"You two about done now?" I knew it was a rhetorical question, but I wanted to piss him off, so I nodded solemnly. It was like a party, being able to anger two Benedicts at once. Gray studiously ignored me, making me pout. He knew I didn't like being ignored. Although, then again, that was probably why he did it in the first place. "Where the hell have you been Ian? We were supposed to meet here twenty minutes ago."

"Maybe I just didn't feel like waiting."

"Ian." Gray seemed to be having his patience wearing thin, so Ian rolled his eyes. Huffing out a breath, he went to actually answer his cousin's questions. I felt a smile tugging at my lips at their comfrontation, it being amusing to watch a fight instead of being actively involved in one, for once.

"You were taking too long so I decided to try to find my classroom on my own." At this, Gray's eyes flickered momentarily to me, as if judging why I was next to his cousin. I glared back at him, liking how he scoffed at me afterwards. It was fun to be able to know exactly what to do to push every single one of his buttons. It was one of the things I especially prided myself on. Their conversation had given me time to cool down, but that didn't mean I wasn't still in the mood to argue.

"Aha, and how well is that going for you?" His eyes then pointed meaningfully at me, as if I was enough indication that things had gone badly. Being around this many people who annoyed the hell out of me was probably not healthy.

"It was actually going pretty ok until I crashed into her." He spat it like it was poison, making me turn to glare daggers at him again.

"Actually, Mr Know-it-all, you happened to be going in the exact opposite direction to our classroom, so screw you."

"I see you've, um, met Althea." Gray looked awkward about that introduction and, if I was being honest, I couldn't blame him. But I'd never felt awkward in my life so I couldn't really relate. I was surrounded by two people who probably despised me by this point due to my…. Explosive personality. It had the potential to be an incredibly suffocating situation, but instead I was dealing out glares like lollipops. Well, that wasn't really a good analogy for it, considering.

"Althea!"

"What! Jesus, you don't need to shout in my ear, asshole."

"Well sorry if you being non-responsive for a few minutes scared us a little." Not in the mood to explain to Ian about my tendencies to daydream, I diverted the question back to the earlier conversation.

"Yeah, whatever. What were you asking me?"

"Oh, nothing, we were just sharing our experiences when dealing with you."

"Ha ha, you're both so funny. You know, you should become comedians."

"Aw, thanks babe, I knew you'd end up falling for my charm eventually." His comment was punctuated with a smirk. I almost growled at him again, but I was afraid of sounding like a wolf, after all the disgruntled animal noises I'd made around him. Maybe neighing would be a good option next time. At that thought, I giggled, but judging by the strange looks Gray and Ian were shooting me, I would have to reign in the crazy.

"Sorry," I drawled. "It's just that the thought of you being able to charm anyone is kind of funny." Nice save. I mentally high fived myself, but after the disaster of laughing at my own joke, I decided to refrain from doing it in person. I didn't know how I'd be able to explain that one.

"Althea! In my office, now!" Looking at the office door, I felt my face scrunching up, the distaste obviously apparent on my features.

"I hope you guys are able to have fun without me. Later." Mock saluting them, I marched into the office, determination to not get a detention permeating my steps.

Ian's POV

"I'm sorry about her being the first person you've met in this school." Gray kept talking about something or other, but all I kept seeing was her. I knew it was dumb, to the point of me possibly needing medical attention, but I thought she was hot.

"Nah, it's cool." She was cool. I called her insane and she made my blood boil, but her perfect lips pulling up into that sexy smirk wouldn't get out of my head. Rubbing my forehead, I pretended I was having a headache. Which, if she was a disease, she would be. Short and really up in your face but something that you got used to eventually.

"She really pisses me off sometimes." Not willing to admit that I'd actually enjoyed riling her up and standing nose to nose with her, I shrugged.

The conversation was quick to die down after that, so I asked him about the newest rugby match on television. I knew he didn't follow it much, but it would get his mind off the beautiful girl with the explosive personality. Or maybe, I was simply trying to distract myself, not him. Half way through our talk, we heard shouting from inside the office, and I had to stifle a laugh.

"Does she never get tired?" He asked, exasperation apparent in his features.

"Is she normally like this?" Remembering I still had her lollipop in my hands, I chucked it at the nearest bin, getting it in. I was honestly curious about what he would answer, but, unwilling to show this, focused on the shot.

"Loud? Yeah."

"No, I meant murderous." At this, he gave out a bark of laughter, which I responded to by pulling up the corners of my lips. I didn't like the crude joke about her, for some reason it made me uncomfortable, but I carried it through.

"Sometimes. She's the type to do whatever she wants. She doesn't like us, so she'll damn well tell us. Not like this with Pet though." The phrase 'whatever she wants', struck a chord with me. Flashes of me, acting like the most normal human being in existence, popped into my mind. And, not for the first time, I wished I could be like that. Officially there was nothing holding me back, and yet mentally everything was.

"So she's nuts." More laughs met my words, but the remark left a sinking feeling in my chest and a bitter taste in my mouth. Why did I hate speaking about her like this so much? I spoke about girls in this way all the time, it was either 'she's insane' or 'she's hot'. They were both easy phrases to hide my true feelings behind. But with Althea, I felt like she deserved more than my offhanded words.

"Basically." Once again, conversation stopped, and this time I was glad. Not bothering to start it up with a different conversation starter like I did before, I simply let it die. To entertain myself from the silence around me, I replayed our conversation. She'd really annoyed me, I wasn't going to pretend she hadn't, but for some reason there was something about her that attracted me to her.

And then, the door opened and all of my thoughts flew out the window. She stood there, bouncing on her toes, with a look of annoyance coating her features. Without even sparing us a second glance, she walked off, hips swinging and bag bouncing.

"See? Weird."

"Yeah."

Hi :)

Ian's POV today! Tell me what you think :) It took me a while to figure out what I wanted him to be like, and hopefully you guys like how he turned out :D

Sorry that updates aren't exactly regular yet with this story, but I'm juggling it with Fixing Petal and just can't decide on a schedule that works xD But I promise I'll figure something out soon :)

Anyways, thanks to all you lovely people who reviewed, I loved reading what you thought about last chapter =^.^= Virtual cookies and hugs for all of you!

Bye bye :)