Chapter Thirteen – Honest Thoughts

"A favour? What?" I repeated, almost unsure of what I'd just heard.

"Not now. But sometime soon," he smiled, tucking the mask into his blazer pocket.

He walked down the hallway past the lockers and disappeared around the corner. I almost jumped out of my skin when I felt the arm around my shoulder. "Morning!" Holden exclaimed. "You look like you've seen a ghost," he whispered into my ear. A few girls came around from the hallway and Holden leaned in to kiss me on the cheek. I could feel myself flushing red. Once they went through the double doors and back into the yard, he let me go.

"Really selling it aren't you?" I remarked, pulling away from him, taking my bag off from one shoulder to move my books into my locker.

"So, I take it you'll be coming to watch me train this afternoon?"

"Why the hell would I do that?"

"Rude. Who's going to cheer me on then?"

"All the other girls maybe?" I shrugged, checking what class I had first; it was physics. I thought about what Logan had said. If there was no fake relationship, there was no blackmail. "Look, we should – " I began. The bell rang, interrupting my sentence.

"Yes. We should take this to the next level. See you at practice. Three thirty," he grinned, walking off before I had a chance to protest.

I spotted Bonnie's familiar brown waves and quickened my pace to fall into step beside her. "Hey," I said, trying not to puff too hard.

"Oh hi," she smiled, looking down at the ground as she noticed the stares around us. Over the past week I'd gotten used to the constant stares on my back, whether it was because I was the new girl or because I was apparently Holden's girlfriend. She split from me as soon as we got into the class and I drifted around, not entirely sure where to sit.

I noticed Bonnie went and sat next to a girl whose name I couldn't recall. Obviously, there weren't assigned seats, but it was almost an unspoken rule that after first week, everyone would have found their preferred seats and stayed there. However, I had not been able to.

I glanced to the other side of the room where Stephanie caught my eye, waving me over. "Holden's just late," she said. At the top of my head, I couldn't remember whether anyone sat next to her. If I was correct, Holden sat behind her.

Luckily, Holden came in the door, laughing with a mate before they parted ways. Holden sat down in the seat behind Stephanie and looked from me to the seat beside him. I put my books down on the desk beside Holden's and sat down.

The class had finally settled in and Mr Michaels began handing out the marking keys from our assignments. That was pretty quick marking, considering some of my previous teachers had taken months to get things back.

"Well done," he said, putting the paper down in front of Holden and me. We both bent over to look at the number circled at the top. Ninety five.

"Nice!" I exclaimed.

Holden held up a hand and I high-fived him.

Mr Michaels tapped Holden on the shoulder. "Any idea if Parker will be coming in today?" He asked. Everyone probably knew about the scandal that was rocking the Lennox household.

"Not sure Sir," Holden replied truthfully. Holden opened up his laptop and I caught a quick glimpse of his calendar before he closed it down. His entire week was filled with columns and rows of colour. Busy fellow. The topic test was coming up in a week's time and would be based on the electricity topic we'd just done. Holden opened up his calendar and added it in for Wednesday of the following week.

"You seem busy," I commented.

"Just the usual. Polo on Mondays, basketball on Tuesdays, swimming and soccer on Wednesdays, interning at my parent's offices on Thursday afternoons and look at that, I'm free on Fridays."

"Wow." I'd thought working and studying at the same time was a workload, but it was nothing compared to Holden's schedule. Holden was clicking through the news to see if there were any articles about the Lennox's.

"I wonder if she's got him under house arrest," Holden pondered.

"What?"

"His mum's a psycho. Surely you can tell?" I laughed uncomfortably, not sure if it would be wise to confirm that I thought someone else's mum was a psycho. Holden pulled out his phone and sent what looked like the tenth text message in a row to Parker.

By lunch time, there was still no sign of Parker. Holden had insisted that I sit at his table during lunch, claiming that the cafeteria lady would give me more food if I was with him.

"I actually think she gave me less," I said, tilting the tray to show him how empty it was. He rolled his eyes in response. Out of habit, I was ready to part ways and beeline for my usual table, only for Holden to wrap an arm around my waist and guide me towards the table with his friends. I recoiled from his touch and I could feel him release his hand, leaving it hovering instead.

"Hey," I said awkwardly to everyone as I said down.

"Hey," the chimed back as though we'd been long time friends.

They were talking about the game on Friday night against Blackstone Academy. According to a guy at the table, Blackstone was one of Pemberton's biggest rivals. "Legend has it, the original founders of Pemberton and Blackstone were like brothers, until a smokin' babe got between them. Pemberton got the girl, leaving Blackstone pissed as hell," he explained, as though it were a fable.

"That's full of crap. We just hate them because they cheat like no tomorrow," Holden said to me.

They continued eagerly discussing what they thought would go down on Friday. Amongst the sounds of trays being stacked and cutlery scraping against plates, my head was pounding. I rubbed my temples and sipped from my water bottle.

"Hey, you okay?" Holden asked, a hand against my arm.

"Yeah, I just have a bit of a headache," I replied, crossing my arms to try and divert his attention.

"We have some aspirin in our private study room. Let me walk you," Holden offered.

"No, it's okay. It's on the second floor right? At the end of the hall?" He nodded and looked at me to make sure I wasn't about to change my mind about his offer. "Here are the keys," he said. I held out my hand and he dropped them into my palm. "They're in the left shelf of the kitchen."

I smiled and headed off, slightly relieved to get away from the table. This wasn't my kind of crowd, and this fake dating wasn't as easy for me as it was for him. Not to mention the looming threat from Logan. What on earth did he want from me?

I got to the end of the hall on the second floor. The room was unmissable. It had a gold plate on the door that read 'private study room'. I unlocked the door and went inside. Private study room my ass. There was a huge forty two inch flat screen set up with a dozen consoles lined up along a glass stand beneath. In front of that were some black leather recliners. Along the other side of the room was a pool table with a dart board hung up behind it.

It was more like a private club room. There was even a spa in their private bathroom. My expedition was cut short when I reached the kitchen. I was walking through when a loud crumping sound caught my attention. A head popped up from behind the kitchen counter and I nearly shrieked.

"Pizza girl? What are you doing in here?" Parker asked, his mouth full of food.

"Holden said I could get some aspirin in here," I replied, dangling the keys from my finger to prove that I hadn't just broken in.

Parker turned around and headed for the left shelf, pulling a small box out. He handed me a glass of water and passed me the small box. I took two pills with the water and handed the box back to him. "Thanks," I said.

I could see the remnants of cling wrap and a balled-up paper bag on the table. A home packed lunch? He really was trying to avoid all human contact.

There were so many questions itching away at me. How was the case going? What was his family going to do? What was going to happen to Lennox Industries? But none of those were appropriate to ask. In fact, I didn't even think it was appropriate for me to ask how he was holding up.

"Are you going to Holden's practice today?" He asked me.

"Probably not."

"Oh no. He'll be absolutely devastated."

We both laughed. "Are you going?"

"Nope. I think I'm going to stay here."

"As in you're just going to crash on the couch?" I asked, gesturing towards the couch in the living-room-like area.

"No. Why would I do that? There's a bedroom."

"Right."

After an awkward silence, I piped up again. "So, I'm going to head off now."

"Me too actually. I need to find out what Mr Michaels ended up giving me for that assignment. How'd you and Holden go?"

"Ninety five," I beamed proudly.

"Not bad."

Not bad? What was this guy used to getting in physics then? One hundred?

As we left the room, I turned to lock the door but Parker explained that it locked automatically. Just as we were about to round the corner, we overhead a conversation and stopped in our tracks.

"At least my parents will stop making me kiss Parker's ass all the time. As if the Lennox's have anything left now," a guy was saying.

"His family is the only reason he's on the soccer team," another added in.

I quickly turned to look at Parker but there was close to no emotion registering on his face. I stuck my head out to see who these two were. They were just average looking guys who I'd definitely seen around but couldn't put a name to.

I opened my mouth in an attempt to say something to console Parker, but no words could come out.

"This is what happens when people only want you because of your family," he said. 

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A bit of an underwhelming chapter, but I had to get it out of the way to prepare for the d-r-a-m-a coming up!! 

Will be updating more regularly since my exams are over :)

Thanks for reading! Don't forget to vote & comment :~)