01-01-13

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!

Re-cap

Ronnie found her room with relative ease and opted out of knocking on the door because she figured a high school boy usually wouldn't knock on the door to his own room. She opened the door, shrieked, and slammed it shut again, her cheeks tinted pink.

She definitely should have knocked.

Thank you again Virag0 for being my Beta.

Chapter 2

Oh god, did I really just do that? Ronnie thought in despair, her pink-tinted cheeks growing deeper by the second. He was only shirtless; it wasn't like that was the first time I've ever seen a shirtless guy before either! There wasn't any reason to shriek and slam the door shut like that!

Ronnie had opened the door while her supposed roommate was pulling a shirt on. Then in her panic she forgot she was, to everyone's general knowledge, a boy. So she shrieked and slammed the door shut. Like a girl. Hopefully, she thought, he wouldn't put two and two together and go running to the Headmaster with her secret.

Strengthening her resolve not to make another mistake like that again, Ronnie planted the thought that she was a boy and would not be found out into her mind.

The short 'boy' gathered 'his' scattered nerves and—after straightening 'his' back, and taking a few calming breaths—raised 'his' hand to knock. (Because there was no way she wasn't knocking after that display only moments before.)

Knock.

Knock.

Knock.

The door was opened not even a second later by the boy who hadn't bothered to put on a shirt. He leaned against the door frame, his blonde hair darkened by the water dripping on to his shoulders and rolling down his chest.

He probably does sports, Ronnie thought, her eyes following the thin trail of water crawling over his collarbone and down his chest. She yanked her eyes away once the bead of water became to small to continue its path. It was at his stomach; the damage was already done.

"U-uh . . ." she stuttered out, unable to complete a thought with her embarrassment induced, muddled mind.

"What do you want?" The boy's voice was smooth, and it would have increased the tint on Ronnie's cheeks if it weren't for the rude tone accompanying it.

"U-uhm, I'm your new roommate – Ronnie Walker." Ronnie smiled what she was sure was a very weak smile and tried to still her shaking hand as she held it out in introduction.

It turned out to be unneeded and unwanted because he shut the door in her face as soon as the last word left her mouth.

She stood in front of the door in shock for all of five seconds, her cheeks burning again, but this time with anger.

That jerk!

This time when she knocked on the door it was a harsh pound that threatened to break it down if left unanswered for too long. Her roommate must have been testing the stability of the door because he let her pound on it for two full minutes before finally dragging himself to pull it open.

"The door wasn't locked," he muttered, turning to take a seat at the desk in the corner of the room.

"You're so rude! Why'd you shut the door in my face like that? Did you not hear me say I was your new roommate or are you deaf or something?" Ronnie made a conscious effort to keep her voice calm, because she knew that her voice became very shrill and unmistakably girly when she screamed.

"Yeah, I heard you. I just didn't care. Still don't, actually." That was pretty clear with the way he didn't look up when he spoke to her.

"Don't you know it's considered rude not to look at someone when you're talking to them?"

He finally looked at her, fixing her with a look of utter boredom. "Does it look like I care about what's considered polite or rude or not? I couldn't give a damn about that. Now could you stop talking? Go put away your stuff or something. Your bags are in the corner there." He pointed.

"But-"

"Stop talking; you're annoying."

Ronnie, feeling utterly stumped, did as he said and began unpacking her bags into the dresser she assumed was hers, seeing as it was the one of the opposite side of the room as him. She stuck to unpacking the basics first since her roommate was still in the room; she didn't want him to see her unpack anything that might give her away.

Sneaking glances at him from the corner of her eye as she pulled her uniform slacks from her bag and began refolding them to fit into the drawer better, she took in her surroundings.

The blonde jerk—as Ronnie named him since she didn't know his name and didn't want to ask him lest he be rude again—was working on something. she couldn't see clearly from her vantage point, but it looked like homework. He didn't hunch over his work like many people did, but sat up straight and square.

She placed another newly folded pair of slacks in the drawer.

His desk was neat, only a few papers were scattered on the surface; multiple notebooks were stacked on the corner of the desk resting against the wall.

Ring!

Ring!

A piercing ring broke through the silence in the room, causing Ronnie to jump and drop the shirt she was folding.

The blonde jerk grabbed his phone off the corner of the desk and flipped it open. "Hello?" He glanced in Ronnie's direction, grabbed the discarded shirt off his bed, and in one quick motion, pulled it over his head, and left the room.

"What do you mean you quit? You're my manager-" The door shut and cut the rest of his words off from Ronnie's ears.

Ronnie stood idle for a couple of seconds before snapping into action and pulling the boxes of tampons from her bag and stuffing them into the bottom drawer of her dresser, under her sleepwear, and hiding the extra vest to hide her breasts under her undershirts in the second drawer from the top.

With all her clothes unpacked, Ronnie moved on to setting up her desk. Like her roommate, she stacked her notebooks on the corner of the desk so that the leaned against the wall. Standing upright, she stacked her books in the other corner of the desk and dumped all her pens and pencils into the drawers attached to the desk. At the center of the desk, she placed her old school notes and homework so she'd have easy access to it once she talked to her teachers to get all the makeup work needed.

With nothing to do, since everything was unpacked, Ronnie decided to explore the campus to get a feel for where everything was located. She grabbed her phone and the map of the school the secretary gave her and left her room. She didn't even make it down the hall before she saw a familiar face.

"Liam?" She smiled her first genuine smile of the day, and for a moment all thoughts of pretending to be a boy flew out of her mind.

The boy, Liam, looked up; his jaw dropped. "Ronnie? That's you, isn't it? You're not just some look-alike that knows my name?"

"Well unless the look-alike is also named Ronnie, then I'm pretty sure I am."

"What are you doing here?" Liam lowered his voice to a whisper. "This is an all boys school. Take special notice to the words 'all boys', please."

"Shush!" Ronnie hushed him. She grabbed his arm and drug him back to her room locking the door behind them once they entered. "Don't say things like that; I'll get found out!"

"If you didn't want to get caught, then why are you here in the first place?" Liam hissed, knocking her hand off his arm in favor of pacing the room.

"I got invited!" Ronnie shouted, fed up with his behavior. He was acting like he was her dad or something. "I'd have been a fool to turn down this type of opportunity, so I came. And I won't get caught unless someone, named Liam, goes and snitches on me!"

Liam rounded on her, gripping her shoulders and giving her a little shake. "You're an idiot! Did you forget that you'd be living with a guy for almost a year? How were you planning to keep your secret a secret -"

Ronnie pushed his hands off her. "It won't be that hard. It's not like bathrooms don't have lockable doors! I'll just wake up before the blonde jerk, then there shouldn't be a problem."

"Of course there will be! What if you oversle –" Here Liam paused. His angry face morphed into on of confusion. "Blond jerk?"

Ronnie nodded. "Yeah. My roommate. I don't know his name, just that he's blonde and that he's a jerk."

Liam, for the first time since entering the room, looked around him. He took in Ronnie's side the room; her dresser with one picture on the top of her (right after she chopped her hair) and her mother, and her newly arranged desk. Then, out of things to look at on her side, he examined the other side of the room.

Even though the person had been occupying the room for the past year, (Which Liam knew to be true because the school never mixed grades. Since Ronnie was a Junior and getting transfer students like Ronnie, starting a year late at Emerson High, was extremely rare, her roommate must be a Junior as well.) their side of the room was almost as bare as Ronnie's.

The desk was only moderately used, and the dresser had a few music notebooks stacked on it. There was a small bookcase beside the bed that was filled with music books, and the bed had a green comforter instead of the standard white one that all the beds came with.

"How come you don't know his name?"

"I didn't want to ask." She wrinkled her nose.

"Well, what do you know about him?"

"That he's a blonde jerk."

Liam shook his head at her. "No, what does he look like?"

"He has longish blonde hair, uh blue or green eyes, and he's pretty tall. Probably about as tall as you or a little taller," Ronnie said. "I think he's here for sports though; he was in pretty good shape."

"I doubt it." Liam pointed to the bookcase. "See how many music books he has? He's probably here for the music program; if he was here for sports he'd have more sports equipment in here."

"Oh..." Ronnie looked at Liam and raised her eyebrow. "So what are you here for then? The last time I talked to you, you were obsessed with trombone."

"Oh, I outgrew that years ago and took up water polo and swim." Liam smiled, the dimple on his left cheek becoming more pronounced. "I'm assuming you got in on academics?"

"Yeah. Got the invitation three weeks ago, and now here I am."

Liam frowned. "It was a stupid idea you know; you're bound to get caught."

"I'll be fine." She smiled at him. "And I'll be even better than fine if you help me out when I get stuck in a sticky situation."

He was just about to answer when the door opened and the blonde jerk walked back into the room, running a hand through his hair with a contemplative look of concentration on his face.

Liam knew just how to make the situation awkward and he didn't waste a minute and doing just that. "So this is the blonde jerk you were talking about?"

Ronnie's jaw dropped.

The only blonde in the room looked utterly bored with the entirety of the situation.

"Liam!" Ronnie hissed.

"Yes, Ronnie?" He just gave her a goofy smile and made his way to the door. "I'll let you finish getting settled in; I'll come get you for dinner and then show you around campus. We'll finish our conversation then."

"Yeah, ok." Ronnie looked in her roommate's direction, to see him looking at her with a look of concentration on his face.

"See you soon. I'll come get you at six."

"Yea—Hey, Liam!" She waited for him to stop, which he finally did in the doorway, before continuing. "So what do you say? Will you help?"

His shoulders slumped. "Yeah, sure. I don't really have a choice here do I?" He looked over his shoulder. "Just one question; how'd you convince your mom?"

Ronnie grinned. "It was actually her idea."

A bark of laughter left his mouth and he resumed his trek from her room. "I shoulda known."

The room was left in silence once the door closed behind Liam.

Ronnie twirled her thumbs and gnawed on her lip. She took a deep breath to speak, and promptly shut her mouth as soon when her roommates voice reached her ears.

"I probably should apologize for how I spoke to you earlier," he said. "I was frustrated with a piece and took it out on you. For that I'm sorry."

"U-uh, it's fine. I'm sorry for yelling at you. I probably overreacted as well." She scratched the back of her head, still unused to the longer stands ticking the base of her neck.

He nodded and moved to lie down on his bed. "So . . . blonde jerk, huh?"

"Uh, yeah…" Ronnie had the decency to blush, and she ducked her head to try to hide it. "In my defense though, you were being a jerk . . . And I don't exactly know your name either."

He looked startled. "Oh, I'm Kaynan. You're name's Ronnie right?"

"Yeah." She smiled.

Kaynan looked lost in thought and Ronnie stayed silent to let him think in peace. She followed his example and went to lie down on her bed, feeling the exhaustion of a new environment creep up on her.

Completely ready to take a nap until Liam came and got her for dinner, she closed her eyes and was almost asleep when Kaynan spoke again.

"Have you joined any clubs yet?"

"No," she muttered into her pillow, not really caring that the word came out unrecognizable.

"What?"

She turned over to rest on her side so she was facing Kaynan and peeked an eye open to see him propped up on his elbows looking over at her. "No, I haven't. I just got here today and right after my talk with the Headmaster I came straight here to get settled in."

"Oh . . . do you have any idea of what you're going to do? Maybe something that has to do with the program you're here for?"

"Well I'm here for academics, so I doubt it. Why are you asking?"

He looked over her head at the wall behind her and no matter how hard Ronnie tried to make eye contact he avoided her gaze. "My manager just quit, so I need to find a new one quick."

"And you want me to do it."

"Yeah, pretty much. Since you're my roommate it'll be easier than having someone outside the school manage me. You'll know everything I'm working on and, really, your main job will just be booking jobs for me and keeping track of my progress."

"Will this count as my club credit?"

"Yeah; a lot of the musicians here have managers from this school because, one, we don't have to pay you, and two, it gets your club credit out of the way."

"Then, yeah. I guess I'll do it. It's better than anything else I can think of, and it should leave me with enough time for my homework."

He nodded at her. "I'll get the paperwork from my old manager soon so you can get caught up with everything."

"Ok." She yawned and moved back to her original position on the bed. "I'm going to take a nap now; this school is draining."

He laughed. "You haven't even seen the half of it."