"Did you know that Romans used to put a piece of toast in their wine for good health?" I ask.

Roman looks up from his notebook and stares. He does that a lot. He's definitely a people watcher.

It was Thursday, almost the end of the week. We had another day of tryouts after school and I had yet to tell my aunt that I was doing so this year.

"Why would I know that?" He asks in response to my question. He says it in a tone that tells me he thinks it's annoying I even spoke in the first place.

I ignore it. "Just a little fun fact. And it had your name in it," I shrug.

He went back to his work without saying a word. I already finished my work for the day so now I was bored. I moved my notebook forward so I had space to lay my arms down. I rested my chin on my crossed wrists and bounced my knee up and down.

I didn't have any social media accounts because I wasn't a fan of cyber hate, so scrolling through my phone would have gotten me nowhere. It took me a whole week and a half of reading through hate messages and seeing what posts I was tagged in for me to decide to delete everything I had.

"Stop," Roman spoke suddenly.

I look at him confused. "Stop what?"

"Stop bouncing your knee. You're shaking the damn table."

"Oh," I say. "Sorry."

This doesn't help my issue with being bored. I let my head fall to the side so that I'm facing him now. "Are you almost done?"

He stops mid-writing to look up at me. His eyes look a darker shade of green today, maybe it was just the lighting. "Maybe I could work faster if you would stop bothering me."

I look down at the work he was writing. He had one question left on his writing prompt. I could stay quiet enough for him to finish one question. "You could have said it nicer," I mumble under my breath. There's a pause in his scribbling, but he goes back to writing anyway.

I take a look around the room. Everyone else seemed normal with their table partner, considering they were all talking quietly amongst themselves.

Vera catches me looking around the room. When we make eye contact she gives me a tight-lipped smile and turns away quickly. I had always liked Vera, even if she doesn't really like me now. She was the nicest of the bunch and she never said one bad thing about me, at least not that I knew of.

I didn't want to look toward Naomi's table at all. Showing up to tryouts went pretty much as I expected. She was not happy that I was there.

I wish I could make it better. I wish we could just be friends again, but I know there was no way I could fix it now.

I'm snapped out of my thoughts when I feel a hand grip my knee. His hand is rough, but his grip isn't painful. When I turn my head back to my table, Roman is giving me an irritated glare. I know he's annoyed, and I know I've thought this a lot before, but he sure is handsome.

I had been wearing my mid-thigh black skirt today. It was one of those ones that I could tug down in case there was a teacher who wanted to dress code me. Anyway, the point was, he had his hand on the bare skin of my knee. I was thrown off by the tiny swirl going around in my belly.

I guess I had been bouncing my knee again. I give him a sheepish smile and he lets go.

I lean my face on top of my arms again and stare at him. Let's see how he likes being stared at. But then I open my mouth to talk before he even gets the chance to notice that I'm staring. "You have really beautiful eyelashes."

He puts his pencil down and pins me with another glare. I could feel the flush in my cheeks from that look. He sure could look scary when he wanted to. I close my mouth and open it again. "Right, no more talking, sorry."

But anyway, I hadn't meant to say that out loud, it just kind of came out. His lashes were beautiful. I'm just glad that I didn't blurt out the way his glare made them even more so.

His cheekbones were nice too, and his jawline, and his dark wavy hair that practically fell across his forehead. But I probably shouldn't stare at him anymore because then he might think I have a crush on him or something, and I don't have a crush on Roman. I could admire how attractive he was without crushing on him. Maybe if he was nicer to me and smiled more, I could see myself liking him. I bet he had a really nice smile.

I caught myself about to bounce my knee again so I crossed my legs under the table instead. A small gasp escapes me because I remember I wanted to ask Roman what his favorite planet was. I forget I'm supposed to be quiet when I open my mouth to speak, but he cuts me off right away.

"Bear, shut up," He says without even looking up from his notebook.

"Oh, yeah. I forgot I'm sorry." I didn't bother correcting him on my name this time.

Something told me that even when he was finished with his work, I would still be bored. Sigh.

✎ A/N: the start of a beautiful relationship if you ask me.