SOPHIE POV

He was the worst partner I ever had in my life.

No, I was not exaggerating. He was irritating, annoying, lazy, infuriating, and anything else you could think of. I had pretty bad partners before—like Stina—but he was a whole new level of bad.

It happened on a Monday afternoon at Foxfire. I was in science class, working on a lab with my partner, Marella. Everything was going fine until the door slammed open. A boy with messy hair sauntered in with an all too familiar smirk on his face.

"Mr. Sencen," the teacher, Lady Cadence, said with the slightest hint of annoyance. "Glad you could join us."

He snorted. "That makes one of us."

She secretly rolled her eyes and stood up, searching the room. Everyone needed a partner, so she was seeing who to pair him up with. Usually, him and Fitz were paired together and sat at the back of the class, so I never really payed attention to either of them. But today, Fitz wasn't here so Keefe had no partner.

"Does anyone want to pair up with Keefe, class?" Lady Cadence said.

Marella jumped up and sat down next to Jensi across the room. "All yours, Sophie."

I frowned, wondering why she did that. But I didn't wonder too much because I was secretly happy him and I were partners. He was cool and fun to hang with, so I thought he would make this class much better. Keefe plopping down next to me pulled me out of my thoughts.

"Foster," he said with a nod of his head, not looking at me.

"Sencen," I said back.

He didn't say anything more; only stretch out his legs, put his arms behind his head and leaned back as far as he could go like he was on vacation. I smiled to myself and looked down at my notebook.

It's been 3 days since we hung out—not that I was counting. I wasn't quite sure what to say to him. After a few minutes of glancing at him a numerous times, (every time I looked, he was doodling stuff in his notebook) I finally got the courage to speak and cleared my throat.

"So…where were you?" I whispered.

For the first time that day he turned and looked at me and slowly smirked. "Wouldn't you like to know?" Then he turned back to his notebook to continue his drawings of God knows what.

I blinked, ego slightly bruised. After a few seconds, I turned away and pretended to be reading the book, hiding my blush. I expected more than 5 words to come from him, maybe even a joke.

After another minute, Lady Cadence began to speak. "I have a project for you guys." Right on queue, the whole class groaned—Keefe being the loudest. "You and your partner must work together so make a serum you both agree on by combining other elements. I want to see a paper that is at least 3 pages explaining what you did, and I want to see the serum, and what elements you used. This is worth a third of your grades, so put a lot of effort into this."

I took a breath. I had a C average for once and was working for a B. If I did badly on this, I could forget about that. I hoped Keefe was a good partner.

"Okay, Keefe," I said when it was time to begin the project. "We first need to chose what serum we want to make."

"I have an idea," he said, without looking up.

"What?"

"Nothing." He smirked and went back to his doodles.

I sighed. "I'm serious."

"So am I," he said, not looking up from his notebook. "Me and Fitz never did this stuff when he was my partner."

"Yeah, and what's your grade?"

He carelessly shrugged. "I don't know. But the point is, we can just pretend we're working and work on new ways I can get Dame Alina today. I was thinking maybe—"

"No! We are doing the assignment, Keefe. I'm trying to get a better grade."

He just looked at me with an amused eyebrow. "You're cute when you're mad."

I was too angry to realize he just called me cute. Rolling my eyes, I began to write down ideas for the serum. And did Keefe help? Nope. He sat there, doodling or making "evil scheme" ideas. Seriously, who did that?

I thought that it'd be fun to have him for a partner, seeing we—or at least I—had a lot of fun when we spent the day together. I thought he was cool; he was fun—but no. He was the most annoying person I met. Yes, even more annoying than Stina. Now I'm doing all the work while he just does whatever.

I was writing so hard I broke my pencil. And you know what he did?

He laughed.

Laughed!

Unbelievable. How could Marella do this to me? Pair me up with this incompetent fool! I had to take slow, deep breaths to keep from ripping his hair out.

After 20 more minutes of working, the teacher announced we had 3 days to complete the project. After that, we left the class. Before I could tell Keefe where to meet to work on the project, he was already out the door.

I was fuming. I really wanted to do well on the project to get my grade up. The only way for that is for me to do all the work, and I'm not even good at it. And I'm not going down without a fight. I searched for Fitz and asked him where Keefe would be at this time. He told me he would be playing base quest so I went to the field and sat on the bleachers, waiting for him to finish practice. I watched Keefe play and he was…really good. I enjoyed watching him and almost forgot why I was even there in the first place.

When they finished their game I saw Keefe getting some water and took my chance. So I ran off the bleachers and stomped toward him, pulling a scowl on my face.

"Keefe!" I said, glaring daggers at him.

He turned around and when he saw me, his eyebrows lifted in surprise. I couldn't help but glance at his arms a few times.

"Sophie? What are you doing here?"

"Waiting for you, that's what."

"You watched me play?"

"Yeah." I shrugged.

He didn't say anything after that, only put down his water and gave me his undivided attention.

I cleared my throat. "This is about the project. Keefe, you have to help me. I know you don't care about your grade but I care about mine."

He looked at me for a few seconds. Then he said, "Fine."

With that, he walked away.

"Keefe! Where are we going to meet?" I yelled after him.

He turned around and walked backwards. I expected him to tell me, but he just smirked and turned back around and walked off the field.

I stood there in disbelief.

The next day, I was prepared. I was going to wait for Keefe come out of his Empathy class and force him to come work on the project with me. I can't believe I was saying this, but I was dreading working with Keefe.

After my telepathy class, I headed over to his class to wait for him. When I got there, I peeked through the small window on the door. Sure enough, Keefe was in there dozing off every few seconds. I shook my head and sat on the floor and waited.

A couple of minutes later, the door opened and the prodigies streamed out. Keefe was the first one to get out of there. He walked so fast he almost tripped over me. Then he stopped, looked down, and raised his eyebrows in surprise.

"Foster?" he said. "What are you doing here?"

I got up. "Waiting for you. We have to work on the project, it's due in 2 days!"

"Okay, okay, fine," he sighed.

We walked side by side through the halls to the lab. He didn't say anything, and neither did I. I was thinking of something—anything to say, but nothing came to mind. Our walk to the theater was talkative and fun, and now I can't think of anything to say.

When we got to the lab, we sat down and began.

"Okay. What serum do you want to make?" I asked him.

He just shrugged. "I don't know."

I sighed. "Okay…well, what elements do you want to use?"

"I don't know."

I took a deep breath. "Okay. I guess I'll be picking the serum." I wrote down the serum to make. "Do you want to start working on the paper?"

"I don't know."

"If you say I don't know one more time—"

He fanned the air between us. "Whew. I'm getting some bad vibes, Foster."

"No kidding!" I growled.

He looked at me with a smirk. "You wanna talk about it?"

"Yes, I want to talk about the project!"

"Then what are you waiting for?"

I couldn't take it. I got up and started slamming random elements down to combine. I promptly ignored him for a while until he started laughing.

"Sheesh, Foster. Lighten up. I'm just kidding. You look like an angry chipmunk."

I ignored him and continued to write. He sighed and got up and picked up two random elements.

"Let's combine these and see what serum we end up with and just use that."

"No, those could be—"

Too late. He poured the mixtures together and boom! We were covered in a green, gooey, sticky mess.

"Keefe!" I yelled. "Look what you did!"

He stared at me, and then started laughing.

"What's so funny?" I said angrily.

"You look like a ogre!" He said between laughs.

I looked down at myself. I was covered in green goo and I looked at him and so was he. It got stuck in his hair and face. We did look like ogres.

"This isn't funny," I said but I kept grinning.

"You know it is." He threw some of the goo stuff on me.

"Hey!" I said, throwing some back at him.

And soon, we were throwing the goo back and forth and laughing like idiots. That is, until Lady Cadence came and yelled at us. After her threatening to send us to detention she told us to clean everything up. And then, she swooshed away.

Keefe and I were breathing heavily, grinning.

"Look at what you did," I said.

"Hey—you loved it!" he said defensively.

I hated to admit it, but he was right.

The next day, I was in my inflicting class with Bronte. He always put me in a bad mood, so when I was leaving the class I was not happy. That is, until I noticed Keefe sitting on the floor with a book in his lap. For some reason, all my anger washed away when I saw him.

I walked up to him a bit hesitantly, not knowing why he was waiting for me. "Hey, Keefe."

He looked up. "Sup, Foster." He closed his book and stood up. "Ready?"

"For what?"

"To make a story explaining why we didn't do the project," he said, shaking his head at my denseness.

It was then when I remembered we didn't do a lick of work.

"Oh, no," I said. "We didn't do anything! Lady Cadence is going to tell Grady and—"

"Relax, Foster." He nudged me. "This is why having a genius comes in handy."

He began to walk, motioning me to follow. "Okay. We'll say we did everything we were supposed to, but one of the goblins mistake the serum for a snack and ate it." He grinned triumphantly at his "brilliant" plan, but I knew it wasn't going to work. I didn't say anything, only thought of Grady and Edaline finding out I got a bad grade. Would if I don't pass, like I almost did last year? Stina would have a field day.

Keefe grabbed my arm. "Hey, earth to Foster. This is the part where you thank me for coming up with such a awesome plan at short notice."

"It's not going to work," I said, sighing.

He looked at me with the slightest look of guilt. "Yes it will, you just gotta relax. Once you worry about everything you'll psych yourself out. Go with the flow."

"I'm not you, Keefe," I grumbled, walking into class and taking my seat.

An F.

We got an F. I've gotten Ds, and everything else above that (expect for As) but never an F. I stared at the big fat red letter on a blank piece of paper in shock. Keefe didn't seem to care, though. But I did. When class was over, I slipped out class and walked to my locker, stuffing the paper in it.

Someone tapped my shoulder and when I turned around, it was Keefe.

"I didn't know you cared about your grade so much."

I shrugged, shutting my locker. "It's nothing." As I began walking, he walked beside me.

"I have something that'll cheer you up," he said. "I'm playing base quest today…"

I looked at him. "Yeah?"

"Yeah." He scratched his head. "Do you…wanna come? You know, watch?"

I smiled slowly. I don't know how he does it, but I can never stay mad at him no matter how hard I try. "Okay."

He let out a small breath and had a small smile tugging at his lips. "Cool."

He walked with me to my class and gave a cheesy salute when I was opening the door. I waved and walked in, heart beating faster than normal.

I was making my way to the field outside of Foxfire to go to Keefe's game. I was grinning like an idiot as I walked.

"Stop it," I told myself. "You're just going to a game."

I got there just in time because the game was starting. I walked up the bleachers and saw Fitz and Biana there, too.

"Hey!" I said, waving and sitting down next to them.

"Sophie?" Biana said. "You came to watch Keefe?"

"Yeah," I shrugged. "He asked me to come."

Biana grinned and poked Fitz with her elbow. He grinned, too, and wiggled his eyebrows.

"What?" I asked, frowning.

"Nothing," Biana said innocently.

Keefe's team was huddled up when Fitz shouted, "Go Keefe!"

Keefe looked up and grinned at Fitz, and then he saw me and smiled. My heart beat faster as I smiled back and waved.

When the game was over (Keefe's team winning), everyone gathered on the field to congratulate them. I followed Biana and Fitz, who were going to Keefe.

"Nice game, man," Fitz said, high-fiving him.

"Yeah, I know." Keefe flashed a smirk.

"Yeah, good job," Biana said, also giving him a high-five.

He grinned and then looked at me. "You made it."

I smiled and nodded. "Yeah. Um, good game."

"Thanks."

We stood there awkwardly while Fitz and Biana snickered at God knows what.

"Hey, race you back," Keefe said.

"Game on," I said, grinning evilly. I tripped him and then ran, laughing as he yelled about me being a cheater. It ended up being a tie.

"You dirty cheater," he said, panting. "Looks like some of me rubbed off on you."

"Unfortunately."

"Hey, that's a major compliment!"

I threw some grass at his precious hair and he laughed. "Oh, it is so on!"

I ran and he chased me, both of us laughing gleefully.

Even though our project was finished, Keefe still waited for me to finish class and I still went to his games and waited for him if I got out before him. We never planned it, it just became a habit. Not that I was complaining.

Okay, okay. I was exaggerating before. He wasn't the worst partner ever. In fact he was one of the best I had.

Of course, I would never tell him that. But let's just say we, coincidentally, always ended up partners after that.