Drake's POV:

I stepped around Taylor and walked away with a smile on my face as she tried to hold onto my hand as long as possible. Before I turned the corner I glanced back and saw Taylor worrying her lip. I kept the smile on my face as I turned the corner in the hopes that she wouldn't worry about me.

I followed the guard down the hallway and stopped at the reception area of Gloria's office.

"Come on in Drake," Gloria's voice chimed through her open door. I swallowed nervously as I entered her pristine office. She motions to the seat in front of her and I lower myself into it. "How are things going Drake? Are you enjoying exploring Edendale?" I almost laughed at her words but the look on her face told me to keep quiet.

"Yes mam and everything is fine," I say slowly, becoming suspicious of her actions and words.

"Well, I regret to inform you that due to a certain incident this morning, you will not be allowed to step foot in the town until further notice." She says firmly.

"What?" I say dumbly even though I understood perfectly well what she just said.

"You have lost your privileges due to your attendance record and the incident with Eric this morning."

"You can't do that! Friday I have a-" I cut myself off before I can dig a hole I can't find my way out of.

"You have a what Drake?" I sigh contemplating whether or not to tell her. On the one hand she could have me thrown out of the program but on the other hand she may be the only person wanting Taylor and myself to be together.

"I have a date with Taylor this Friday night," I say quietly and slowly.

"A date? With Taylor? The Taylor that manages the football team?" She asks raising her eyebrows so high I think they might fly off her face.

"Yea," I say rubbing the back of my neck nervously, "we were going to go to the town and have dinner then catch a movie before curfew."

"Well I'm sorry this ruins your plans but I cannot allow you to go unpunished; however, I can offer you an alternative date night. You and Taylor can have the school to yourselves, along with a few SEU guards for security purposes only, you can watch a movie her and I'll even allow the food dispenser machines to remain on so you can order whatever you like."

"That sounds nice but I already ruined our date night I am not making Taylor eat Cafeteria food."

"Well think about my offer and let me know later," I started to stand up but she put up her hand, "Also I wanted to talk to you about what the coach told me. He said you have quite an arm on you."

"Yeah, I guess, but I'm not interested in being another poster child for integration." Gloria's face falls and I quickly add, "Don't get me wrong, I think the program is a good idea, but I don't want to put Taylor under that kind of pressure."

"I understand but I think that this could be exactly what the program needs," she inhaled and looked pained as she said, "and it could help lead to greater rights for all Atrians."

I gawked at her. Way to pull the guilt trip card Gloria. Well played. I admired her ability to hit me right where it hurts. She knows the only reason I agreed to the program in the first place was my desire to help Atrians gain better/ more rights.

"I'll consider it," She nods and dismisses me back to class.

I stop by my locker one more time to get extra paper to write a note to taylor.

Taylor,

I'm so sorry to say this but we have to change our date a bit. We're still on for Friday but we need to meet here at the school instead. Can't wait for Friday! Talk to you soon!

Drake

I walked into class and Taylor's head shoots up meeting my gaze. I nod my head and she visibly relaxes. I noticed her books were perched precariously on her desk. I sit behind her so I moved a little too close to her books and knocked them to the floor. The other students laughed and the teacher looked at us funny but said nothing. She bent to pick them up and I took this opportunity to slip the note into her palm. She closes her fist around the note and sits back in her chair. I scoop up the rest of her books and place them on her desk before taking my seat behind her. I see her open the note and look down at it. She scans the note before crumpling it up and throwing it in her bag. I hope she isn't mad at me for changing our date.

The bell rang and I stood up following Taylor out of the classroom. I noticed she was carrying a few binders she couldn't fit in her bag so I gently took them from her. She smiled up at me and walked into the cafeteria. I got in line first and Taylor was right behind me. She was oddly close to me so I looked behind her to tell the guy to back up but there was no one there. I smiled to myself and bumped her elbow with mine. She smiled up at me and looked at the menu.

"So Gloria didn't suspend you?" She asks as she orders a salad from the display board.

"No- well she was going to, but I told her I had a date with the hottest girl in the school." I wiggle my eyebrows suggestively at her and she snorts in annoyance but I can see a smile threatening to light up her face.

"You told her we have a date and she didn't shoot you?"

"I figure she wants the program to succeed, so why not support two people from the program dating?" I shrug and randomly choose an option from the board.

"Yeah but what's the catch?" she whispers, "There's always a catch right?"

"I don't really know yet. She talked about me being on the football team and being the next big spokesperson for integration but nothing else really."

"She wants you to go public with your life?" she sounded put out and her shoulders slumped slightly.

"You don't want me to do that?"

"No. It's just… The more your face gets out there the more I have to worry about creepy, obsessive fan girls hanging your poster at eye level so they can pretend to make out with you." I laugh at the thought of anyone having a picture of my face hanging on their wall and kissing it. "Once girls get one look at you they'll be all over you."

"Well then I guess it's a good thing I have only eyes for one person." She flushed a lovely shade of pink and reaches into her bag for lunch tokens. The older lady at the checkout lines scowls at me and then beams brightly at Taylor as she hands her two tokens. "Hey you don't have to pay for me,"

"I know, I want to." She smiles at the old lady and walks off to find a table.

"Should I sit with you, or do you want to sit with me and my friends? Maybe meet a few of them?"

"I say we sit together and let the rumors fly." She says dangerously. She takes my hand firmly and struts to a nearby table and I have no choice but to follow behind her.

"Everyone's staring," I say under my breath as I sit down and deposit our books on the seat next to me.

"No, not everyone- oh wait that guy just looked. Now everyone's staring at us." She opened her salad and grabbed the cheese cup setting it aside and picking up the dressing packet. I looked around me and I swear that my skin started crawling worse with each set of eyes I made contact with. It wasn't in my nature to draw attention to myself but Taylor was a magnet for attention. She thrived in it, which was one of the things I admired about her. She was poised under pressure and never let anyone see that she was feeling uncomfortable.

"How are you so calm?" I voiced my inner monologue.

"I'm not ashamed to be who I want to be, or to be seen with someone who may be a little different than me. Also, not to sound conceited but people have been staring at me since I hit puberty. You get used to it." She smiled at me and I nodded trying to wrap my head around this new found attention.

As I sat there thinking about my new life I felt the back of my neck start to heat up like it does when something is sneaking up behind me.

"What the hell are you doing here with this Tattie?" Some guy says walking up to Taylor and putting his hand around her arm and pulling her to her feet. I stood up quickly ready to protect Taylor when she surprised me. She pulled her arm free of his grip and sharply threw her fist out and caught the guy square in the nose. I heard a crunch and blood spurted from his nose. He crumpled to the floor and Taylor stood above him looking down at him, her chest heaving with the breath she took in. She met my gaze and I felt my hearts skip a beat. She looked fierce- warrior fierce; like she belonged with my tribe. I couldn't help the grin that spread across my face at that thought. Taylor smiled shyly at me and turned around to pack up our lunches. She held out her hand which I took and helped her step over the idiot who was still laying on the ground holding his nose.

"Where are we going?" I asked as Taylor leads us out of the lunchroom.

"To our place," she said simply as she pulled me along beside her.

We entered the greenhouse and I smiled as I realized she had called this "our place". I sat against the cabinet on the far wall and motioned to Taylor to recline against me. She tucked herself into my body and we fit like two halves of something I can't think of right now because she turned around and started kissing me. I kissed her back and smiled as she moaned. I pulled back but kept her close with a hand on her cheek. Her eyes gleamed as she looked at me and I knew this is exactly where I want to be.

I remembered I had another gift for her so I reached for my backpack. Taylor watched me curiously as I handed her the package. She unwrapped it slowly and I laughed.

"Come on I'm not saving the wrapping." I chastised. She laughed with me and tore the paper off. She stared at it for a few seconds before smelling it.

"What is it?" Taylor asked turning the sweet over in her hands.

"It's like honeycomb, but a less sweet version," I take it from her and break off a small piece. She opens her mouth as I feed it to her. Her eyes open wide and I smile at the look of surprise on her face. I break off a piece for me but she steals it from my hand and pops it into her mouth before I can stop her. She grins at me cheekily and I laugh. "So you like it?" I say still chuckling.

"You could say that I like it. Is it from the Sector too?" I pause unsure of what she means by that, but then I remember I gave her flowers from the Sector.

"Yeah it is. We cultivate a lot of our own food and materials. It helps us avoid problems with the Humans trying to cheat us or poison us," I say quickly without thinking. I look up at Taylor to see what her reaction will be. She has a thoughtful look on her face and then she sadly smiles at me and buries her face in my shoulder.

"Like what happened to Sophia." she whispers so softly I wonder if she even spoke those words or if I imagined it.

"Yeah, not everyone is as accepting of Atrians as you are," I wound my arms around Taylor hugging her.

"I wish there was somewhere we could go to be free of this whole different species nonsense." Taylor tucks herself under my chin and sighs. I kissed the side of her head and rested my head on top of hers.

After a few minutes of comfortable silence and just holding eachother, I looked down at Taylor and saw her cradling the hand she had used to punch the jerk in the face.

"Are you okay?" I ask gently taking her hand in mine.

"I guess the adrenaline finally wore off." I examine her hand turning it over and looking for obvious injuries. "What do you have medical training?" Taylor asks as I continue to examine her hand.

"When you're from a warrior tribe you get injured so eventually you learn to spot easy breaks and sprains," I pressed my hand against her knuckles carefully and she flinched. I pressed one at a time until I got to her middle knuckle nd she pulled her hand away.

"OW!" she said rather obviously.

"You may have sprained your hand when you punched that asshole," I say.

"Drake! Watch your language!" she said sounding scandalized but her eyes were sparkling so I knew she was joking.

"I'm glad you hit him otherwise I would have had to go all psycho on him and he would have had a lot worse than a broken nose."

"I broke his nose?" she asks shocked.

"You probably broke his ego too," I say amused. I gently detangle us and stand offering her a hand up.

"Where are we going now?"

"I want the nurse to take a look at your hand first and then we are going back to class because the bell is going to ring," She picked up her bag and turned to walk away. I wasn't quite ready to see her walk away so I grabbed her uninjured hand and spun her around to face me. She was surprised but when I leaned down she tipped her head up without missing a beat. We kissed slowly and when I pulled away conscience of the time we had left. She smiled up at me and took my hand. I walked backward taking Taylor with me to the Nurse.