Author stuff: I hadn't meant to post two things in a day yesterday, whoops. Whoops. Anyway, this is the third!
Researching Arthurian lore and legend has become my thing now. Goodbye, WWII. You will not be missed a whole lot.
I haven't done homework in almost four years. I kind of miss it.
Day 3 - Homework
The Hunger of Love
"So," Toby said, nudging Jim with his elbow.
"So?" Jim said, raising his brows a little.
"Study date! And you know what happens during study dates."
He wagged his eyebrows teasingly, making Jim cough and look back to where Claire was talking with Mary and Darci. She caught his stare and waved. Jim felt his stomach do somersaults and waved nervously back.
"Studying?" His voice rose in pitch as he said the word, hopeful that he wasn't in some terrible teen movie or YA novel. Well, his life was going that way. Why not add a love triangle and call it a trilogy series with movies on the way?
"Jimbo," Toby said, patting his friend on the back. "My buddy, my pal. Girls don't invite you over to just study."
"Toby."
"Trust me, Jimbo, I know these things."
"Toby," Jim said, "you've never even been on a date."
"Yeah, well, you watch enough soaps with Nana, and you get the feel of how things work."
Jim didn't want to say that a lot of soap operas were probably written by men with wishful thinking, so he left it at that.
Jim took a deep breath, examining the layout in front of him. He'd done all he could to make the study date as unromantic as possible. Honestly, he really needed to study for Spanish. Señor Uhl was on his back. Again.
So, his mom was home, working on a case that she and a few others couldn't figure out. Medical books with disgusting images showing various diseases and conditions abound. She would be working in the living room.
He and Claire had the dining room. He made sure the lighting was appropriate. Not glaring but not moody.
Snacks? Okay, he might have made some finger food. Honestly, he'd made pigs in a blankets with homemade ketchup, bacon wrapped water crests, and mini cherry turnovers. He might have panicked. Just a little bit.
He'd also not taken a shower, which meant he still stunk from P.E. that day – something his mother had pointed out.
"Don't you want to smell nice for your study date?" she said, cocking a brow at him.
"It's not a study date!" he said, sputtering out the words and tossing his hands up. "It's… it's… It's just two people, a boy and a girl who happen to be boyfriend and girlfriend, who are studying Spanish."
Okay, he was totally relishing in being a normal teenage boy for once. All the TrollHunter duties and workouts and necessary nonsense that had been going on lately, for people to think he and Claire were having a study date was a relief – and also terrifying. Because he had no idea what to expect.
The doorbell blessedly rang, interrupting whatever Barbara was going to say next. She gave him a smirk, following him into the hallway to watch him greet Claire.
Claire's beaming face wasn't the only thing behind the door. Her father, casting a look about the place with unmoving, calculating eyes, followed her in.
"Mr. Nuñez," he said, feeling his anxiety spike, "it's good to see you again."
"Hi," Barbara said, striding over, "I'm Jim's mom. I don't think we had the opportunity to meet."
"Are you going to be here all evening?" Mr. Nuñez said.
"Yep. I'm working on a case. You wouldn't happen to know if exposure to loud sounds can cause a rash would you? Here, I'll show you some of the images…"
Barbara walked into the living room to grab a few picture, leaving behind a rather flabbergasted Mr. Nuñez.
"See, papi?" Clair said. "I'll be alright. You and Mama have nothing to worry about."
She turned to Jim and gestured to lead the way, the grin on her face growing wider. He nodded and showed her into the kitchen.
"Smells good in here," she said, setting her thing down on the kitchen table. "Did you spend the whole afternoon baking?"
"Maybe," Jim said, shrugging. "And thanks."
"Right." She grabbed a little pig in a blanket, eyes lighting up as she tasted it. He'd made the dough for the blanket himself. "So, you said you were having difficulty with conjugating past participles as nouns?"
They'd finished before nine, when her father was going to pick her up. (For safety reasons, of course.) They spent the last twenty or so more minutes laughing over stupid things.
His mom had poked her head in a couple of times to check in on them, not that Jim had really noticed, but he'd seen her twice. She was smiling both times.
"You have to show me how bad you were at fractions," Claire said. "I mean, they suck, but you can't have been completely useless at them."
"Okay," he said, standing up, "don't believe me, I'll go grab my old notes."
He practically ran upstairs, glad to have kept his old notebooks and homework – categorized in colorful binders on his bookshelf by year. Red had been his math color since elementary school.
He found the binder from last year and jogged back downstairs. Claire was still at the table, polishing off the last of the water crests. She looked up at him guiltily as she popped the remnants of candied bacon into her mouth.
How was she so cute?
"Promise me you won't make fun of me," he said, setting the binder down in front of her. He flipped through the folder held into the metal clasps to pull out an old homework assignment.
To his abject horror, right on top was an old sketch he drew for Toby's eyes only on a graded piece of paper. He gave out a sort of yelp and ripped it out before Claire could get a good look at it. He stuffed it in the one safe place he could think of: his mouth.
It didn't do much good. She'd gotten an eyeful, and she was laughing.
The sketch had been of her, the year prior. He'd done it during their shared lunch period. She'd been laughing just as hard then as she was now. He couldn't remember what it had been about, but he'd thought she had been beautiful in that moment.
The sketch itself was mediocre, at best. He hadn't improved much since then, either.
He wasn't sure why he was embarrassed – they were boyfriend and girlfriend now, after all. But there was something about her finding out about his long standing crush on her that sent him reeling.
"Jim," she said, clutching his arm as she tried to calm down. "Jim, it's okay. I think it was kind of cute. Wait, are… are actually eating your homework?"
He hadn't realized he'd been chewing until he was swallowing.
"I think I ate a staple," he said, sending her into another fit of laughter.