Managing Boys

Managing Boys (30)

School the next week was awkward. I didn't talk to Ash or Grim.

I didn't know if I wanted to tell Ash the real reason I was breaking up with him or not. I mean, it was a really uncomfortable topic. And I didn't want to embarrass him or let him know how hurt I was.

And then there was Grim. We were still completely avoiding each other. Actually, I was avoiding him much more than he was avoiding me.

When I saw a small slip of paper sticking out of my English book during first period, I frowned. I pulled it out and was surprised to see that it was a note.

Aria,

I need to talk to you. Meet me in the cafeteria an hour after school, please. I don't want anyone interrupting us. It's important.

                                                                                                        Grim

Seeing Grim's familiar handwriting made me kind of sad. Why did he want to talk to me? Every time we talked, it always ended the same. Nothing changed and both of us just ended up upset.

I looked over at the blonde, who quickly looked away from me when I caught him looking. What could he want to talk about that we hadn't already discussed?

"Alright, everyone," Mrs. Banks called out from the front of the room, grabbing everyone's attention. "We'll be starting a new project today. I was nice enough this time to let you choose your own partners."

Oh, no. That was never good, especially now. All the girls wanted to be partners with Hello Aria while I really didn't want to be partnered with any of them. But, of course, all four of them wanted to be partners with me.

"Ben," I called out, snatching his arm before some other girl could. "Do you want to be my partner?"

I'd rather be partners with Ben than any of the other members of Hello Aria. Grim would have been too awkward, Ash knew something was wrong between us, and Sawyer was catching on that something was going on. So it was safe to pick the stupidest member of Hello Aria.

"So, are you going to tell me what's wrong or what?" was the first thing Ben asked me once we were situated.

Okay, so maybe he wasn't very stupid at all.

I didn't even look up from the poster we were supposed to be working on. "Or what."

"Aria." Ben rolled his eyes at me, and I wasn't used to him acting so seriously. "It's obvious that you're hiding something and Grim knows about it. Something's going on between the two of you that the rest of us don't know about."

I pursed my lips. If I were to tell Ben anything, it wasn't going to be in the middle of class, especially when Grim was on the other side of the room watching us.

"Nothing's going on," I lied.

He still didn't look like he believed me. "Aria."

"Look, can we just work on this?" I asked, not even meaning to. "We were given this time in class to work on our project, not gossip."

"Am I going to see you after school?" Ben asked me now.

I shook my head. "Probably not. I'm going to meet Grim in the cafeteria. He left me a note that said he wanted to see me, for some reason."

This only made Ben even more suspicious, but he said nothing else and we continued to work. I was definitely thankful for that. 

The rest of the school day went by like it usually did. I avoided Ash and Grim, Ian tried to talk to me and I rudely ignored him, and Zoey and Parker were acting like a cute couple. I couldn't help but feel a little jealous of them.