Hi I'm back and am so sorry I haven't updated in ALMOST TWO MONTHS God, Jade, get it together. I hope you enjoy this chapter of Bade :) But first, a refresher because it's been a while since I posted the first chapter…

"No," she snaps with the slam of her locker the second she notices his presence. She's grabbing her history textbook before first period only to find him hovering behind her, and while he still has yet to speak, she really doesn't want to hear it.

"I just wanted to talk to you about what Ms. Rhodes said at rehearsal yesterday," he says.

She ignores him and strides through the hall, long brown waves spilling down her back and around her shoulders.

"Hey!" He taps her shoulder, and she spins around with a glare at should have made him jump, run, scream, or cry. Maybe a combination of all four. However, he stands his ground.

"Never touch me." Her tone holds an ice that could send shivers up even the devil's spine.

He just continues, "Okay, I promise. But we have to do that assignment this weekend whether you like it or not. We're friends, right? For God's sake, we've eaten lunch together every day for the past six months and we play a couple in the play. You can't avoid me forever." While he doesn't move from his spot in front of her, he puts his hands at his side to show her the space she demanded, because if there's one thing he's determined never to be (well, besides an accountant), it's that kind of douche-bag.

"First of all, nobody's my friend. I don't like that word, and also I didn't ask you to sit at my table. You invited yourself there. Second of all, it's a musical, not a play. Learn your theatre terminology. And third, we'll talk about the assignment later." She catches herself before she can shift uncomfortably. What can make him leave? "But if you don't leave me alone, I'll string you from the ceiling by that stupid necklace you're always wearing."

"Nah."

"Excuse me?"

"You wouldn't do that."

Walk away, just walk away. But dammit, she's stubborn too, maybe even more so than him, and refuses to give him the last word.

"You don't know me." She shakes her hair out of her face, pursing her lips as she crosses her arms.

"You'd lose your role," he carries on. "And as well as I think you'd fit in with the jail crowd, I think you'd find it creatively limiting in there."

"Hm... Who's to say I'd get caught?" Her turquoise eyes shift, a mischievous glint replacing her previous glare. "But on the off chance that I did, somehow I don't think I would be lacking in creative ways to get rid of you, because something tells me you'd still find a way to bug me even after you were dead. I could glean lots of inspiration off my fellow prisoners, and maybe teach them a few things myself, because my brain already has a list of options that could wrap around the block. I suggest you watch your back and don't come near me again." Before he can argue, she marches away, and it's not until she's about to walk into history class that she realizes her hands are shaking, her heart is pounding, and her head is racing.

She sits at her desk, trying to calm down. In her black journal, she scribbles two sentences before the teacher walks in, thus beginning class.

...

'Nobody here should be able to throw me off my game like that. Why does he always have to be so infuriating?'

...

Chapter Seven: The Art of Eye Contact (Part One)

"It's in the eyes

Always the eyes."

-K.A.

"Well, Beck said in C-"

"I don't care what Beck said. Look, I want you to be careful around that Hannah. She's a bi-" Jade clears her throat, "not nice person and is friends with people who can do some serious damage."

"I know what they did." Cat furrows her eyebrows. "And I don't like them."

Jade lowers her voice as they approach Andre and Beck in the cafeteria. "Good. Just… don't let yourself get hurt."

"Kay kay."

"Hey!" Andre greets.

"Hiii!" Cat exclaims.

"How was your morning?"

"My brother said he was going to swim to Hawaii because he wanted to do the hula and wear a grass skirt and then he had to be rescued from the ocean because he can't swim and almost got attacked by a dolphin."

Jade flinches, and Andre stares, dumbfounded at Cat. "You try to be polite…" he mutters under his breath.

Beck speaks up. "Jade refuses to talk about getting together with me this weekend to work on our characters."

"Why?" Andre asks.

Jade shrugs. "I don't like people in the morning."

"You don't like people ever," Beck muses.

"Good point. And I didn't refuse, Beck, I just didn't have time. I was running late to history class."

"But you had time to discuss your plans to hang me?"

"I always warn my victims before I strike. That way they die in imminent fear." She smirks.

"So morbid."

"Just now realizing it?"

Beck smiles. "Well, will you talk about it now?"

"We're not meeting at my house."

"Huh, I would have thought you'd want to take me to your lair so you could like, cut off my hair with your scissors and force feed it to me or something."

"Cute. But you're still not coming to my house."

"Why?"

"Because you're not ready for decapitation… yet."

"So comforting. Alright, we can meet at my house. I'll text you the address. Tomorrow afternoon work?"

"Whatever."

"So moody."

"Call me that one more time and you'll look like the hamburger on your plate sooner rather than later."

Beck holds his hands up in surrender and grins.

'What the fuck have I gotten myself into.'

Jade pushes her hair out of her face, stomping past a large RV parked in the Oliver's driveway. Halfway up the walk to the front door, she hears a voice call her name from behind her. Startled, Jade turns around to see Beck hopping out of the RV, though she quickly mellows her alarmed expression into one of confused annoyance before she thinks he can notice.

"What the hell are you doing in there?" Jade demands.

Beck shrugs. "Hanging out."

"Why in there? Don't you have, like, a bedroom or something like a normal teenager?" Jade questions, causing Beck to raise an eyebrow at her. "Not like that, you pervert."

Beck laughs. "My dad bought it from the rapper, you know, Fat Biscuit, for a family road trip we took last year. I've been slowly moving stuff in to make it my own personal hangout since we're done with it."

Jade snorts. "Are we going to stand out here talking about your odd not-living arrangements or..."

"Right. Come in."

Jade follows him into the RV, taking in the array of empty lemonade cans on a makeshift coffee table, the mess of pillows and two blankets thrown on the couch, and the guitar chords tangled near a display of one electric and two acoustic guitars. Picks and sheet music lie scattered amidst the cans and, hanging on the wall above the guitar paraphernalia, is a lone ukulele.

"Did you tell your mom that you were having someone over today?"

"Uh, no. Why?"

"Because it's a mess in here."

"It's a creative mess!" Beck argues.

"No, it's just a mess."

"I've been busy. Look, I'm really glad you decided to come."

She sighs impatiently, avoiding eye contact at all costs because God forbid he do something fucking cliche like try to stare into her soul. "Whatever."

"I see yesterday's mood carried over into today."

"I will walk right back down that driveway."

"I'm kidding," he assures her.

No, he isn't.

Beck continues,"Do you have your character analysis worksheet?"

"No, Beck." He picks up on her sarcasm, thankfully for his sake.

"Right. I have to find mine…" He pulls a box out from under the coffee table and begins digging through its contents, piling papers around him in the most un-orderly fashion.

"Beck, what the hell? We got these yesterday, and you already lost it?"

"Didn't lose it. I put it away."

"Good God." As Beck continues rummaging around in what looks like garbage to Jade, she spots a bright yellow notebook sticking out of one of the piles. She eyes it for a moment before picking it up, a smirk slowly spreading across her face.

"What's this?" she asks, and his head snaps up.

"Hey, give me that!" As he pops up to snatch at it, Jade tucks it behind her back.

"Not until you tell me what it is."

"It's my journal, give it back!"

"I wonder what kind of stuff goes on in Beck's head…" Jade cocks her own head to the side with a grin and continues to hold the journal out of reach.

"Jade, I swear to God, if you don't give me that right now..."

"Must be pretty private if you don't want me even holding it."

"You don't see me grabbing the journal you're always writing in," he retorts.

"You don't see me leaving my journal lying unsupervised in plain sight," she fires back.

"It was in the box for a reason!"

"Then you shouldn't have taken it out."

"Please just give it back!" he begs.

"As long as I get to read it one day."

"So you're planning on staying friends with me, then?" his reaching hand lowers slightly, and a smug look settles across his face.

"Friends is a strong word. But unfortunately for me, you're like a pesky fly who keeps buzzing about everywhere you're most certainly unwelcome."

"You don't get to read my journal someday if you're going to have that attitude."

"Fine. Then you're not getting it back."

"Jade." He gives her a warning look, but his desperation is fading as he realizes there's no prying it from her hands without things getting very awkward, and he's not in the mood to obliterate whatever ounce of glee has suddenly entered Jade by breaking yesterday's promise to 'never touch her.'

"I like to hold it," she asserts.

"Weirdo."

"I'm sorry, I'm the weirdo? You're the one with a yellow journal."

"Yellow is a valid color," Beck argues, looking mildly offended. "And you're the one holding that yellow journal when it's not even yours!"

"Of course not. I would never associate anything from my mind with something so repulsive… but it wigs you out, so I'll suffer through it just for your distress. Now, aren't you supposed to be looking for the worksheet that you somehow managed to lose in less than twenty four hours so we can actually get to our assignment?" A complacent expression paints across her features.

"Rude."

"Slacker."

"Honestly Jade, do you just like to pick fights for fun?" He's back to searching through messy piles of papers, glancing up at her grip on his journal every couple seconds.

"So what if I do?" she shrugs, the smirk never having left her face.

"That's messed up."

"Hey, you're the one who fights back." She settles down on the floor near him, but just out of reach. "Oh my God Beck, if you don't stop looking up to make sure I'm not reading your damn journal every .3 seconds, this will take all year, and we're not even two weeks into January. I made a deal; I'm not just going to throw it out the window." Ten seconds and three more glances later, Jade lets out a groan of frustration. "Here! I'll set it down." The journal lands with a resounding thud on the coffee table. "Happy?"

Beck retrieves the journal. "Very." Only moments later, after continuing his shuffling through his crumpled 'garbage', he exclaims, "Found it!"

"Great. Obviously we need to know our own characters before we can do the relationship work part. Do you have anything so far for Brett?"

"Well, he's good looking, popular, gets all the girls… shall I go on?" His impish grin causes Jade to roll her eyes.

"Move past the obvious, you shallow asshole."

"Okay okay. Deep do- Wait, did you just say I'm good looking?"

Jade's face flushes. "I… I meant the… the character is supposed to be… the actor…" But there is no backtracking on what she's said. Beck turns to face her, and he studies her as if every word she stutters is the most fascinating thing ever spoken.

"Does Jade West think I'm good-looking?"

"I will flip this RV over with you in it," she glares, scraping at attempts to pull herself back together.

"Fine fine… I won't tell anybody."

"I wasn't kidding about the RV," Jade warns.

"Please, your skinny little arms could not flip this thing if they tried."

"I have my ways."

"Oh really?"

"Do I have the face of a liar?"

He smirks, locking hold of her eyes with his. "Do you really want me to answer that?"

They sit side by side, backs pressed against the couch, table pushed away. Their two open scripts are spread across their laps, and Jade glances at Beck out of the corner of her eye. It's the first significant moment of silence since she arrived over an hour ago, and she's not going to be the one break it.

He's absorbed enough in what he's doing that he doesn't seem to notice she has long since stopped writing. As he stares at his paper, lost in thought, Jade observes the way he bites the end of his pen and taps his foot. He's rarely still, she realizes, and she wonders how it has been lost to her for so long.

"Do you have another pen? Mine's out of ink."

She blinks, her mind coming back into focus as Beck shakes his empty pen slightly as though trying revive its use.

She grabs her bag from beside her and removes her water bottle and journal in search of that stray pen she knows is buried down there somewhere.

"Here," she says upon retrieving it.

"Thanks."

While Beck finishes scribbling, Jade pretends she's not studying the way he bites his lip in concentration or the way his hair flops down over his eyes.

God, what is he doing to me? This is so fucking pathetic.

"Is this good?" he asks, handing Jade his paper. She takes it, reading through his scrawled handwriting.

"Yeah, that sounds good, but I think that maybe- Beck!" Her thoughtful ramble turns into a screech when she looks up to see him holding none other than her black journal. "Give it back!"

"You should have known I would grab it. After all, you left it lying in plain sight."

"Give it to me!"

"I like to hold it," he quotes her earlier words.

"Give it!"

"I wonder what kind of stuff goes on in Jade's head…"

"Beck, I swear to God."

"Shhh, you're interrupting my quiet evening plans. I want to read in peace."

"I will fight you for it." She cocks her head to the side with a menacing glare.

"I'm just returning fear you put me through," he counters.

He's being far too calm about this, she thinks, and if she could physically claw the devilish grin off his face, she would.

"You want to feel fear?" With more grace than one should have while wearing combat boots, she lunges at him in attempt to snatch her journal back.

Beck laughs hysterically as he falls onto his back, journal above his head in one hand, using his feet to try to keep Jade, who's leaning over him in desperation, from reaching it.

"You're not getting it back," he taunts.

"Give. It." Her glare could penetrate steel.

"What's the magic word?"

"No!"

"That's not the magic word," he chides.

"I'm not giving you a magic word. That's stupid!"

"Magic word," he demands against her struggles.

"This is so childish, for God's sake, you're almost fourteen," she huffs, still flailing to reach her journal.

"I–

Neither hear the RV door rattle open until a curvy woman with thick, tumbling hair stands in front of them, putting a quick end to their near wrestling.

"Mom," Beck breathes.

A/N: If anyone was confused about anything at all, please feel free to ask. My PM box is always open :)

I got a little distracted this morning by LIZ AND ARI'S COVER OF TAKE ME OR LEAVE ME oh my god I gasped so loud when I saw it I almost woke up the baby. Please excuse me while I die.

Thank you all for reading! As always, please review and let me know what you think. I love hearing from you.

My Twitter is jadevalen_ if you want to witness my insanity ;)

"If you don't take your hands off me in the next two seconds, you won't have hands."

-Jade