For Want of a Boyfriend
Chapter 1
"Addison Hart," her homeroom teacher said during attendance roll call.
She ducked her head and offered up a squeaky, "here," before turning back to the book that the class was discussing. Mr. Calderon didn't bat an eye when the snickering started up in the back of the classroom, but Addison slipped further down in her seat.
Carmella Dale, one of the blondest and hottest girls in school, tossed a crumpled up piece of paper at Addison's head. It bounced off and the entire last three rows of students snickered all together.
"All right, everyone better settle down." Mr. Calderon said, but of course, no one really paid any attention. Especially not when three large guys came and stood in the doorway to the classroom. "You're late."
"Yeah, this place is huge." The sandy blond guy said. He was wearing a black leather jacket, which there in the Florida heat wasn't something that others often did.
"And the parking lot was full." The dark haired one with a hoodie said.
Addison spied the new guys, the three guys that were bigger than a lot of anyone, except for Dwayne Johnson, the actor her Uncle Bret knew. Dwayne, when she had met him last, was really big, so big that she sort of hid behind her uncle because of that. But as she was in class, she had nowhere to hide.
"So what are your names again?" Mr. Calderon looked at his student list.
"Seth Rollins," said the guy with brown hair but a chunk of it was dyed blond. He was the one wearing the hoodie.
"Dean Ambrose," said the leather jacket guy.
"Roman Reigns," the muscular one with the long hair and facial hair said. He had the deepest voice Addison had ever heard, which made her skin tingle.
"Dude, it's The Shield." One guy from the far left side of the room mumbled.
She realized that the majority of the class had stopped talking. The girl sitting next to Addison's left side, Alexa Bliss, was openly staring at the three guys that still stood at the doorway to the classroom.
"All right, just go find a place to sit." Her teacher instructed.
It just so happened that the seat in front of her was empty, the one directly behind her was empty and the one to Addison's right was where these three guys sat down. Dean behind, Seth in front and Roman on her right, all with their backpacks sitting on the floor. As Mr. Calderon finished the roll call, he brought up the upcoming exam for his English class.
Addison scooted further into her seat, especially when Seth kept looking back at her, or so she thought.
"Hi," Alexa said in a hushed whisper when Seth looked back again.
Picking up her pen, Addison tried to follow what Mr. Calderon was talking about. They had to write a persuasive essay, about three pages long on an issue of their choosing. The one thing that had Addison's heart plummeting was that they were going to be working in groups, but each individual would have a topic of their own.
"Do you need me to explain it again, Addison?" Calderon asked in front of the class.
She only shook her head and ducked it further at the snickering going on in the back of the class. Her face began to heat up, her eyes started pooling tears at the edges. She had a hard time breathing...
"Can we choose our groups, Mr. Calderon? Because if we can, I would love to help these new guys out." Alexa said in a strange tone that Addison didn't understand.
"I was going to get to that, Alexa. Yes, you can choose your groups. I'll give everyone about five minutes and to sit next to each other."
Addison didn't move, she didn't even look up.
"Hey," Seth turned in his seat again. "Aren't you Bret Hart's niece?"
"Dude, Hart's your uncle?" Dean asked from behind Addison. "That makes you Canadian, right?"
Addison didn't know how to voice it, not when both of them were looking at her. She ended up just shaking her head instead. No, she wasn't from Canada, not like her cousin had been. Her father was Canadian but her mother was American.
"Anyway, what did you guys want to..." Alexa tried to steer the conversation.
"Let's group up. Us three and you, Addison." Seth said. "You guys cool with that?" He looked at his two friends.
"Yeah, I'm cool with it since she's Bret's niece," Dean said from behind her.
"Sure," Roman said, and again his voice did weird things to her skin.
"Alexa, come on. We still need someone." Carmella called from her spot with James Ellsworth, her plaything as she called him.
Alexa huffed, picked up her stuff and headed to the back of the room. Dean got up and sat in Alexa's vacated seat. He wiggled his fingers at Addison as she looked over at him.
"So, what do you do for fun around here?" Roman asked.
She shrugged. "Not much." She cringed at the way her voice barely came out as a whisper again.
"You and your friends hang out somewhere cool?" Dean asked.
She shook her head, the grip on her pen tightened. "My cousin, Natalya Hart, moved back to Canada for her senior year. It's just me now."
"Oh, sorry to hear about that," Seth said. "What topics did you write down?" He tried to reach for her notebook but she shut it closed before he had a chance. "That's your diary huh?"
She shrugged. Addison grabbed the notebook with both hands and pulled it to her.
"Job loss, machinations taking over human jobs, history of safety in the workplace due to machinery was my topic." She said as she thought about the documentary she had seen the night before.
"Robots are cool. I heard they started making serving bots in Japan." Dean said. "I'll do that shit."
"Language." Mr. Calderon said from nearby.
He waved his hand at the teacher. "Yeah, yeah, sorry. What about you, Roman?" Dean asked the quiet guy.
"Tesla, they've been having some problems with the newest model or something. My cousin Dwayne Johnson, you know the movie star, recently got one and he's had problems."
"So we're all for robotics and machinery. I think I'll to the job aspect." Seth said. "Great, we have our topic, Mr. Calderon."
Addison took a deep breath and pressed her head into her arms. Class couldn't get over fast enough at this point.
Roman kept looking over at the girl in their English class. Dean, on the other hand, was making no display of being bored. Seth wasn't able to watch so Roman did it for him.
Addison Hart, he knew, was autistic. At least that's what the news reports said. Her mother and father were recently killed, she was living with her grandmother. Bret Hart, an actor and producer friend of Roman's cousin Dwayne Johnson, was her uncle who started the Hart Foundation, a program for support of children of whom lost parents to murder.
She was small, like that Alexa Bliss chick. She had darker blond hair and a round face. Addison Hart was quiet, she never looked at any of them for long. She kept trying to disappear, but he could see her no matter what.
By the end of class, she had been resting her face against the top of the desk for a majority of it, unless it was to write something down in that beat up notebook of hers. Anyone who knew the Hart family would know about Addison, her family worked with kids on the autism spectrum, they loved her. But it didn't seem like that at school. From the looks he saw from some of the girls, they were not happy with her.
A crumpled up piece of paper bounced off the top of Addison's head, and she didn't move. It rolled to a stop next to Roman's boot and he turned around to look. The chick, Carmella, waved and smiled before pointing to Addison. Give her the note, he made out what her lips were saying.
Instead, he opened the crumpled up piece of paper.
There was one word scribbled on the piece of paper.
Retard
He looked at the chick, and then he slowly crumpled the piece of paper in his hand. Her smile fell away faster than the tide ever did.
The bell rung a few minutes later. As everyone started to get their things together to leave for their next classes, Roman took out his schedule.
"Damn it, algebra." He said. "Do you know where room 9 is?" Roman asked Addison.
She nodded. "It's next to the Special Ed class."
"Could you show me? Or are you heading in another direction?"
"I can take you." Alexa tried again to interject herself into the group. "I know every nook and cranny of this school." She wiggled her eyebrows at him.
Addison picked up her things and started for the door, her head lowered as she stared at the floor. Grabbing his stuff, Roman said bye to Dean and Seth before following after Addison. He caught the back of her shirt, at which point she spun around and hit him with a weak swat to the chest. Her things had clattered to the floor as she was staring at him with an open mouth. It wasn't just her, the other students who had seen what happened did as well. Roman ignored them.
"Sorry, I just wanted to get your attention." He leaned down and picked up her stuff, that battered notebook laying out open.
My Goals:
1. Get a boyfriend.
2. Share a kiss with him.
Blinking, and trying not to smile like an asshole, he held her stuff out to her. "So you said you could take me to Room 9?"
"I, I don't remember saying that." She grabbed her stuff and hugged them to her chest. "Alexa did."
"Could you take me there? I just moved from Pensacola with my folks, I don't know anything about Wellspring."
"It was once thought to be the source of the Fountain of Youth due to the long gone springs that the town was named after." She said, as if reading it straight from a book. She probably did somewhere.
She turned around and started walking. So, Roman followed her. Not that he didn't mind following her backside. She had a nice body, from what he last heard at one point she was on the track team even if she was so short.
The school was a two-level large brick building, but they walked from the upper floor to the bottom, where the main office was where he and his friends checked in for their first day of school. Addison seemed to go with the flow, moved through it like she was just another fish. She hung close to the wall, never straying too far into the middle of the hall. She never once looked back at him.
She stopped so suddenly that he ran into her. Roman put a hand on her shoulder as she turned to look at him. She was red in the face, a sad look pulled at her pouty lips.
"Sorry." He said. "I didn't know you would put the breaks on so suddenly."
"That's Room 9, that's the Special Ed class. That's my study hall." She said before turning around and heading for the door.
"Thanks, Addison." He called out, which she looked at him before going into the Special Ed room.
He didn't see Addison until lunch. He, Dean and Seth all had the same lunch together. As they were getting their trays of food he saw her walk into the cafeteria.
She stood in line a few people behind him.
"She's here, isn't she?" Seth asked. "From the look on your face, yeah she is."
"What's your big thing with her, man?" Dean asked.
"She's cute." Roman shrugged. "Besides, I met her once."
"Wait, what? And you're just now telling us this big piece of news?" Seth spun around to look at him.
"It was about a year ago, I was hanging out with Dwayne when Bret came by to the movie set we were on to visit. Addison was with Bret, sort of a personal assistant or something. We got to talk for a few minutes. She liked cross country, comic books and history."
"You suck at History." Dean pointed out. "Just like algebra. And science, and English."
"Okay, okay, I get it. I suck at school. I'm going into the NFL anyway, who needs to know anything about Of Rats and Men."
"It's Of Mice and Men, idiot," Seth said as he shook his head.
They were up for their food. The school was on a health kick, there was even a salad bar that a lot of the girls were hanging out at. Instead, Roman, Seth and Dean chose pizza and tots.
"God, I'm starving," Dean said as they found an empty table at the far end of the large cafeteria.
"Didn't you eat anything this morning? I had enough to eat." Seth said.
"I got up late."
Roman turned around and looked for Addison. She stood with a tray of food looking around. There were kids talking loud, people laughing and stuff like that. But she looked to be lost, searching for something.
"Go ask her to sit with us," Seth said. "Or should I? I heard people talking about you and her after Homeroom."
"I'll do it." Leaving his tray behind, Roman got up.
As he got to Addison, a bright blond hair guy was talking to her. And not in a nice way either.
"You could always eat out by the dumpster. I heard that's where they found your mom." Roman heard the guy say.
"Hey!" Addison almost dropped her tray when he yelled. "Come on, Addison, you're sitting with the rest of The Shield."
He gave the asshole a pointed glared before taking Addison's tray and then guided her towards the table. All too well aware of the looks from the other students, Roman kept a hold on the tray and a hand on her back, though making sure not to touch her where his mother had warned him to stay away from on a girl.
"Hey, Addy." Dean greeted her as they got to the table. "From now on just sit with us."
"I once had to stand in the hall to eat my lunch back when I was living in Iowa," Seth said.
"Don't go starting in on that cold weather bullshit," Roman said as he and Addison sat down. "I'm glad I'm from Florida."
Addison didn't talk, per as expected. She had a piece of pizza, but she didn't touch her tater tots. She'd finished her milk long before Roman did. Of course, Seth was filling her in on their back story.
"We're football players. And basketball players, in Dean's case." Seth said. "The sports down here were a lot better than up where we're from. Dean and I are living with my folks." Seth said. "Momma's boy here is the youngest in his family." Seth thumped Roman in the shoulder.
"Why did you call you three The Shield?" Addison asked as she glanced at Roman.
"Cause we fight for justice. This isn't the first school where we've dolled out justice to assholes who needed it." Dean said as he leaned forward on his elbows.
"You beat people up?" She asked with squeaky tone.
"Only those who mess with a certain special group of people." He retorted quickly.
"Bullies get their asses handed to them if they bother someone who didn't start shit," Roman said.
"I don't know what you mean by a special group of people." She said as she rocked forward and back in her seat while staring at her tray.
"Special ed kids, the ones that can't help who they are and what they go through."
"We sort of got kicked out of the last school after the punk there nearly bullied a kid to death. We beat him down and then we got thrown out. Wellsprings was the next logical bet." Seth said.
"Only because they were the only ones that wanted us," Dean added.
He wanted to lean over and push that lock of hair that was blocking his view of her face. Roman knew better than to touch her without being told so. Of course, Dean was making kissy faces at him while Seth rolled his eyes. Roman scratched his head with his middle finger.
"Do you take the bus home?" Roman asked Addison.
She nodded. She pushed her tray away as she sat relatively still, save for the rocking of her upper body.
"We carpool every day. How about we take you home?" Seth said. "I have a Mercedes that we can all fit into."
She shook her head. "No. I have to get home or my grandma gets mad."
Addison pulled her notebook out of her bag. She pushed her partially eaten tray back and started writing something. It was something really quick and then she closed it back up again.
"Hey, Addy, is there somewhere in Wellspring that we could possibly go to do something?" Dean asked. "Movies or something? This place is too small, Pensacola was a hell of a lot better for entertainment."
She shook her head as she put her notebook back into her backpack.
"The town is small. There isn't even a comic book store in sight." Seth said.
"Yes, there is." She looked up. "Gallagher Street has a comic book store. I go there every weekend. It's called Must Love Comics."
It was the first time she seemed to have a life about her.
"Are you an Avenger's fan?" Seth asked.
She nodded and reached for her backpack again. Instead of a notebook, she brought out a comic. It was the newest issue of Avengers that Seth had been wanting to get but since the move that all of them had, he hadn't the chance.
"Here." She held it out to him. "You can borrow it."
"Cool, thanks. I'll give it back by homeroom tomorrow. Where is Must Love Comics? Can you give me the address?" Seth asked.
She did, she handed him a business card.
"I work there." She looked down when Seth stared at her. "I stock the shelves, I make sure that the various boxes have the right comics in it, I don't like people mixing DC with Marvel comics because they can't tell the difference between Deadpool and Deadshot."
"God, I hate that, too," Seth said as he put the comic and the card in his own backpack. "Thanks, Addison."
She nodded.
"Hey, aren't you going to try out for the football team?" Dean changed the conversation to Roman. "I'm going to talk to the coach about the Wellspring Basketball team. Is this school any good with sports?"
Addison shrugged. "I don't know, I don't go to any. Too many people."
She went silent again.