.... I am SO relieved. I thought I was gonna get a ton of flames!!

(())

Emma watched as Jay calmly removed his feet from the table. He had that smirk on his face that could be taken one of two ways: indignant or seductive. She was guessing it was meant as the former. She rifled through her backpack to take out a spiral notebook. She tore out a piece of paper and handed it to Jay without looking at him. She felt his eyes on her the entire time.

Finally, she looked up and saw the smirk had become a cheeky grin.

"So, Blondie, you never answered my question before. Wassup with you and Cameron?"

"Yes I did," Emma answered. "I said 'Mind your own business'" He raised his eyebrows and let his grin dissolve.

"My, my, aren't we touchy?" Jay mocked. "What? Did he get stupid enough to mess up one of your precious 'save the whale' signs?"

"No, he didn't." She stated icily. She reached into her backpack and pulled out a pen, writing their theme on top of the page she had ripped out for herself. Her anger was swelling inside her, and she was pretty sure she would kill him if he didn't drop it.

"Or was it worse? Did he, gasp! Try to kiss you with tongue?" He feigned a shudder at the thought.

Suddenly, Emma stood and banged both hands on the table, leaning over it to look straight in Jays eyes. Jay, however, seemed fairly unfazed.

"Jay, shut up. I mean it." She whispered threateningly.

It was the stare-down of the century. Neither soul was willing to give in, Jay with his incredibly entrancing stare, and Emma with her fiery rage-filled glare. The battle lasted for nearly two minutes before Jay looked away.

"Let's get started." he stated. He picked up his pencil and wrote their theme on the top of his paper as well.

"Fine." said Emma, sitting back down slowly. She wasn't sure exactly what made her heartbeat quicken its pace during those last few seconds, but she was glad to find it was slowing. She also wasn't sure exactly how that pompous jerk sitting in front of her was making her head spin. She hated to admit it, but she did find the school's resident convict... a little attractive, in a wicked kind of way. He was more than a little annoying, though, and she was surprised she hadn't pulled his head off .

Besides... I'm with Chris... she thought to herself half-heartedly.

"So, what, the topic's death, right? Death in the movies? Ok, I've seen the psycho-killer stuff more than once, so we're good." Jay said, interrupting her thoughts. He took notes, apparently what he had just said. Emma simply wrote 'Psycho-killers' on her paper.

"That's good. But we need other stuff too. Like the sad movies. 'A Walk To Remember'. Or Comedic stuff, like 'Jawbreaker'. You know, that stuff." Emma reached into her bag to grab another pen, as her first one just ran out of ink, and ended up dropping it off the end of the table at Jay's side.

Out fell the flyers she had just printed up to protest the play.

DOWN WITH PASSION!

Oops.

(())

Jay looked down at the pile of papers on the floor, and nearly laughed. He'd heard the school was doing a play. 'Passion'? What the hell was that? He'd never even heard of it. But the title sounds promising... he thought, picking up a flyer. He gave Emma a smirk.

"'Passion'? You're protesting a play called 'Passion'? Are you KIDDING me?" He said, looking from the flyer, to her, and back to the flyer again.

She glared at him. "The play is inappropriate. It involves sex and sensitive issues surrounding insanity."

He knew he was probably going to regret it, but he just had to play with this one. He couldn't help himself.

"And this doesn't have anything to do with the blatantly known fact that you've never had any... passion yourself, does it?" he asked snidely. Emma glowered at him and he held back snickers.

"No. It doesn't." She picked up the papers and arranged them in a stack.

"Are you sure?" he asked in a faintly seductive tone. Emma took a deep breath before she answered.

"Yes, I am. Now, back to this." She put the papers back into her bag, avoiding Jay's lengthy stare.

Jay was laughing like hell inside. It was just too funny, too typical. The goody-two-shoes protesting a play that had sex in it. He really needed to play with this a little more some time. Bit by bit he was starting to see what pushed Emma past her icy attitude. He was now sure of his own assessment. Emma was definitely the uptight, stuck-up, goody-goody tree-hugger he thought she was. It was too priceless. He was most definitely not going to give this one up. That play was going to be hanging over her head until she was out of highschool/his life forever.

Emma jotted down a few more notes. "Plus, there's a ton of movies about people trying to cash in on wills. In fact, I bet if we counted all the movies that involved death in the plot's main format, I'd bet we'd come up with thousands. Death causes great feelings, usually feelings of grief, anger, or some kind of passion." Emma looked like she wanted to take that last word back, but it was too late. Jay had caught it, and he was going to jump on it.

"You know, I think you just can't get your mind off that play..." He began with a smirk.

"Just drop it, okay?" Emma stated. "I have to go, anyway." She stood quickly, grabbing her bag and heading for the door. Jay watched her go and smirked to himself.

The blonde may be uptight, and seriously stubborn...

But...

She is kinda cute when she gets all flustered like that...

Jay folded his hands behind his head as he leaned back in his chair. He would hold that over her head for the entire project. If he could, that is. He knew it wouldn't be long before she and Cameron got back together again and got all lovey-dovey. This would bring his taunts to an end if he wanted to keep Cameron around.

Emma... The chick had guts. He couldn't name another girl who really charged at him like she did. When she got angry, he had learned by watching Sean that everyone should get out of the way... FAST. When she wanted her voice heard, she shouted at the top of her lungs and made sure everyone knew her opinion. If she wanted to protest a play, he was pretty sure she would bring it down.

He'd never really known a girl like that.

Sighing, Jay picked up his backpack. He stuck the flyer in it and walked out the door.