Welcome to New Haven (5 page)

A: No problem.
 
See you at home.
 
Text me when you get there.x

His phone beeped almost immediately.

D:
 
As always. X

“Dev’s gone to the store with the girls, so she won’t be back.
 
Riss is going to give her a ride home”
 
Alex said to Ben as they headed into their class.

“Cool.
 
My ears will get a rest.”
 
Ben said with a smirk.

 
Alex just shook his head as he took his seat.
 

He noticed Kate sitting near the front of the class, and she winked at him when he saw her looking at him.
 
He looked away and down to his books.
 
He’d thought she’d gone to lunch with Dev.
 
Unless they’d dropped her back off at school before shopping.

He dismissed it and started to read his textbook.
 
He didn’t even finish a sentence when his thoughts were taken over by a pair of green eyes…

Later that day, when Alex had gotten home from school, he’d gone to speak to Dev but she was busy talking on her phone.

“I know!
 
I can’t believe he actually said that to you!
 
What a creep.
 
I don’t know why some guys think they have a right to speak to us that way, I mean, ugh! It was disgusting!”
 
she was saying to whomever was on the other end of the phone.
 

“Well what you said back to him was hilarious!
 
My milkshake almost came out of my nose!” Dev started to laugh. “Well, I’ll let you go and do your stuff.
 
I’ll see you at school tomorrow.
 
Bye.”

Dev ended the call and Alex went into his room, not letting Dev see that he’d been listening to her conversation.
 
Maybe she’d been speaking to Kate.
 
He didn’t think so.
 
From the way she’d approached Alex, and her constant staring at him in class, he didn’t think she’d have a problem with a guy saying something ‘disgusting’ or whatever Dev had meant.
 
Probably Riss or Kayla.
 
They could shoot a guy down with just a ‘look’.
 
He’d seen it himself.

Some guy, a senior from last year, had approached the pair of them and had suggested the three of them get ‘busy’ together.
 
The girls had just stood still, deadpan looks on their faces and didn’t say a word.
 
The guy had just turned and walked away.
 
As soon as he’d gone, they’d picked up their conversation again if nothing had happened.

“Alex, ¿Puedes ayudar a poner la mesa, por favor?”
 
His mom shouted.

They spoke a lot of Spanish at home, unless there were guests who didn’t speak the language. He rarely spoke Spanish to Dev at school though, because it attracted attention to them.
 
People would listen in on their conversations.
 
Regardless if they could understand them.

There were comments about them sounding ‘hot as fuck’ when they spoke.
 
Guys would be looking over Dev, they did anyway because she was pretty, but even more so when they heard her talking in Spanish.

He hated their drooling over his sister.
 
He’d heard how the guys talked about girls, around the school, and he’d gotten pissed on more than a few occasions when his sisters’ name had been mentioned in said conversations.
 
He’d even beat up a guy who had grabbed Dev’s ass during their discussion.

Alex had been suspended for a week, due to fighting, but he’d never heard anything mentioned about Dev in front of him again, so it had been worth it.
 

“Sí. Yo voy a estar ahi.”
 
He called back.

Alex walked down the stairs to the dining room to set the table for dinner.

Dev walked in, still smiling happily from, he assumed, the phone conversation she’d just had.
 

“Hola. Qué pasa?”
 
She said as she grabbed some drinking glasses from the cabinet.

They continued to talk, in Spanish, about their Mom and Dads day.
 
Their Mom was a Doctor and their Dad, a surgeon.
 
They both worked at the same hospital but Evie, their Mom, ran the clinic department.

She’d been one of the doctors that had done the usual rounds on the wards, diagnosing people, getting them set up with medication, etc.
 
But, the long hours had meant she would be spending too much time away from him and Dev, so she transferred to the clinic department and was the main practitioner there.

Their Dad Ramiro, ‘Rami’, as he liked to be called, walked in and began helping Evie with setting out the food for dinner.
 

“So…”
 
he said, but keeping their conversation in Spanish. “How was school today kids?”

“Oh it was great!”
 
Said Dev excitedly.
 
“There’s a new girl, in my homeroom that started today and she’s really great.
 
She moved here a few weeks ago with her Mom and Step-Dad.”
 
She said as she sat down at the table.
 

“We went out with Riss and Kayla for lunch time, and they like her a lot too.
 
She’s so funny and her accent is awesome!
 
Not like the usual English accents you hear on TV.”
 

That caught Alex’s attention.
 

“English?
 
Kate’s from Texas.” He said as his heart began thundering in his chest.
 

Calm down, man, get a grip!

Images of Holly, looking up at him, in the hallway flooded his mind.

Her back as she walked away and her ass…
 

“Kate?
 
Why would I be with Kate?
 
Ew that girl’s a ‘
horreh
’…”
 
Dev said with a smile.

Alex sipped his water as Dev continued.
 

“…I was with Holly.
 
The English girl in my homeroom.
 
She taught me some slang words. ‘
Horreh
’ is the way she says
‘horror’.
 
So funny!”

Alex choked on his water at the mention of Holly’s name.
 

“Alex, are you ok?”
 
said Evie as she patted Alex on the back.
 

“Yeah, it’s just…I thought Dev was talking about somebody else.” He replied.

“Who else would I be talking about?”
 
Dev asked.

“When you said you were going to lunch with the new girl, I thought you meant Kate.”

“Oh
God
no!”
 
Said Dev, shaking her head.
 
“I meant Holly.”

“I thought she was foreign at first.”
 

“Why?
 
Couldn’t you understand her? Her accent isn’t that thick. I could understand her easily.”

“It’s not that.
 
I said ‘
hi
’ in the hallway, and she didn’t say anything.”
 
Alex told them about the one-sided conversation he’d had with Holly in the hallway.

“She’s a little shy, I guess.”
 
Dev said with a shrug.
 
Alex shrugged his shoulders with indifference, and finished his dinner.

Once they’d helped clean up, Alex went to his room.
 

“Holly.” He whispered, with a face splitting grin.
 

The rest of dinner had been filled with conversations that Alex hadn’t been able to pay attention to.
 
All he could think about was Holly. He’d been trying to replay the scene over in his head.
 
The way she’d looked up at him as she’d nearly walked into him.
 
She’d stared right into his eyes, before lowering them to his mouth.
 
Possibly because he was openly staring at
her
with his mouth hanging open before actually speaking to her.
 

She probably thinks I’m an idiot.
I just stared right at her and assumed she was foreign.
 
Stupid. Stupid!

Alex double checked his schedule, to see when his next A.Eng class was.
 
He didn’t know whether any of his other classes were with Holly, except for that one.
 
Thursday.
 
He would definitely see her on Thursday.

He took a deep breath and let it out slowly.
 

“What the fuck is wrong with me?”
 
He quietly to himself.
 

One girl, one chance meeting and he was undone.
 
His heart rate had doubled that day.
 
His pants had gotten tight in the groin area every time a thought of Holly entered his mind.
 

“Shit…What has she done to me?”

Chapter 3

Holly entered the school building and began walking towards homeroom.
 
Her stomach was in knots, thinking if she might run into Hot-guy again.

She hadn’t mentioned anything to Dev, or Riss, and Kayla who she’d met for lunch, about him.
 
She’d liked Riss and Kayla straight away. They were quite similar in personality to Dev, yet so different too.
 
They were also taller than Holly, as most people were, and they’d
looked
more like sisters than cousins
.
They’d put that down to their Mums being identical twins.
 

The biggest difference between them was their hair colour.
 
They both had blue eyes, but whilst Kayla had blonde hair, down to the middle of her back,
 
Riss had light brown hair that was the same length.

They’d had fun, chatting at lunch, and when they’d asked about Holly’s first day she’d omitted details about Hot-guy scrambling her brain.
 
Talking about their Mums being twins had gotten Holly thinking about Dev’s twin brother.

Dev had spoken a lot about him and Holly could tell that they were close.
 
She hadn’t met him yet, and she’d wondered if they were similar.
 
With their heritage, he would obviously have the same colouring, but there were quite a few students like that at their school.

There was a niggling in her stomach, but she ignored it, putting it down to nerves at meeting new people.

Holly was so embarrassed at the way she had frozen in front of Hot-guy.

He must think I’m
a divvie.

Just another girl staring at his beautiful face.
 
She didn’t know how, but she knew that wasn’t just who he was.
 
Her gut told her that he was a sweet, caring person.
 
Smart
and
funny too.
 
Beautiful inside and out.

Why couldn’t I say anything?
She'd thought to herself the night before.

Holly couldn’t understand why she’d acted that way.
 
Usually, anybody who’d spoken to her, regardless of gender, she would answer without hesitation and just go about her day.
 
But, this guy…she’d been lost for words.

Because you like him!
Her mind screamed at her.

There was no way on earth she could like somebody
that
way
that
soon.
 
Heck, she didn’t even know what it felt like to like anybody who wasn’t a family member.

The ‘other’ kind of ‘like’ had never even entertained her thoughts.
 
Ever.

Holly turned the corner, into the Hallway where they’d met the day before.
 
He wasn’t there, and she breathed a sigh of relief, but she also felt a twinge of disappointment that he
wasn’t
there.

What the hell?

She didn’t even
know
him!
 

Holly shook the feeling away and continued on her way to the homeroom.
 
The mass of students that she was trying to get through, suddenly parted, allowing her to freely walk and actually see where she was going.

The last corner was when she felt the tingling in her arms. Her pulse rate increased and when she turned the corner, he was there.

Hot-guy was standing near to her homeroom, leaning casually against the wall, talking to a group of guys.
 
She knew she had to get past him so she put her head down and moved her legs as fast as she could, without running, to get to the room without him noticing her.

Holly glanced up as she got closer, just in time to see Stacey draping herself over his arm and into his side.

She must be his girlfriend
she thought as her face heated.
 

Of course he had a girlfriend!! But why Stacey?
 
She was a horrible cow.
 
He hadn’t seemed the type to have that kind of person in their life.
 
As Holly got closer, she heard Hot-guys’ voice.

“Stacey, stop it.” He spat, but she didn’t hear anything else as she entered the room.

Holly walked over to her desk and took her seat next to Dev.
 
They began chatting about their night when Stacey walked into the door, with the girl that had sat next to her the previous day.
 
‘Cerise’ Dev had said her name was.

Holly looked towards Stacey as she headed to her desk, and she looked annoyed.

“Stacey is a huge flirt and she’s also
very
promiscuous” Dev whispered as she leant in towards Holly.

“I just saw her, outside the room, draping herself over a guy.
 
I though she was his girlfriend at first, when I saw how she was looking at him, but he told her to ‘stop it’”
 
Holly explained.

“Yeah, she does that to my brother
all
of the time and he hates it.
 
She’s been trying to get him to hook up with her for the past two years. She doesn’t seem to understand that though. He doesn’t like her at all, not one little bit.
 
He doesn’t like it when girls come on to him because of how he looks. It irritates the hell out of him. To be honest, he just wants to be left alone.” Dev said as she glanced back at Stacey.