p style="text-align: left;" strongDaisy/strongbr /br /The first morning back to school always brought along an extra layer of chaos. Not to mention when someone happens to be slightly hungover, and clearly still fuming about something that happened the night before. Peach watches Daisy stomp and huff around Rosalina's bedroom. Rosalina was the last one taking a shower in the bathroom, currently singing along to a song playing on her blue-tooth speaker. Peach's eyes wrinkle with concern as she gets up and reaches out to put a hand on Daisy's /br /"Daisy, you woke up angrier than a hornet disturbed from its nest… What's wrong? You've been upset since last night, and we promised each other, no secrets," Peach urges her. Daisy could see the concern and the mothering look her best friend was giving her. Part of her wants to relent and tell her, but the stubborn part wasn't ready to give up /br /"It was nothing. Just the party was stupid, not very fun, and I have a headache for having gotten nothing out of it," she answers, crossing her arms. "You'd have thought of all cheer-girls Rachel would know how to throw a party. Talk about embarrassing when she found out we left after an hour!"br /br /"Daisy… I don't think you're upset about the party," Peach finally states firmly. She then sighs and shakes her head. "Who upset you? Did Rachel say something to you? Do you need me to have a talk with someone? Please tell me this has nothing to do with the routine and Janet again?"br /br /"Hey, that bitch totally copied my idea for the routine we're doing that everyone just loooves so much! She changed on thing and the rest of it was my idea!" Daisy snaps before sighing and rolling her eyes. "Whatever, no, it's not about her."br /br /"Then… which boy pissed you off?" It was only in these times that Daisy regretted having Peach as a best friend for so long. She knew how Daisy ticked, what set her off, and knows only a handful of things can make her anger carry over into the next day. And she was right. It was about a stupid boy who pissed her /br /"You know what? I hate you. I hate how you just always seem to know I'm upset and what it's about, that's not fair," Daisy complains, finally giving it up. Her shoulders slump and she flops back on the bed. Peach giggles and goes back to her makeup sitting on Rosalina's desk. She goes back to finishing blending her blush before opening up her rosy neutral eyeshadow palette. Daisy had already finished getting ready, but with her huffing and flopping around, she may need to check on her hair one more time before they /br /"It's intuition, dear. Now, what happened? And what stupid boy crossed your path last night?" the blond girl asks. Before Daisy could open her mouth, Rosalina stepped out of the bathroom, hair still wrapped in a towel. She was in a flowing white blouse and /br /"Oh, is Daisy going to tell us who she was mad at last night?" she asks as she walks past the other two girls towards her closet to find some /br /"Okay, okay! Look. When I was getting our drinks, I turned, and I tripped and fell on this guy, and he caught me. But I had poured beer all over me and him," Daisy started. Peach immediately looks over, eyes /br /"Oh my gosh, Daisy! You had a full rom-com moment!" she squeals in delight. Obviously she already forgot the part where Daisy was mad at this idiot, not thinking of him as some amazing knight in shining armor who caught her before she fell and twisted her ankle. Or likely just dumped the beer all over herself on the floor like a total /br /"Ew, no! This was far from it" Daisy argues, sitting up to shoot a glare at her best friend. Said best friend stifles a small laugh before waving her to continue telling the story while she finished her makeup. "Anyway… I apologized, and he basically made fun of me and started talking down to me. Saying stupid shit like 'You should slow down' and 'I'd recommend going home before you make any other mistakes' , like, huh?!"br /br /"Well… to be fair, Daze. You were pretty wobbly last night, and maybe he meant for it to be nice, but it came out wrong?" Rosalina chimes in from the back of her closet. She then walks out, holding a pair of cream, white, and pink sneakers. "He could have good intentions but bad execution." br /br /"Girl, you better not be taking his side right now! You don't even know everything yet!" Daisy says, now shooting a glare at her other best friend. Rosa winces back slightly and looks away from her. br /br /"I'm not taking his side, I don't even know him. Please, continue."br /br /"Okay, y'all think he's some white knight who was there to whisk me off my feet? Okay, when I told him I didn't ask for an opinion, or a lecture from him, he then went on talking about how he was giving me a warning. Me? A warning? About bad people in the world? Yeah, really had the audacity to point out there's shitty people who would see my hot gorgeous self and would try to take advantage of me. Then said instead of getting upset with him I should drink some water and sit down, can you believe that?"br /br /Rosalina and Peach both look to each other. Neither of them immediately spoke up for agreement with her about the audacity of this man to lecture her. And they both seem to be thinking something. Daisy narrows her eyes and looks between the other two /br /"What?" she finally /br /"Well. Again, not to say he has any right, ah… bossing you around and telling you what to do. But he still mostly sounds… like maybe he was trying to help?" Rosalina finally says carefully, looking towards Peach for back-up. She already knew there were about to be some fighting words exchanged. The pink wearing teen stands up and moves over to Daisy, hands resting on her shoulders, breaking any line of sight between Daisy and Rosalina. She smiles at her and shakes her /br /"Daisy, it's okay. I'm sorry that you had someone, especially a man try to remind you about how dangerous the world is for women. Just because that may be true, and you and I both know that sometimes parties like these could get dangerous if we don't stick together," Peach adds in before Daisy could argue. "But it shouldn't be coming from a boy you've just met, who has no idea who you are, and what a badass woman you are."br /br /"Exactly! Peach, you had me going there, I really thought for a second you were defending him," Daisy laughs. Once again, Peach has successfully distracted and defused the Daisy Rage bomb. Peach softly fluffs out Daisy's hair before giving her a /br /"You know I'll always do my best to understand. It's what best friends do. Now, let's finish getting ready and conquer the day!" Peach declares, clapping her hands for emphasis. Rosalina smiles and nods, moving to apply some of her own /br /"Almost finished, and then we can go," Rosalina /br /br /Entering the school days was nothing new, go through the entrance, go to your lockers, hang out and talk with friends, then go to your first class before the bell starts to ding. Daisy's first class was her honors literature class. This was the class she decided to get ahead in reading the new assigned reading they would be working on today. As long as nothing else was expected for the next day or two besides notes and maybe a written assignment, she would likely not have homework in this class if she kept on pace. She was really glad when the teacher had told her what book they would start with reading first once the winter break was over. She sat down in her usual desk in the back, pulled out the assigned reading, her notebook of notes, a highlighter, sticky notes, a pencil, her planner, and got her area organized. Perfect. Everything as set exactly as she /br /The bell chimes, and the teacher walks into the class. However, she isn't alone. br /br /"Alright, sorry I'm late class! I was picking up our new student and was trying to find them a copy of the reading, but it looks like the library may have to order a few more sets! But I digress, while you're up here, how about you introduce yourself, dear?" the teacher asks. Daisy was too busy looking out the window to have acknowledged the new student. At least, until she heard their /br /"Hey. I'm L, I moved here from Brooklyn with my family. I have an older brother named Mario, and before anyone asks, yes. It does suck to change schools senior year," L's voice fills the room, and Daisy felt her body go rigid. No. Fucking. Way. He's going to this school now?! What were the odds that apparently asshole wasn't at that party from a different school but apparently scoping out the teens who go to this school. Against her better judgment, she looked towards him and immediately cursed herself for doing so. Those blue-grey eyes had already found hers. And a devious little smirk was playing across his lips. He recognized her. And she knew that he would know that too. At this point, this was a matter of pride. She wasn't going to back down, so who cared if he recognized her. He better had. She shoots him a glare and tilts her chin upwards. After a moment longer, he was the one to break their interlocked gaze to look across the /br /"Well, L, it's nice to meet you, and yes, I'm sure it's really tough having to change schools at this point of your school career. But we are so glad to have you!" the teacher goes on cheerfully, choosing to ignore the more bluntness of his last comment. She looks over the classroom before pointing to a desk. "For now, how about you have that desk, okay?"br /br /For one second, Daisy thought the teacher had pointed at specifically her desk, like she had forgotten one of her students was literally sitting in the chair. But then she remembered, looking to her left. There was one more desk. The desk on the inside corner of the classroom. Right next to Daisy. Most people didn't opt to sit in that desk, since it wasn't their favorite, and it being so pressed against the window, it sometimes made it harder to see the smartboard. L then nods and smiles over at the /br /"Sounds good, thanks," he says before walking over to the empty desk, right next to the same girl who had dumped beer on the both of them the night before. While walking by Daisy to get to his desk, his leg purposely brushes across her knee, making her body jump from the contact. br /br /"Oh, sorry. Didn't mean to startle you," he smoothly says to Daisy as he then takes a seat at his desk. "Though, I'm shocked I startled you when you watched me walk all the way up here."br /br /"I was not watching you," she quietly hisses at him. She opens up her planner to make sure she was ready to jot down any new due dates she needed to /br /"Sure. Didn't take you for a planner girl, you look more like someone who prefers the spontaneous lifestyle," he adds in quietly, setting down his book-bag to be under the desk he sat /br /"Wow, this how you get all the girls? Make assumptions about them, after you condescendingly tell them to quit drinking?" Daisy shoots at him, glaring daggers as she did so. The next sentence however, didn't come from /br /"Daisy, I'm so glad you're making friends with out new student,and helping him settle in! While you're introducing yourself, could you also pull out our assigned reading book and let L read along with you? I can jut tell you're going to be best friends in this class," the teacher calls out to them. The class rumbles with laughter, while Daisy's cheeks flush brightly with embarrassment. Before L could make a comment about their situation, she all but throws the book on to his /br /"We're not friends, ma'am. And he can borrow my copy, I've already read ahead," she /br /"I figured you had. Now, if you're not friends, then I hope you don't mind ending the conversation and paying attention, otherwise you'll assume you have to finish the book in a week. And I haven't even gotten to the fun part yet!" Uh oh. Whenever Daisy's lit teacher mentions the "fun part" that means 'Group Project'. And now that the attention was placed on the two of them…br /br /"Daisy, I hope you don't mind me volunteering you to work with our new student. After all, he is borrowing your book, I think you'll be wonderful partners!" the teacher continues. br /br /"I agree. You wouldn't let me down, right, Daisy? I don't know anyone else," L adds in, looking over at her. A smirk crosses his lips and his eyes appear to glimmer with amusement. She was already being called out in front of the whole class, she didn't need this asshole making it worse. Biting her tongue for the moment, she gives a smile towards their /br /"You know what? I'll gladly take him as my partner," Daisy then says. She looks over at her new partner and narrows her eyes at him. "He'll be lost without me."br /br /And just like that, she was now stuck with him for not only a semester of her very first class, but also for however long this project lasts./p