Randy was just leaving the newspaper office when someone grabbed him by the shirt and pushed him back inside. He fell onto a chair and the person shut the door behind them. They were alone in the newspaper office. Everyone else was in class.

"Hey squirt."

"Brad. What's up?" he asked sarcastically. Brad was the biggest jerk he'd ever met. The biggest, dumbest jerk with the shortest fuse he'd ever met. "What do you want?"

"Some info, little brother." Brad was pacing the room, something he did when he was anxious.

"Info on what?" Randy asked guardedly, straightening his shirt and settling himself more comfortably in the chair. Brad always had an ulterior motive even if he didn't know what 'ulterior motive' meant. Dumb jock.

"On this girl who just moved here."

"Nicky?" Randy asked, surprised. Brad almost never took an interest in kids in the lower grades. He didn't even think that Randy existed half the time. Why now? Why this girl? He looked up at his brother and immediately realized his mistake. "I mean, Nicole Smith?" He was too late though. Damn. Should have thought of that before.

Brad turned around glaring at his little brother. "What did you just say?"

"Nicole Smith?" Randy tried. He was dead. He was so dead.

"No, Nicky. You called her Nicky. Why did you call her Nicky?" He sat down across from Randy and watched him, the way a cat watches a cornered mouse.

"She's in my English class. We're doing a project together. And she asked me to call her Nicky. What's it to you?" he added, bringing up his defences again. Sarcasm was the greatest weapon against Brad. "You want to go out with her, Brad? A lowly junior? A girl the same age as me? Impossible."

His brother's eyes narrowed to slits. He didn't like being made fun of. "You're going to tell me everything, Randy, or I'm going to pound the crap out of you." His hand tightened on a piece of paper, crumpling it.

"Alright, alright. You don't have to get all testy on me…anyway I have to go. I'm already late for class because of you." He got up and left Brad to stew over the fact that he'd just one-upped him.

He made it to English class just in time to miss half the lesson.

"My English class not interesting enough for you to be here, Mr. Taylor?" Mrs. Egan sneered. She didn't like him very much because he didn't do a lot of work and still passed with nineties.

"I was doing stuff for the newspaper, Mrs. Egan." He dropped his late slip onto her desk and slid into his seat across the aisle from Nicky.

"You didn't miss much," she whispered to him.

He looked up to meet her green eyes, crinkled at the corners because of her smile. Now he could see why Brad would think she was hot. "Well, good."

"I have to talk to you after class," she added, and then snapped to attention as Mrs. Egan turned around.

Randy tried to concentrate back on the lesson but her words kept going through his head. 'I have to talk to you after class… I have to talk to you after class… I have to talk to you after class…'

"Mr. Taylor!"

He looked up, a blank expression on his face. "Wha-?"

"Oh!" she fumed, turning away to someone else with their hand up.

He heard laughter beside him and looked over to see Nicky with a straight face, her eyes were laughing though, as they darted over to him a few times. He grinned back.

After class, he walked her to her locker. "You wanted to talk to me about something?" he asked to start off the conversation.

She nodded. "I want to be on the newspaper. I used to write for my old paper but it was really crappy. Yours looks so professional…"

He nodded. "That's because we have it printed professionally…uh, yeah, sure. You can be part of my team because two of our guys quit last week… I write for the school issues part. It's basically stuff that we don't like about the school and we attack it. Pretty straightforward stuff." They got to her locker and she stopped. "This is me."

Feeling oddly like he was just on a date, Randy nodded. "Yeah, sure. Just come to the newspaper office tomorrow at lunch and we'll sort it out…"

"Okay, cool. Thanks Randy. You rock." She kissed him quickly on the cheek then turned to her locker.

Randy walked away, feeling like he'd just found the cure for world hunger.