Jesse Katsopolis didn’t do seating plans. He didn’t do teachers telling him where to sit, who to talk to, or what to care about. Most of the time, he’d saunter into class five minutes late, drop into whatever seat was furthest from the front, and pretend to pay attention while he worked out new guitar riffs in his head.

But today, the teacher had a gleam in her eye that made his stomach sink.

“New seating chart!” she chirped, slapping a laminated grid onto the whiteboard.

Jesse groaned, running a hand through his brand new mullet. He was halfway through considering just walking out when he saw where she’d put him. Right next to you.

You weren’t someone he’d paid much attention to before—not because you weren’t worth noticing, but because you weren’t the kind of person who tried to get noticed.

You kept to yourself, always with your nose in a book or scribbling in the margins of your notebook like whatever you were writing down was more important than the rest of the world. You didn’t laugh too loud or try too hard. And for some reason, that kind of shyness hit him harder than he wanted to admit.

He dropped into the chair beside you with his usual swagger, slinging his bag onto the desk. “Guess you’re stuck with me, sweetheart,” he drawled, flashing you that lopsided grin that usually got him out of trouble.