With the Sinclair kids gone, Chess and I quickly close up shop, getting me home at around midnight.

At the sight of my bed, I almost cry, my exhaustion hitting me like a truck. It seems like I only achieve minutes of sleep when my alarm goes off, letting me know its time for me to get up and live the same bullshit over again.

I shower and dress, but not before pausing in front of my mirror. My milk chocolate complexion was blemished by acne, and although my height had stretched a lot of the fat I'd carried in my childhood, I was by no means thin. Since last semester I'd changed a lot of my diet and with my semi-regular jogs, I'd gone from fat to pudgy to just thick. But weight changes meant stretch marks. And I have lots of those.

I dry off, wringing out the water from my braids and change into my usual, layered with a checked flannel. Finished with getting ready, I hurriedly grab my bag and head out my front door, where I'd parked last night, to find Beck sitting on the hood of my truck, "You take FOREVER!"

"I'm sorry," I unlock it and he climbs in, "I worked late last night."

Today's color for Beck is blue, as his pants are navy, with a printed blue shirt and red vans, "All I hear is excuses. What if I'd gotten dirty walking to your house?"

"Such a tragedy," I pull out, "And you're treating today."

We stop at Burger King to switch it up, and as I get out the car, Beck picks something up off the ground.

"'Made to be broken?' KJ what's this? Who's number is this?"

"She put her number on it?" I reach for the wrinkled napkin and he pulls back, "Spill it."

"What are y'all arguing about?" Nat chimes in, "And more importantly where's my coffee?"

I take Beck's attention being off me as an opportunity to snatch the napkin from him. He shoots me a look, "You still gotta tell me who it is."

"I don't know, dude. Some customer from the JOINT gave it to me. I must've shoved it in my pocket on accident when I was collecting my tip."

Nat takes a sip from her coffee, "So you got customer digits? Nice. Are they cute?"

"She's a'ight I guess," I try to shrug it off. To say "She's the best thing I've ever seen" would not help my case.

I I continue, "It's not important. I don't like girls."

"Oh?" they look at each other, "A girl~~~"

"Is no one paying attention to the end of my sentence? I don't like girls!" I interject.

They both look at each other and then at me, "Right," they say in unison.

"Son, I'm about to put you up for adoption," I give him a stern look and he rolls his eyes.

"You aren't scary the scary mom. Nat is." She bares her teeth at him and he jumps closer to me, causing me to have to catch him, six feet and all. The force of him hitting me throws me into someone else in the hall, who glares at our antics, which just causes us to laugh. The bell rings and we continue to class while I hope they didn't notice that I still have the stained napkin in my pocket.

***

On the way to NCT I have the sense to hide in the halls before class, effectively avoiding being alone with Wren. I finally head in about ten minutes before class, which is enough time to be harassed by Yasmin with affection before heading to class.

"Good morning," Graves strolls in just as the bell rings, "We have a new student today."

"You said that yesterday," one of the guys quips.

Graves points a threatening finger at him, "I didn't ask you Edwards. And she's actually here today. Class- this is Layne Sinclair. Layne- this is your class. And I'm forewarning you most of them are idiots."

A class wide "HEY!" erupts from the class and then Graves continues.

"Now, since you're new, class what is the golden rule?"

"We're brothers and sisters and we don't date our brothers and sisters," almost everyone says in unison.

"Exactly. Welcome, Layne."

As Layne takes her seat next to me, she whispers, "That just made my job harder."

"What job?"

"Stealing your heart," she smiles and I lean back away from her. Her rose perfume wafts into my nose as she sits down. Because I'm petty, I have to stop breathing all together to avoid smelling it and thus enjoying the scent of it.

I struggle not to asphyxiate myself as Graves goes over what we'll be doing that day, which sums up into a whole bucket of not shit.

We break again into our chore groups, the guys and I instructed to wipe down the tables we'd moved into the dining room yesterday. From the dining room, I glance into the kitchen and see Wren and Layne talking, which is enough for my anxiety to rev up to over nine thousand.

What are they talking about? Who are they talking about? What if they're talking about me? Does she think I'm gay? Is Wren talking about me? Is she telling Layne that I'm gay? Do they know I'm not? They're def talking about you. But are they good things? Or bad things? It's probably bad things. Unless they aren't talking about you.

Except you know that they're definitely talking about you.

"Parker!" Graves is suddenly next to me and I jump, "Welcome back to reality. Now, can you please wipe down another table before you rub the paint off this one?"

"My bad," I grab my towel, "I was at work late."

"Dear it's two in the afternoon if you haven't recovered by now I don't know what to tell you."

I grab my rag and move on to another mundane task, wondering where the time went. In no time the dismissal bell hits and I practically run to my truck in attempt to not be caught by Wren- or worse- Layne. Today I actually reach it in time and am out the lot and on the highway headed home in record time.

Jamming RM's mixtape, my phone vibrates with a text. I wait for a light to check it.

Confused, I turn around to see Layne's freckle face pressed against the back window.

"Jesus," I jump and pull off the side of the road, "What the absolute FUCK!"

"I thought you'd text me last night," she hops out the bed of the truck and effortlessly slides into the passenger seat of truck, "It was very rude of you."

"What the hell were you doing in the back of my truck?" I question, "And how did you get my number?"

"I needed a ride home," she replies like this is a normal think to hide in someone's car like a serial killer is totally normal, "So Wren gave it to me."

"What type of white people fuckery is it to hide in the back of someone's truck like that?" my head was literally hurting from how oblivious she was being, "As a black person, I must in form you that had I not been raised in the county I would've capped yo ass."

She laughs. "Wren tells me your a Christian. You aren't being very Christian-like right now."

She's clearly not about to get out of my car, so I have no choice but to pull back on to the road and continue home.

I stop in front of my house, "Normal people ask for rides home."

"Normal people don't rub down the same table for thirty minutes," she notices the look on my face, "Yeah I noticed. It was cute of you."

She places a hand on my shoulder, "Thanks for the ride."

I pull around to my drive as my phone rings. SON.

"MOM!" Beck screams into the phone, "I want to hang out!"

"STOP SCREAMING!" I pull back out into my drive and head up the street, "I'll be right there."

Beck and I go to the park for our, as he calls it, "Bestie's Date," with his mutt, Tex. Tex was a decent sized dog with a fluffly brown coat and one floppy ear. He reminds me of a German shepard, but Beck himself has no idea what type of dog he is.

"So how's NCT?" he questions, throwing the ball for Tex again.

"Napkin girl goes there," I reply, "But other than that I'm having a great time providing manual labor for my teachers."

"You mean the napkin girl?" he questions.

I glance at him sideways, "No, the other abundance of hoes who slide me their number on a salsa stained napkin. And I don't like girls."

"Wren was a girl," he replies.

"Wren was a hoe," I shoot back, "I was confused."

He rolls his eyes, "Girl you did not just use that 'confused' line. Tuh, bye."

I start to walk away, "Okay walk home."

"KJ! Wait," he tackle hugs me, "I'm kidding."

I ruffle his hair, which he hates, and collect the ball from Tex to throw it again.

"I wouldn't actually leave you," I reply, "Your actual mom would kill me. And as for napkin girl--"

A hand slaps my shoulder, "So I'm napkin girl now?" out of no fucking where spawns the hoe herself. Busted.

"Shit! I mean--- Nah," I catch myself, "One of my other hoes."

"Really? Other hoes?" she gives me a look of pure skepticism.

"Yep. The ones that aren't stalking me in broad daylight."

"So I have competition?" she flirts.

"Considering you can't compete," I shrug, "Not really."

"I can't compete?"

"You're ineligible," I respond, "Since you're a girl and all----"

"Are you going to introduce me?" Beck hits me and pulls us from our moment.

"Right," I remember that he's here, "Layne, this is my son, Beck. Beck, this is stranger danger, Layne Sinclair."

"Stranger danger?" he gives me an odd look.

"She crawled into my truck bed and rode in it for the entire highway before creepily informing me she was there."

"Okay..." Beck glances down, changing the subject, "Is that your dog?"

"Yeah this is Max. We don't know what breed he is but he's adorable so no one cares."

"Same," Tex runs over to us, seeing we're with new people, and immediately proceeds to sniff Layne and then Max.

"Well, we were just leaving," I reattach Tex's collar, "See you later."

Beck gets our bags and jogs to catch up to me at the car, "What was that for?"

"Shut it," he helps Tex into my back seat and then climbs into the truck himself. As I pull off the gravel lot and can see Layne staring at us. She smiles and waves at me as I conveniently look away.

By the time I drop off Beck at his apartment it's time for work. The night goes by slowly and Chess allows me to sit in the back and do my homework for the majority of it.

"You good back here?" he comes to check on me and I nod.

"How's school?"

"It's cool," I shrug, "It's school."

"Dope. Closing in fifteen."

I stop what I'm doing and head back to help with the rest of the cleaning, speeding up the process for both of us.

As he's locking up he turns to me, "Aye, KJ? What was with that girl the other night?"

"The one with her brother?" I shrug, "They're just my new neighbors."

"Hm," He locks the door and we watch each other head to their cars before pulling off the lot. We meet at the stop light anyway.

"KJ!" Chess leans out his window, "I think she's kind of into you!"

"I don't like girls!" I yell back, but the lights is already changed and he's already gone.