look.
“Dunno. Some kid in my class gave me notes for the shit I missed without me asking for them. It’s weird.”
Jayden hummed. He, like the rest of my siblings, knew just the basics about me. He didn't know why I was so distrustful, but he accepted that as part of my personality and went with it.
“Maybe he’s trying to make a friend? What did he say when you asked him about it?”
“I didn’t,” I admitted. “He gave them to me and immediately buried his nose in his notebook. I think I make him nervous.”
Jayden snorted. “Were you staring at him like a creeper, trying to figure out his motivation for being nice?”
I didn’t answer that. If the kid didn’t want my attention, he shouldn’t have put himself on my radar. He obviously wanted something.
“I’m not here to make friends,” I concluded after a minute of silence. “All I’m here for is to show up and get that degree so our old man will lay off.”
“Don’t discount it immediately, Easton. He did a nice thing for you. There’s nothing wrong with making new friends. And don’t automatically assume he’s trying to use you like you did with the kids in high school. You made a lot of enemies back then.”
I hummed, but I wasn’t really listening.
The kid was setting himself up at a little table far away from the bustle of the lobby of the library where most people did their group studies.
He took out a notebook and a heavy-looking textbook, flipping through the pages to find the one he was looking for.
He bit his lip when he started reading, something he did while taking notes in class, too.
After a little more back and forth with Jayden, I got off the phone, but I didn’t leave the library.
I wanted to know more about the kid, but he didn’t give me much to go on.
He stayed there, studying for the next few hours.
Watching him became a new pastime. For the rest of the week, I followed him after class and at meal times.
He had a pretty strict schedule. He worked at the cafe in the early mornings, went to classes, and then the library, using the same table in the library to study almost every day before heading to one of the freshman dorms on campus after dark.
The longer I watched him, the more I felt like I was off base about him.
He wasn’t one of those rich douchebags who cared too damn much about his appearance and social connections.
He didn’t even have any friends that I could tell, aside from his roommate.
Jayden might have been right that the kid was just looking to make friends.
It was the day of our first stats test that I noticed something was up with him.
He showed up right before the professor shut the door, which earned him a stern look for his tardiness.
It was weird, the kid was never late to anything.
Even when he had back-to-back classes, he’d practically run to the next class so he wouldn’t be late.
He hustled to the seat next to me, scrambling to get himself organized while the professor started going over the timeframe and rules of the test. I hadn’t bothered to study for it, I was confident I could figure it out, but the kid looked a little panicked when the paper was set in front of him.
“Begin,” the professor said to the room.
I was too focused on the kid to pay attention.
He looked pale and a little sweaty, his fingers curled tightly in his hair as he frowned down at his paper.
He started hurriedly writing, his lip caught between his teeth so tightly it looked painful.
Testing anxiety, or was something else up with him? And why the hell did I care so much?
Irritated with myself, I dragged my attention back to the test. I never really looked farther than the stack of notes the kid gave me, but it was basic common sense for most of it. I was done early and didn’t bother to double check. Who cares?
The kid next to me whimpered a little, his grip on his hair tightening to the point his knuckles turned white. He was either bad at testing or having an off day. I couldn’t imagine someone so diligent with note-taking being stupid. The test wasn’t that hard.
A muscle in my jaw ticked as I reminded myself that I shouldn’t give a shit.
I wasn’t here to make friends. I showed up because attendance was part of the grade.
If I could just study on my own and take the final, I would, but my old man said it didn’t count.
I had to at least show up and pretend to be a normal college student.
Forcing myself out of my seat and away from the confusing obsession I had with this kid, I marched up to the front and handed my test to the professor. He looked surprised to see me and raised an eyebrow.
“Did you have a question?”
“Nope. All done. Can I leave?”
The disbelief was clear across his face.
He took the test, flipping through it with a frown.
All the questions were answered, and unless he was going to grade it right in front of me, I didn’t need to be here.
I turned on my heel, heading straight for the door.
I never bothered to bring anything with me, so I didn’t need to grab my bag or anything. I could just walk away.
The kid, who was always early and never missed a class, didn’t show up to the class we shared that afternoon. It bugged me. What the hell happened to him that he was acting so weird?
“We have a group project coming up. It’s a good way to get to know your classmates a little better. Choose three people to work with and then put your names on this worksheet before you leave today,” the professor announced.
Fucking hell. I wasn’t interested in group projects.
I sank lower in my seat, projecting ‘fuck off’ vibes to keep people away from me.
When everyone else was grouped up and the room started to empty, I headed for the sign-up sheet, grumbling to myself.
I put my name down and the kid’s, since he wasn’t here.
I may or may not have looked him up on the school server to get more information about him.
“You’re Easton, right? You started this course a little later than the rest of the class. Are you doing okay with the course load?” The professor, a younger woman with long blonde hair, smiled brightly at me.
I debated admitting that I didn’t give a shit about the course load and would only do enough work to pass, but I’d need this professor again for another major requirement. Instead, I said, “The kid who sits next to me. He’s gone. I’ll partner with him.”
She raised an eyebrow at my refusal to answer her but didn’t comment. “That’s kind of you. He didn’t email me about missing class today, but sometimes that happens when someone has to go to the clinic. Do you have a third in mind?”
“No.” I wasn’t interested in finding someone else to join us. We could handle it on our own. And since the rest of the class was already grouped up, she couldn’t argue with me.
Table of Contents
- Page 1
- Page 2
- Page 3 (Reading here)
- Page 4
- Page 5
- Page 6
- Page 7
- Page 8
- Page 9
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- Page 12
- Page 13
- Page 14
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- Page 17
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- Page 19
- Page 20
- Page 21
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- Page 39
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- Page 53
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- Page 59