Chapter 7

"Care to dance?"

Lynn looked up and smiled at Reid, putting her hand into his own. "Sure." She ignored Kate's grin that she had caught from the corner of her eye.

Reid pulled Lynn close, so close that she could feel the warmth of his breaths on her forehead. She knew that if she just tilted her head up, her lips would be almost touching his. Her heart hammered in her chest as his arms wrapped around her waist, holding her so gently as if she was a fragile porcelain doll. Her skin tingled where his fingers had accidentally brushed upon when he pushed away a lock of red hair that had fallen into her eyes.

She liked him. There was no doubting that. Even if her conscious mind refused to believe that, her own body was already sending obvious signals to her head.

He looked at her, taking in every detail of her from her flushed cheeks, brilliant green eyes and glossed lips.

Lips that he had finally got a taste of that afternoon.

- - - Earlier that afternoon - - -

"Thanks. I really appreciate you doing this."

Reid shrugged and grinned. "What you mean is that I'm the only one who can help you?"

Lynn laughed. "Okay. You're right. But it's not that I'm not trying. Believe me, I've tried but I just cannot understand those sums. And none of the others are willing to help me."

"Again, you mean that none of the others will let you copy their work?"

"Hey," Lynn pretended to be insulted. "I'm not copying okay? If I was copying, I would have just taken your book and your book only. But I asked for your book and your help because I really do need you to explain everything to me."

Reid snorted and gave a crooked smile. "Well, aren't I the lucky one? To be spending my Saturday afternoon cooped up indoors."

Lynn rolled her eyes. "Kate, Pogue and Caleb are out watching a movie. Tyler's busy getting his car fixed. And you, Mr. Sadistic, volunteered to stay here to watch me slave away at my apparently never ending assignments."

Reid laughed. "Yea well. I'm not going to spend my Saturday afternoon cooped up in this room." Grabbing her hand, Reid pulled her out of the room.

"Here. At least there's sun out here. Why do you even like this spot anyway?"

Lynn laughed and made herself comfortable on her favourite spot in the school. "Because it's shady and comfortable here." Lynn looked around at the empty surroundings. "And there are not a lot of people around here most of the time. Especially not on a Saturday."

"So we'll get a lot of privacy then."

"Yea." Lynn looked away as her cheeks blushed pink. "For you to help me with my math."

Reid inwardly groaned as he remembered the help that he had promised to her. "Forget math. Let's just enjoy the sun."

"Reid."

"I'm serious. I've seen you slaving away practically every day of the week. A little rest would do you some good."

Lynn bit her lip. "I suppose," she finally replied, leaning against Reid as she stretched out on the bench.

"So tell me about yourself."

Lynn looked at Reid curiously. "What is there to know?"

"Who is Kaitlynn Carter really?" Reid asked with a comical expression on his face.

She laughed in reply. "As if you don't already know. I'm a New York girl who came here because I want to get into the Ivy League."

"I don't mean that. As in who are you really?"

Lynn did not know what to say. Only Tyler knew that secret of hers and as much as she wanted to, she could not let Reid find out about that. In her opinion, the more the number of people that knew that secret of hers, the more complicated things might become. And letting the others know about that secret of hers would only increase Caleb's suspicions of her. Because then, Caleb might claim that she had been hiding the truth from them. Smiling, she replied, "You've known me for a while now. You tell me."

"You're a girl who has seen some things in the world that a girl that young isn't supposed to experience yet. You probably went through a couple of rough patches in your childhood. You were probably labeled as the kid in school who had to experience the broken marriage of her parents."

She shook her head and looked at Reid. "For someone whom I thought knew me pretty well, you definitely got hell a lot wrong." Lynn sighed. "For one thing, I'm not that girl who had to go through a bad childhood. In fact, my childhood was pretty good. And for another thing, my parents didn't actually get divorced. They were never married in the first place. They just lived together until one day he decided to move out. To me, that was the day he died. I know it sounds bitter but I personally have my own reasons and he really didn't have to put my mom through all that crap. But thankfully my mom got herself together in the end. She had always been the successful single mom type. And so, in school, I was never the kid who had to go through a tough time at home. I was the rich girl with the cool mom." She smiled, reminiscing. "So, all in all, I really do have a good life."

Reid stared at her. He had thought that he had this girl all figured out. But apparently all that he had figured out had been sadly wrong.

"What else? That can't be all that you think you know about me."

"The only other things I know about you are from the things that you do."

Lynn raised an eyebrow. "Like?"

"Well, I know that you like this spot. Probably because this is your little getaway spot. A place for you to get away from the regular school madness, And I know that you don't particularly like violence from that promise that you made me do about not getting into anymore fights. I know that your favourite food is burger and fries and you're not the type of girl who goes on diets. I know that although you're resulting to copying my work now, you're generally a girl who doesn't mind working her ass off for something that needed to be done. I also happen to know that you like reading romance novels like Pride and Prejudice or plays in the case of Romeo and Juliet because of the well-worn copies that you constantly carry around in your bag. You generally get on well with people but you don't like people who don't know when to turn their egos off. And despite your constant complaints about Estelle's American Boy and the inaudible lyrics, I know that you secretly like that song." Reid paused and smiled. "And I also know that you don't like the cheesy lines that I am constantly throwing at you."

The atmosphere between them tensed as Reid waited for Lynn's comments on his 'observations' about her. Although her face was carefully blank, her stomach had begun doing the familiar little flips. "Stick with what you know, Reid. It's much more accurate than what you presumed," she finally replied.

Reid was silent beside her. There was much more that he knew about her. He knew that she hated Monday mornings. He knew that she had some weight issues when she was younger. He knew that her favourite colour was forest green because of the resemblance to her eyes. There were even some things about her that drove him up the wall sometimes. Like her annoying habit of reminding people to be punctual. Or her uncanny ability to be right most of the time. It all annoyed him. But no matter what, he still liked her for who she is. Reid had taken a friendly liking to the redhead the first time they met. But the more he got to know her, the more there was to like.

"Well," Lynn started, breaking the silence. "Seems like you've already have me all figured out, blondie-boy."

Reid stared into Lynn's smiling green eyes. "Not quite. There's still something that I'm still not sure about."

There was a certain seriousness in his expression that made her smile slowly disappear and her heartbeat quicken. Reid leant in closer until he could see the green irises of her eyes. Her whole body tensed.

But the moment his lips touched hers, everything was forgotten. She forgot how nervous she was feeling. She forgot how tensed she was. She forgot everything. Because at that moment, the only thing she could focus on was the warmth of his lips against hers. The gentleness of the kiss, the electricity that seem to be generating from their kiss, it all surprised her. The kiss deepened as she kissed back. His arms circled her, pressing her closer to him as her own hands ran through his hair, her fingers raking through his hair. The kiss was not the heavy, forceful and rushed type that usually led to heavy making out or impatient lustful sex.

It was slow. It was deep. It was perfect.

And by the end of the kiss, Reid had gotten his answer. "Now I'm sure," he said, blue eyes boring into her green ones.

- - - Back at Nicky's - - -

Whatever it was, there was something decidedly different about their dance that night. It was as if there was something tingling from the atmosphere around them. Whether it was from the unknown kiss that had happened that afternoon or whether it was from something else, no one knew.

But the people who knew them were sure that something was different.

As Kate and Pogue grinned at the dancing couple, Tyler and Caleb stared at them from their table.

Caleb's expression was one of sheer uncertainty.

Whereas Tyler's expression was one of sheer annoyance.

Mingled with a touch of jealousy.


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