Yay for positive reviews! Thanks for the feedback, guys.
I've decided that this isn't going to be more than a five-shot. So here's Massie again, about a month before That Night.
My favourite subject in school is apparel because I love to design masterpieces.
My least favourite subject in school is Spanish because I'm not good at learning foreign languages.
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I wasn't supposed to be eating. Ms. Lozano didn't allow food in her Spanish class. Yet every time she turned her head back to the dry-erase board ("Sacen papel para tomar a puntas, clase!"), I let my hand sneak down into my Vera Bradley lunch bag to snatch up another chunk of Nutz Over Chocolate Luna Bar.
It wasn't very ladylike, but the fifth time I popped another bite of my Luna bar into my mouth, Landon Crane waltzed into the room and I began choking on it. Ms. Lozano whipped around, first to scowl at me for eating in her already ant-infested classroom, then to smile warmly at Landon.
I silently cursed myself for looking like an idiot in front of him. Choking just because he walked into the room? I might as well have stood on my desk and screamed that I still liked him three years later. The smirk I remembered so well was already resting on his face when he handed a blue slip of paper to Ms. Lozano and casually flicked his office assistant tag.
"Chris Plovert?" Ms. Lozano peered around the room until she spotted the gangly blonde. "Your lunch is waiting in the main office. Go pick it up after we're done with notes." She waddled over to Chris and slapped the slip onto his desk. Landon starting inching towards the door, but Ms. Lozano raised a pudgy hand and he paused.
"Massie, this is the third time I've caught you eating in my class after I have specifically stated not to. Go with Landon to your grade-level office and get a lunch detention."
"But—" I protested, not even stopping to think of the fact that I'd have five uninterrupted minutes alone with Landon.
"Go!" she snapped as she shuffled back to the board, muttering something under her breath in Spanish that I vaguely recognized as "disrespectful kids". My cheeks warmed as I got up and pushed my way towards Landon, the class tittering behind me the whole time.
"Ooh, you're in trouble now, Block," Landon teased as soon as the door swung shut behind us. My cheeks grew even warmer and his smirk turned into a full-blown grin.
"So you remember me, huh?" I said as casually as I could, allowing myself to look straight into his electric blue eyes. God, I had missed those eyes.
"'Course I do," Landon replied, punching me softly on the shoulder. "You're kind of hard to forget."
I giggled. "What have you been up to in the past…" I paused here, as though I weren't actually keeping track of days since I last saw him. "...oh, past three years?"
"You know," he shrugged, holding open the door to the Foreign Language hall for me. "The usual. Grades. Lacrosse. Girls."
Girls. I involuntarily winced.
"You okay?" he murmured, staring down at me with concern.
"Oh, I got cold, that's all," I muttered. He nodded.
"Yeah. I love this time of year."
We trudged up the stairs in a semi-awkward silence.
"So for my 16th birthday I got this black pug," he continued, his words rushed as though he were a little nervous. "I named him Bark Obama."
"No way!" I cried.
"Yeah," he panted. We paused for breath on the second floor landing. "Didn't you used to have a pug too?"
I bit my lip. He remembered. "Yeah, I still do. Her name's Bean. She's a little older than Bark Obama though."
"Does she like younger dogs?" Landon ask-teased as we ascended the next flight of stairs.
"Oh yeah," I replied. "She's a total cougar."
He laughed and I joined in. The sound echoed throughout the empty staircase.
"But what about you? What have you been up to, Massie?" Apparently it was my turn to talk.
"Oh, I dunno," I fibbed. "Eighth grade was weird; I was glad to get out of middle school. Freshman year was great…and here I am now." He squinted at me, and then nodded.
"That's right. I remember seeing you around last year."
"Then why didn't you say anything?" I blurted. All those times I had passed him in the hall, hoping to catch his eye…and I never did.
"Why didn't you say anything?" Landon challenged, one black eyebrow raised.
"I just figured you wouldn't remember," I sighed as nonchalantly as possible.
"Like I said," he remarked, pulling open the door to the 9th and 10th grade office. "You're hard to forget."
"Stop flirting with the juvenile delinquents, Mister Crane," the office lady manning the front desk grumped.
"Oh, this one's hardly a delinquent," Landon chuckled. "She's supposed to get a lunch detention for eating in class."
"You know what to do," the office lady sighed before she whipped a small pink pad of paper at him. Landon caught it with one hand, wrestled a pen out of his pocket, and began scribbling on the top sheet. I leaned over his shoulder to try and see what he was writing, but he nudged me away.
"Uh-uh," he scolded. "This is official office assistant business. Underclassmen are not allowed to view this sheet until it's been signed by the lovely Ms. Ragsdale."
The cranky office lady—Ms. Ragsdale—and I simultaneously rolled our eyes. Landon finished filling out the form and tossed it gently onto Ms. Ragsdale's desk. She scanned it quickly, stifled a grin, and signed it on the bottom line.
"Be up here by the time the lunch bell rings tomorrow to do your lunch detention, Miss Block." Ms. Ragsdale ripped the top sheet off of the pad and handed it to me. "This is no tea at the Ritz-Carlton, by the way. Bring your own napkins and silverware."
"Yes ma'am," I grumbled. I made my way towards the door, but Landon stopped me before I could leave.
"See you around, Massie," he whispered, throwing in a wink for good measure.
I blushed and rolled my eyes at him one last time. Once I finally got out in the hallway, I began studying my pink lunch detention slip. It suddenly hit me as to why Ms. Ragsdale had giggled at it.
Landon had scribbled his number across the bottom.