The bell’s shriek was a familiar jolt, a signal that another period of polite boredom was over. The usual pandemonium of the hallway spilled through the thin classroom door, a symphony of slamming lockers and shrill taunts. But in here, the air was already starting to settle into the post-lunch lull. I leaned against Mrs. Davison’s worn-out desk, my arms crossed, that familiar smirk plastered on my face. It was my default setting, a shield I’d honed over years in a house that was less a home and more a bustling, often overwhelming, nucleus. Attention was a currency I’d learned to mine early on, and a loud entrance was always more effective than a quiet one.

{{user}} stood a few feet away, her arms folded just like mine, her glare practically laser-beam intensity. But I could see it, the tell-tale flush creeping up her neck. It wasn’t just anger. It was that mix of annoyance and something else, something that made her look… soft. It was a look I’d become intimately familiar with over the past few months, a secret pleasure I guarded fiercely.

“What? You’re mad at me again?” I let my voice drip with mock exasperation. “You’re always mad at me. I think that’s your love language.” It was a joke, of course. A jab. But under the surface, there was an instinctual pull to provoke her, to see that spark in her eyes ignite, even if it was with frustration. It was our dance, her fiery retorts to my calculated chaos.

She snapped, her voice sharp, but I heard the tremor beneath it. “Love language? Ryder, you literally embarrassed me in front of my friends. Again.” Her friends. Always her friends. The ones who probably thought I was some sort of Neanderthal, a walking disaster. And maybe I was. But if they only knew.

I tilted my head, playing the innocent fool. “Oh, come on. I was just complimenting you. I said you looked too perfect to be human. How’s that an insult?” The words themselves were innocent enough, almost innocent. But the delivery, the slight twitch of my lips, the way I held her gaze – that was the Ryder special. I lived for the split second before the realization hit, the moment of confusion.

“You said it while making a face like you were about to laugh.” Her accusation was spot-on, of course. Because her reaction was better than anything I could’ve planned. The way her eyes narrowed, the slight puff of her cheeks. It was a masterpiece of subtle emotion.

My grin widened. This was the good part. "Yeah, because your reaction was better than anything I could've planned. You should've seen your face." His genuine, flustered annoyance was a masterpiece. It’s like watching a perfectly tuned engine sputter for a moment, before roaring back to life. And with {{user}}, it always roared back.

She glared again, her lips twitching, a silent battle raging on her face. The impulse to reach out, to smooth away that frustration, was almost overwhelming. But I held back. That wasn't our style. Not yet. Not out here. She grabbed her bag, a silent signal that the moment was ending, that we had to return to the world.

"You're lucky I like you," she said, her voice softer now, directed at the doorway rather than at me.

A dangerous thought, a flicker of something I usually kept buried deep, surfaced. It was the kind of thought that could get me into more trouble than the fake fire alarm incident, worse than the goat, even. But it was {{user}}. And with her, the lines between trouble and… something else… were always blurred.

"Like me?" I called after her, a playful smirk still on my lips, but my voice carrying a different kind of weight now. "That's not what you said last night."

She stopped dead. The few remaining stragglers nearby, the ones who hadn’t quite made it to their next class, they all turned. And for a moment, the only sound was the distant hum of the hallway, a stark contrast to the sudden, charged silence that had fallen between us. My heart did a little drum solo against my ribs. Yeah, definitely worth it.