*Work from 2010, original, not about HSM, the picture just fit*

I sighed quietly as my Chemistry teacher ended today’s lesson after assigning some problems dealing with binary acids and balancing equations. I usually waited until I got home to do my homework, but I really need to do well in this class after the 40% I got on that last quiz. I opened my notebook and started looking at the problems, which confused the heck out of me by just the way they looked. I looked back up at the notes that were still on the board before picking up my pencil, glancing at the clock to see that we had still seven minutes until the last bell, and started trying to solve the problem.

Five minutes later, this was the answer I came up with:

Na2S+O2-> O2S+Na3

That didn’t seem right at all, but hey, maybe it was. Wanting to make sure I was doing this right before I went home and did it completely and utterly wrong, I tapped Noel Conrad, the smart guy sitting in front of me, also working on the problems. Noel and I were usually matched evenly with grades and GPAs in all the other classes but he was doing much better than me in Chem, especially after that quiz.

He turned around and glanced at me with his chocolate brown eyes and smiled slightly. You see, we always have these little competitions on who can do better and have been like best buds since seventh grade.

“Yeah, Jo?” he asked quietly since the teacher said we could only talk very quietly.

“Is this what you got for the first one?” I replied with a hopeless half-smile, which he grinned at. He knew I had trouble in this class and usually didn’t tease me when he did better than me in the class. He knew when to and when not to tease me and this was a definitely not situation because I cared as much as him about my grades. That was one of the reasons we did this to help each other strive to do better throughout high school. We planned on going to the same college and do it there as well since we would be taking the same classes. We planned on opening an orthopedic clinic together one day.

Noel looked over his shoulder at me, his eyes cast down at my notebook, and I couldn’t help but notice how fudging HOT he looked. Sorry, I don’t curse so I improvise words like fudging. But he really did look hot.

“You tell me,” he said in a deep whisper which him sound so, so, so hot it wasn’t even funny.

I pretended to study his notebook but couldn’t really focus on the numbers and symbols because my brain was in a haze over the way he had just sounded. I nodded faintly just as the bell rang and managed to choke out a ‘thanks.’

As we stood up to go home for the day, I realized I had a monster crush on Noel Conrad.