She quickly grabbed the girl"s hand and shook it together with Lucius so it turned into a three way hand shake. "Ariana Drake, pleasure to become friends." She said happily. "Lucius Malone." Lucius replied and then they both looked at the mousy girl. "Gertrude Stein." She answered. "A pleasure!" Ariana shouted. "What are you guys up to?" Edlyn asked as she walked up to the small group. Ariana released her hand and turned to face Ariana. "Making new friends!" Ariana announced happily. "That"s great!" Edlyn rejoiced as she hugged Ariana. She then peeked over Ariana"s shoulder and caught sight of Lucius and Gertrude. She gave them a sweet smile but the message reflected in her eyes was shocking. Hurt my friend, I"ll come after you.
Lucius looked at Gertrude and Gertrude looked at Lucius. Gertrude almost fainted from embarra.s.sment when she realized she was still holding Lucius"s hand and she pulled back right away. She excused herself and scurried to her seat. Ariana pulled herself from the hug and called after Gertrude. "Since we"re friends now please come to me when you have any problems. I will always be there for you."
Gertrude hesitated before sitting down and looked at Ariana. She saw that Ariana was dead serious, there was no smile, just a stone faced girl and she couldn"t help but smile. Her face flushed slightly as she nodded her head then sat down. Ariana turned to Lucius, still completely expressionless. "You too. No matter what it is, I will come to help you."
Lucius smiled brightly, some girls started to whisper but Ariana couldn"t even bother with their jealousy. "Exams are coming up. I would love a study buddy." Lucius replied. Just like Edlyn he was sitting in the 10% and wore a red tie but unlike Edlyn he was sitting at the top spot for the 10%. He just needed one more point to pa.s.s the threshold and have his tie change to bronze. He regretted not studying more but at the same time he was happy he put the effort into his body. He wanted to be well rounded.
"That"s doable. Today after school in the library then." Ariana replied with a firm head nod. "Good morning everyone." Ms. Hadley called out as she walked into the cla.s.sroom. Edlyn tugged at Ariana"s hand. Ariana turned from Lucius and walked to her seat with Edlyn.
.....
Cla.s.s was finally over and to Ariana"s surprise Cayden was waiting outside of her cla.s.sroom. "What cla.s.s do you have next?" He asked as he stepped beside her and started walking with the group. "Does it matter? I can walk with my friends thank you." Ariana said in a haughty voice and picked up her pace. "Am I not your friend too?" Cayden asked sweetly. Ariana stopped walking and turned to Cayden. She was blushing as she glared at Cayden. "You know you are!" She answered angrily. "Then there"s no problem." Cayden said happily as he reached out for Ariana"s hand.
"Yup no problem for friends to walk to cla.s.s. Come on." Lucius chimed in as he grabbed Ariana"s hand and dragged her away. Edlyn and Cayden glared at Lucius"s back as he walked Ariana further away. "Come on don"t doddle. Especially you Mr. Third year. Your cla.s.ses are on the other side of the Academy right?" Lucius called back.
"Um Lucius?" Ariana called out after a good distance away from her friends. "Mmmh." Lucius as he continued his pace. "We aren"t in the same cla.s.ses. I think it"s just homeroom and training." Ariana said making Lucius stop in his tracks.
"Sorry... I thought you needed help." Lucius said sheepishly as he released Ariana"s hand. "Thank you." Ariana said. Then another awkward silence came between the two. "So." Lucius said, trying to break the silence. "Are you okay?" Edlyn called out as the girls started to close in on them.
Ariana curtsied to Lucius and gave him a lady like smile. "Thank you for your help earlier but my friends are here and I will be going to cla.s.s. Please do not worry about Cayden he is actually my childhood sweetheart."
On reflex, Lucius bowed. "My pleasure, we are friends now and help goes both ways. However I will be more careful next time." Ariana giggled causing Lucius to look up. His heart skipped a beat. Her genuine smiling face was nothing short of breathtaking. "I also have a big brother and he won"t take lightly that a guy dragged me off."
Lucius nodded after he straightened up his back. Ariana turned to her friends. "I"m fine let"s go to cla.s.s." Talisha and Halina shrugged off the incident and started to lead the group away. Ariana waved bye to Lucius before she followed them but Edlyn stayed behind. "She"s taken." Edlyn said firmly as she glared at Lucius.
"Excuse me?" Lucius asked. He was shocked that this was the second time that Edlyn was openly hostile towards him. "She is taken. Whatever thoughts you have in your head get rid of them. She and Cayden have loved eachother for a long time. So get those thoughts out of your head and just settle on being friends."
"Things change." Lucius replied as he shoved his hands into his uniform pant pockets. "Not with them. They promised to marry eachother since long ago, they are going through the official paperwork and now it"s only a matter of time." Edlyn scowled.
"It"s not set in stone and I am a free person. If memory serves me correctly, Cayden was already engaged to someone else." Lucius said with a mockingly dark tone. "You don"t know their story and I will never tell you but if you hurt either one of them I will kick your a**!" Edlyn said in an even darker tone that Lucius held his tongue. Edlyn then turned. "I can"t stop you from being friends but I can tell you to find a new love." Edlyn said without turning back. She then walked away. Leaving a smiling Lucius behind.
"This is too interesting." Lucius said to himself. Suddenly he felt an arm wrap around his shoulders. "So interesting! We should talk about it!" Lobo said happily as he flashed Lucius a toothy smile. "h.e.l.lo?" Lucius said nervously. Lobo patted Lucius"s chest and laughed. "Why so nervous. She told you she has a big brother."
Then Lobo extended his hand towards Lucius and Lucius cautiously reached out to shake his hand. "h.e.l.lo big brother?" Lucius said as Lobo"s eyes sparkled with delight. "Right but I"m not yours. So let"s talk about what just happened."