Author: fraidy bat
Rating: T
Pairings: Olivia/Viola, Viola/Duke, Sebastian/Yvonne implied
Summary: 98 percent of the time still leaves two percent in which anything can happen. A sequel to He's Not You. Viola POV.
Disclaimer: I do not own anything from She's the Man. None of it belongs to me.
Notes: Don't worry, this is going somewhere. I promise. :)
Chapter 3
Maternity leave sucks. If Mrs. Greenblatt hadn't finally popped and had that kid, I wouldn't have been shuffled into Mr. McCoy's US Government class. My original Gov class was small enough that Illyria decided to simply redistribute us into the other two Gov classes instead of hiring a long-term substitute teacher for the rest of the year. My seventh period study hall was moved to fourth period, and now because of that I was sitting in Mr. McCoy's seventh period US Government & Politics class.
Damn procreation. Why did Mrs. Greenblatt and her sad, gangly husband choose to have a kid this year? Because they wanted to 'start a family,' the delicate balance of my life had completely gone to hell.
I wasn't anti-children or anything, but this kid had certainly screwed things up for me. Because of him (it was a bouncing baby boy as we all found out later…how charming), I was now sitting in the fifth seat of the second row of desks, and Olivia Lennox was sitting in the desk right in front of me. Blonde hair, cute shoes, lip gloss, and all. Previously to Mrs. Greenblatt's own little Miracle of Life, Olivia and I did not share any classes. That was different now, and it really shouldn't have been that big of a deal considering the fact that we saw each other every day anyway, but I suppose I was caught off guard, being suddenly confronted with her like that.
Upon entering class the first time, she made eye contact with me and smiled this big, happy smile. Mr. McCoy signed the necessary papers and told me to take any available seat. Naturally, I had to take the empty one behind Olivia. Anywhere else would have been blatantly rude. Besides, this was not a bad thing. In fact, this was a nice development. More time with my friend!
As I took my seat, Olivia swiveled to smile again and say hi. I returned the greeting, and as she faced front again, I caught a whiff of her shampoo. She smells good, came the thought, floating through my mind. I was just starting to lean closer to her and the nice smell when I caught myself, mid-lean.
I pressed the heel of my hand into my forehead. I had been so successful at concentrating on getting my relationship with Duke back up to speed and forgetting about my increasing difficulty with Olivia, and all it took was one inhalation of something vaguely flowery to bring me careening toward the brink of disaster once more.
Get a grip, Hastings.
And I did. I banished all thoughts of smelling Olivia's hair again and focused on the three branches of government. I also thought about what to get Duke for his birthday. Duke was born on February 11th, three days before Valentine's Day. Our first Valentine's Day together was also going to be something of a birthday celebration for him. Obviously, it would be an important occasion. While jotting down notes about executive powers, I scribbled a list of ideas in the margin of my notepaper: new jacket, music, watch he probably won't wear, cleats he was drooling over—
I stopped and erased the part about cleats. He wouldn't wear them until soccer season started again, and was too far away for cleats to be any kind of present at all. A few more things made it onto the list whenever Mr. McCoy went off on a tangent totally unrelated to government, but I wasn't sure what gift would say, loud and clear, "our relationship is still as exciting and unpredictable as it ever was." I gave up just as the bell rang, signaling the end of the school day. Sighing, I packed up my things.
I zipped up my backpack, and when I lifted my head, Olivia was beaming at me.
"This is great, Vi! I've never had a class with you before," she said brightly.
"Yeah. I don't know how you survived this long without me," I joked as we stepped out into the hall.
"I managed, but just barely," she said, grinning at me.
I wanted to say something else, but suddenly there weren't any more words. Not to start sounding like a movie or something, but Olivia had a few different smiles. There was the brave smile, the one she wore when she was unhappy but didn't want to look unhappy and ruin someone else's good mood. I noticed this smile most often when she wasn't feeling well, or when she happened to be around while Duke and I were…PDA-ing. Then there was the uncomfortable smile, the one that appeared when she didn't want to be rude to the weirdo who was accosting her. This one was almost exclusively reserved for Malcolm. And then there was the happy smile, and it was just like it sounds. Happy. Really happy.
And she was smiling the happy smile at me.
"So Vi, did you hear about my awesome idea?"
"Huh?" I said, pulling my iPod earbuds out of my ears. Sebastian was looking at me with one of his typical mischief-making expressions. Those were the looks that ended up with really unwise choices being made, such as me dressing up like a guy. If Sebastian hadn't schemed his way to London, I never would have gone on my little cross-dressing adventure. Sebastian scared me when he schemed. "Oh god, what have you done now?"
Sebastian held a hand over his heart as though deeply offended. "That hurts, Viola. I'm trying to do something great for your boyfriend, my roommate, and you automatically assume I'm up to something."
I rolled my eyes and motioned for him to get on with it.
He grinned and sat next to me on the couch. "So Duke's birthday is coming, right? And I know that you two will probably want to do something romantic or whatever for Valentine's Day, but that's no way for a guy to celebrate his 18th birthday."
"You are not getting my boyfriend a stripper, Sebastian."
Annoyed, he shook his head. "I'm not getting him a stripper, so don't freak out. And even if I was, I wouldn't tell you about it."
I opened my mouth to make a smartass comment, but he cut me off.
"Sunday of Duke's birthday, we'll have a surprise party for him. Here, at Mom's house. We'll barbecue, invite a bunch of people—it'll be great. And you can still have your perfect girly Valentine's Day with him so you can talk about feelings and stuff."
I raised an eyebrow at him. "Does Yvonne know how cynical you are about 'feelings and stuff'?"
"I'm only cynical about feelings when it comes to you. I don't want to think about my sister and my roommate getting all mushy over candlelight, okay?" He grimaced before rounding on me again. "So? Party for Duke? What do you think?"
I considered for a moment. It was actually a pretty decent idea. "Sounds good. You have my official girlfriend Stamp of Approval."
"Good, 'cause I already invited all our friends and half of Illyria." Sebastian winked at me and stomped up the stairs to his room in our mother's house. "Don't worry about making party arrangements or anything. Mom got wind of this and pretty much has everything worked out already. All you have to do is show up and not forget to bring Duke."
"I think I can handle that." Sebastian was almost to his room when I remembered something. "Hey, does Duke know about any of this?"
Sebastian leaned over the hallway railing on the second floor and grinned at me. "It's a surprise party, Vi. So naturally, he knows all about it."
It took me until my third class with Olivia to notice him. He had dark curly hair, broad shoulders, a perfect smile, decent fashion sense, and he sat in the desk to Olivia's right. He also liked to lean over the narrow aisle between them, smirk, and say things to her under his breath, presumably about Mr. McCoy's latest rant about the moral degeneration of today's youth, or perhaps the odd way in which the poor man's salt-and-pepper hair would always form a cowlick in the back.
I couldn't remember his name, but I didn't feel too bad about that. Most of the kids at Illyria had gone to school together for years, but I had only been there for five months or so. No one could expect me to know everyone's name, especially not some random curly-headed dude who showed way too many teeth when he smiled.
Mike. John. Josh.
It was something normal sounding, something dull, something with one syllable…
"Shh, Greg," Olivia shushed him when he leaned over to tell her something.
Greg. Right.
I couldn't help smiling. Poor Olivia, always with the weird stalker guys. At least this one was pretty good-looking, which was more than could be said for Malcolm. Greg settled back into his seat and didn't say anything else for the rest of class. Olivia had shut him down, and I felt something very much like pride.
It wasn't until later in the second week of sharing a class with Olivia that it happened. Mr. McCoy would scrawl things on the board and lecture and Olivia would write notes (much neater than mine), and that Greg kid would lean so far over that his right butt cheek would actually leave the seat, and she would mostly ignore him. Or so I thought. It was on Wednesday of the second week that Greg said something conspiratorially to Olivia, and she laughed.
I knew that laugh. I first heard that laugh, and it was more of a soft giggle, really, outside Principal Gold's office after he gave us an awkward speech about abstinence. I was still being "Sebastian" then, and when Gold went back into his office and shut the door behind him, Olivia looked me in the eye and laughed the laugh she was now laughing for Greg. From my vantage point behind them, I saw Olivia tuck her hair behind her ear, and I could tell from how pink her ear was becoming that she was blushing. Greg was grinning so hard that I thought his face might tear itself in half.
I frowned a little. Olivia was laughing at Creepy Leaning Guy's jokes, and I thought she had better sense than that. It's like Malcolm. She would always be as polite as possible to him, but never, ever encourage him in his amorous overtures. Malcolm was like his tarantula, Malvolio: you really didn't want to feed him.
And yet here she was, feeding the tarantula.
Realizing that I had missed the first half of McCoy's lecture because of watching Greg invade Olivia's personal bubble, I scrambled to catch up with the lecture. Olivia was probably just being nice. That's the kind of person she was, always trying not to hurt anybody. I only hoped that being nice to Greg wouldn't make him even more obsessed with her.
Like Olivia needs another Malcolm…
On a Monday in early February, during my third week in McCoy's US Government class, the bell rang to end class, and I packed my things. I looked up, expecting to see Olivia waiting to walk out of class with me, but she wasn't there. Puzzled, I ventured into the hallway and looked around. Just as I caught sight of her, I felt someone large plow right into me.
"Hi, Duke," I said as he enveloped me in a bear hug. Without really thinking about it, I turned my head and tried to find Olivia in the crowd again. Duke was hugging me so hard that I couldn't really see anything but his black sweatshirt, so I casually shuffled us around until I could see her again. I just wanted to know what was so important that she had to leave without me.
Duke was telling me something about having a lot of math homework, but I was gazing down the hall. Olivia was walking with Greg, and it looked like they were having a lively conversation. I watched her face for the uncomfortable smile that ought to have been showing up at any moment, but it never did. I squinted, wanting to be sure I was seeing things right.
Greg talked and gestured and grinned, and Olivia was smiling at him.
I turned my head so that my face was buried in Duke's chest, and I tried to make sense of the fact that she was smiling her happy smile.
