Bad Boy's Curse

7. Chemistry Project

~Lexi's POV~

Honestly I was excited. I mean at least I know my partner. I'm glad that I wasn't stuck with someone I don't know anything about.

I hope Ethen doesn't mind having me as his partner. What is this project all about anyways? Its probably a lab. I hope so.

"You and your partner will be meeting after school every week. Everyone will do the work. Its a team effort and I expect you to abide by the rules. I don't care where you meat. But if the assignment isn't done in 4weeks. Then you will fail." The teacher said while passing out papers for our assignment.

"As you will see on the paper I just handed out, it says that this is a lab. And you will have to do research on it. Oh, and you and your partner may choose what you will be doing the lab on. Only if its school appropriate. Think of it as a science fair."

Great, I was always good at science fairs. Science in general. I'm passing this class with a 96.

***

After school I decided to bring out my phone and ask Ethen is he wanted to come to my house to start our project.
I was thinking that we go some where to eat first then we start the project. I'm hungry.

Grrr! That was my stomach. Huh, talk about perfect timing.
Fine with me.

I started my car and a thought hit me. I pulled over the car on the side of the road and took out my phone and started texting Ethen before the thought left my mind.
Where. I don't know where I'm going.

It took him a little bit to reply back.
Text me your address and I'll pick you up there.

So I texted him my address and headed home. When I got home I parked my truck in the garage, And went up to my room to do homework for a while. I put on some music from my phone and set it to country– I can't work unless I have some sort of music, at school I manage. But its not as easy.

About a half-an-hour later, there was a knock on the door. I heard Ben run from his room to go get it. My mom is at work and Miranda is too lazy to get it. "Lexi! Your wanted!" I heard him shout from downstairs.

"Just a second!" I yelled back. I finished getting ready. I just grabbed my laptop and put it in its case and brought some books. I ran down stairs with my book bag hitting my back with every step. I heard Ben and Ethen talking about . . . cars I think. "Ya man, I got a little Toyota out front." Ethen pointed a thumb blindly above his shoulder. I cleared my throat.

"Sorry to Interrupt your romance, but we gotta get going." They both turned to look at the new voice in the room. I walked over to Ethen and grabbed his arm and tugged him towards the door. But he just stayed put. 'Curse my little weak arms!'

"Be good. Don't have too much fun" Ben winked at me. I rolled my eyes.

"Uh, its not like that." Ethen stated. I admit; that kinda hurt.

"Sure its not. Hurt her, and getting her home late will be the least of your worries." Ethen tensed up. 'What's his issue?'

He turned toward the door and grabbed my wrist. So I quickly waved bye to Ben then shut the door behind me. We walked to his truck and I got in the passenger seat and he went in the drivers seat. He blew out some air from his cheeks. He does that when he is trying to calm down. He did that yesterday when I asked him why he is called the bad boy.

"What's got your panties in a knot?" I buckled up and shifted to get comfy in the seat.

"Nothing." He said quickly. 'There it is again, I'm just gonna drive us off a cliff. Nothing to worry about.' Ugh.

"What do you mean nothing? . . ." I teased.

"I said nothing isn't that good enough!" He raised his voice so it sounded like was yelling. His face turned red from anger. I looked down to my lap where I sat my book bag. I don't like it when people yell at me. It makes me feel uncomfortable, or like I did something really bad. My stomach knotted.

He put his head in his hands and slid them in his ruffled hair and exalted. "I'm sorry. I–I just, who was that guy?" He kept his eyes on the dash board.

"My brother, Ben. Why?"

He closed his eyes, and relaxed his shoulders. He opened them and turned on the car. "Just bad experiences with guys that are 'protective' over a girl." He backed out of the drive way and headed down the street I wasn't familiar with.

"If you don't mind me asking, but does it have something to do with why you are now the 'bad boy'? And Ben is my brother."

"Ya and I know that, now." His eyes drifted over to me for a split second.

"Oh" I didn't want to push on asking what happened.

"Ok fine I'll tell you," Wasn't expecting that, but okay. "Okay so I liked this girl, right, and apparently she had a boyfriend. But I didn't know that so I asked her out and she said yes. So I was doing what all boyfriends do with their girlfriends. And her boyfriend saw us and he flipped out on me. So I kinda flipped out on him. And I won. And he got sent to the hospital." He finished parking in a parking lot of a restaurant.

Hospital? Wow. Remind me not get him angry.

"Wow. Where are we?" I looked at the place where we were parked.

"Rigitoni's, and before you say so, its not a pasta place. Its actually a fast food place." Good. I'm not much of a pasta person anyway.

When we walked in there was only like a couple people in there. And they were almost done with their meals. We sat ourselves down at a booth. And looked at our menu's on the table. The waitress saw us sitting and came to take our orders. "Hello, my name is Gale and I'll be your waitress tonight. Are you ready to order?"

She brought out her pen and paper and wrote down our orders. I just ordered some fries and a salad.

"So when we gonna start this project thing?" I asked breaking the silence.

"I don't know. In a bit I want to eat first." He said while Gale brought us our food.

***

"How about this?" I asked pointing to a potato generator picture on my laptop.

"Na, too over used." Ethen scrolled down to see more things we could do for the project. "Why can't we make up our own. And not copy one from other people?"

"Why, do you have an idea?" I looked at him in disbelief.

"Maybe I do. Maybe I don't." He continued scrolling through ideas on the internet.

Ding! The bell on the door rang, with a couple guys coming in. Ethen's head shot up on hearing that noise. He tensed and he didn't remove his gaze from the group of guys. "Do you know them?" I whispered over to Ethen so only he could hear me. His fingers when from flat out on the keyboard into fists. I take it he knew one of the guys there.

"Ya" he more-or-less whispered back.

"Who are they?"

"That tall guy there," he pointed over to the one sitting alone in a booth with his friends on the other side."that's Jimmy."

"Who's Jimmy, like what did he do?"

"That's the guy I sent to the hospital."

A/N
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