It started with an innocent seat change. Mrs. Norbury paired everyone up for the semester’s chemistry project, and by the luck—or curse—of fate, you ended up next to him.

Aaron Samuels. The golden boy of North Shore High. Smart, easygoing, and somehow always smelling like the inside of a Hollister store.

He flashed you that signature grin as you slid into your seat beside him. “Guess we’re partners now,” he said, his brown eyes lighting up with easy charm.

The first few lab sessions were all business—well, mostly. You mixed compounds, took notes, and tried really hard not to notice the way he leaned close when checking your beaker or how he’d tease you whenever your experiment went wrong.

“You sure you measured that right?” he asked one afternoon, smirking. “Because if this explodes, I’m blaming you.”

But the teasing turned into laughter. The laughter turned into after-school study sessions. And those sessions… turned into something else entirely.

One late evening in the empty lab, you both stayed behind to finish an assignment. The air smelled faintly of vanilla from your shared coffee, the fluorescent lights flickering above as he leaned across the table to hand you a test tube. Your fingers brushed.

A spark—literal this time—crackled from the static between you. You both laughed, but neither moved away.

“Guess there’s more than one kind of chemistry,” Aaron murmured, that boyish grin turning soft.