Good Grades & Mystery Games (North University Series Book 2)

Having a break between second and third period doesn’t mean taking a well-deserved break like the rest of the class, it means running across campus to meet in the middle where Kennedy’s art classroom is.

I have ten minutes to catch up with the girls like we do every time between our double periods but this time we were summoned by Ken for an emergency meeting. The rink that Wren practices at is at the other side of the campus so the art studio is the middle-ground from my business class.

I run through a dark corridor past the school’s dark room, towards the art classroom and I make my way through stressed out students until I find my stressed out student, basically ripping out her low pigtails.

Kennedy is sitting in the corner with a sketchbook in front of her, her blue denim dungarees covered in paint splatters, tugging at the band of her pigtails letting both bands break in half as her curly hair springs free.

I inch closer to her, not sure which Ken I’m about to interact with right now. As I take a step closer, I feel a hand on my shoulder, pulling me back into the corridor which I just exited. I recognise the hand immediately because we just got matching manicures a few days ago.

“She’s freaking out,” Wren says when we’re face to face in the corridor, both of her hands on my shoulders, shaking me like an insane person.

“Yeah, I can tell. Why are you freaking out? You’re scaring me,” I say, removing her lethal grip from my shoulders. She brushes her blonde hair over her shoulder and exhales deeply, her green eyes searching mine. God, I swear I have the most dramatic friends to ever exist.

“She’s got a deadline for a project and that empty canvas in there is all she’s done. I’ve tried to help, but I think I’m making it worse,” she replies.

“That doesn’t sound like her. She’s usually on top of these things,” I say, trying to figure out how this could have happened.

When we were all freaking out about our exams at the end of last year, she was ahead of us all and helped Wren with her creative writing course. As chaotic as she is, her work always comes first for her and it’s a trait of hers I’ve always admired.

“Yeah, I know,” Wren says. She blinks at me for a minute, not saying anything. Kennedy is the literal glue to our group — if she’s freaking out, we’re all freaking out. “Can you try and talk to her? Darcy will have my head if I’m not back in two minutes.”

I nod and take a deep breath before entering the room again. Her hair has become a wild mess of curls and coils as she runs her hands through it nervously, tapping her pencil on the empty sketchbook. She looks up at me. A faint smile paints across her face before returning down to her book.

“Hey,” she says quietly, not tearing her eyes from the blank page. I check the time quickly, realising I only have a few minutes before I need to make my way back to class.

“Hey.”

“Are you here to give me a pep talk? I really don’t think I can deal with that right now. Wren’s one was really shitty,” she mumbles, finally drawing faint lines with her pencil. I pull out a chair across from her and laugh.

“I’m not here to give you a pep talk, Ken. I am, however, here to tell you that you can, and you will finish the project before the deadline.”

“This is starting to sound like a pep talk,” she murmurs. I shoot her a stern look. “The deadline is in three days.”

“Three days? Shit. I thought it was like a month or something,” I say, and she groans loudly, pushing the sketchbook away from her as she drops her head onto the table. “Okay, okay. Listen, you are one of the strongest, coolest, funniest, and most talented people I know. I’m not just saying that cause we’ve known each other forever. I’m being dead serious. Your work is insane and so much better than half of the stuff I’ve seen around the department.”

She lifts her head up, resting on her forearms as she mumbles into her skin, “Thanks, but that isn’t going to help.”

“It better help, Ken. You can’t give up on this. This is your dream. You’re not working your ass off at Florentino’s for nothing. And we all know coffee gives you a stomachache, so don’t act like you can justify it.”

“You’re right.”

“Of course, I’m right,” I say, and she smiles. I push out my seat to stand up. “I have to go back to class though. We’ll talk later, okay?”

She nods and I have three minutes to get back to my class. The only thing I forgot was that this break clashes with the freshman lunchtime, meaning that everybody and their mothers are out in the corridors. Fucking hell. This school needs to invest in bigger hallways because there is no way I’m getting back to my class in time.

Sometimes if Mr Anderson is in a particularly shitty mood, he locks us out, making us catch up with notes in our own time. Still, this is my third year here at NU and I still don’t get how he’s legally allowed to do so.

I make the brave decision to cut across the football field instead, finding this route to be more effective to get back to class. The first semester of this year only started a few weeks ago so the football team isn’t exactly paying much attention to me cutting across their field, except for the one boy who does a double take when he realises that my red-bottoms are sinking into the muddy pitch.

I’m clearly not paying attention either because that’s why I collide with the body standing at the top of the stairs, in front of the doors to the business building.

“Jesus. Can you watch where you’re going?” the boy grumbles, pushing me away from him. I take two steps back, almost falling down the steps, but he latches onto my elbow, steadying me.

“My bad. I was just-” I say, the words falling out of my mouth automatically before I look up and of course it’s him.

Evan fucking Branson; the literal bane of my existence.

He enjoys getting under my skin just as much as I enjoy getting under his. He’s spent his last two years at NU torturing me, turning every class game into a competition and not to mention, he’s rich as hell, as his family’s clothing brand is one of the top in the States, rivalling mine. Also, I think it’s very important to mention that he’s blonde, which speaks for itself.

I yank my arm out of his grip as he stubs out his cigarette on the railing. I brush past him, pushing through the doors and into the corridor. And obviously, we’re walking to the same class, so I can hear his footsteps a few paces behind me.

“God, if you’re going to smoke, at least do it off campus,” I mutter, pulling my bag up higher on my shoulder. He steps in beside me, walking with me. For once, he’s not that dressed up and has ditched his usual tailored suit for baggy light washed jeans and a white tee. It makes him seem more human. Interesting.

“Thanks for the advice, Angel,” he replies. I take a quick glance at him, glaring at his insistent use of that stupid nickname. “You’re awfully late for someone who cares so much about this class.”

“And so are you,” I retort, trying to pick up the pace so I don’t have to look at him.

“Why?” he asks.

“Why, what?”

“Why are you late?”

I always try my best to keep conversation with him to a minimum because the more we speak, the closer I get to ripping his head off. He stops outside the door to the lecture theatre, arms across his chest, waiting for me to say something.

“Do you always ask this many questions or are you choosing to be extra irritating today?” I ask curiously.

“Do you always have something to say or are you incapable of shutting up?”

I match his stance, pinning my arms across my chest, narrowing my eyes at him. He has the tendency of making every single thing that comes out of his mouth sound like an insult, it’s almost like he’s begging me to strangle him. I can’t last a day at school without his stupid comments on everything that I do, disguising it as ‘constructive criticism.’ He stares back at me, and I still can’t tell if his eyes are blue or green.

I lean back on the class door, slightly pushing it open behind me as I whisper to him, “For the record, I’m not being quiet because you told me to. I simply don’t want to waste anymore of my breath on you.”

Then, because I’m petty and seeing his face pisses me off, I slip through the door, shutting it on him before walking up to my seat in the half full room.

I make it halfway up the stairs before Evan finally appears through the door and I smirk.

“Miss Voss and Mr Branson, I’m glad you didn’t get lost on your way back to class,” Mr Anderson says when I get my laptop and notebook out of my bag, pushing it onto my desk. He’s one of the greatest teachers in our department, even if most of our lessons end with a forty minute rant about his ex-wife.

I watch as Evan takes a seat at the front of the class because like me, he doesn’t exactly have anyone waiting for him in here.

As embarrassing as it is to admit, I don’t have many friends in this class. Well, I don’t have many friends in general. It’s always just been me, Wren, and Kennedy since we were kids and I like it that way. I’ve always been fine with solitude. I’ve had to be, growing up with all brothers and feeling like the odd one out.

People either don’t care about my existence or hate me because they think I’ve got everything handed to me, which couldn’t be further from the truth. I worked hard for my spot at North University, and I’ve never once taken that for granted. I’ve accepted the way I’m going to be perceived and I’m fine with it. But it stings that I have to sit here and play the “I hate you so much that it makes me sick” game with Branson while everyone else can laugh and talk with their friends.

That’s why it sucks when I swear I hear Anderson introduce a new project for this year. I raise my hand, almost knocking over my water bottle in the process. This can’t be happening.

“Yes, Scarlett?”

“Uh, sorry, but could you repeat that? I think I just missed the end of that,” I say nervously as slowly, one by one, people in the rows below me turn towards me, snickering. I swear it’s like high school all over again. I sit up straighter, pushing my dark brown hair over my shoulder, feigning confidence.

“I’ve been talking for the last hour, but you only missed the end of it?” Anderson asks. I shrug. “You need to start paying more attention. I want to do something a little different to incorporate productivity and fun for this year. So, I’d like everyone to pair up with someone else in the class and I want you to create a hypothetical business. It can be anything from clothing to food, to an app; I’m not fussed. As long as you can present to me a project by the end of the school year on how you would market your business, your target audience, and the realistic ways you would build it from the ground up. It might come more naturally to some more than others, but the whole point is for this to be some fun before we…”

That’s about where I start to drone him out.

I’m confident in all the ways that matter, but not with talking to people my own age, especially those that make it no secret that they don’t like me. I’ve always found it hard to make friends, but the friends that I do have, I hold them dear to my heart and I appreciate them more than anything. It’s the making of them that sucks the most and is the hardest.

The sound of Evan’s annoying voice draws me back to the class. “Do we get to choose our own partners?” Anderson nods and the strangest thing happens: Evan turns back to me, looks me dead in the eye and he smiles. Not a sweet, genuine smile, but one that holds mischief. Danger.

No. No.

He wouldn’t.

Oh, but he would. He’d do it just to torture me.

I raise my hand this time. “Can we also reject offers of partnership?”

Anderson sighs, pushing his glasses up his head. “I don’t care. As long as you come to me with a project before summer break, then it’s fine.”

With that, everyone in the class rushes around, yelling and finding their partners and I sit there, hoping that someone will be left without a partner and lead me to pair up with them. I don’t think I could handle the rejection right now if I tried to ask someone.

When my row has cleared, people partnering in different sides of the lecture theatre, Evan turns back around, leaning on the table behind him with a lazy smile hanging off his lips.

“Then there were two,” he drawls.

I roll my eyes. “There’s one: you. I would rather drop out of this class than work with you for the next few months.”

“We’re really carrying this on, huh?” Evan says, chuckling low. I’m glad he finds this so amusing because I cannot work with him. “Our housemates are dating, the least we can do is be civil with each other.”

“This is me being civil,” I retort. He raises his eyebrows at me, tilting his head.

“Really? ‘Cause it looks like you’re ready to gauge my eyes out.”

“Listen, Branson, this is not going to work out.”

“Why not?” he asks, scratching his eyebrow, not taking his eyes off me as if he can see right through me. “It’s not like people are exactly lining up to work with us.”

I pin my arms across my chest, suddenly feeling defensive. I know he doesn’t have many friends in this class either, but admitting it aloud, watching everyone else being paired up, makes it seem more real.

“What’s in it for you?” I ask.

“You’re the smartest person in here, second to me, and I could do with some extra credits. It turns out that going on vacation during the semester isn’t always the smartest idea,” he admits. Of course, he believes he’s the smartest person in every room he walks into.

I try to mull over the idea. In reality, it could work, but that would mean having to speak to him nearly every day and interact with him when I don’t need to. It also means putting up with more competition than usual, purposefully letting him get under my skin.

“Just being in your presence gives me a headache,” I mutter, rubbing at my temples for extra effect. It can’t be a coincidence that since I’ve seen him and his snobbish self, my head has started to hurt.

“Oh, ‘cause you’re such a delight, aren’t you, Angel?” My body automatically shivers, and he smirks when he watches the way I squirm. “Believe me, I don’t want to do this as much as you do. I need the grade and you’re my best shot at getting it. Are we clear?”

I roll my neck before nodding, adding, “Fine.”