Chapter 4: The urge to look

Naomi's POV 

The bus ride took forever since it had to stop at multiple streets. I didn't let it bother me too much since it was better than walking home. 

As soon as I reach my room I plopped face down on my bed and for some strange reason, my encounter with Hero started to replay in my mind. Something about the way his expression changed didn't sit right with me. 

I roll over on my back to face the ceiling as my thoughts float around my head. 

If I try to talk to him about it then he'll just get upset again.

It's not like it's any of my business either way. I'll just leave him be. That's my only option either way. 

I pull the book I was reading earlier from my bag and continue where a left off. 

I let myself get lost in the story like I always do, no matter how many times I've read this story I can't help but fall in love with the main character, and don't get me started on how the story is well written not to mention the character development. 

It never ceases to amaze me. 

With no care for the passing time, I read my book as if it was the first time I was seeing it in my life, savoring every moment and every word. 

Out of nowhere the honking of a car startles me making me jump while dropping my book in the process. 

I slowly scramble over to the window to see who it was, to my surprise it was Riley and Hero. He waved at her before stalking off to his house while she easily parked her car in our driveway. 

I quickly shuffled away from the window before one of them saw me and started thinking I was a creep or something. 

Hero already saw you once. 

My subconscious added making me embarrassed even though I was alone. 

To take my mind off things I quickly went back to reading my book so I could get lost in the magnificent world of fiction and forget about reality. 

As I feel myself drifting off my phone suddenly rings and I contemplate whether to answer or not, I know the only person who calls me is uncle Dave just to check in on me. 

I diced to answer him just in case something happened. Because in life you might never know. 

"Hey sweetie how's it going." 

"The same as always. What about you aren't you supposed to be home by now?" I answer him knowing something was up. 

"Yeah about that- 

"The hospital is short staffed and you have to pull a double again. Right?"  I cut him off mid sentence by saying this. 

"Yep, you always seem to know." He says chucking. "Don't worry about telling Riley since I already told her." He tells me. 

"Okay, I'll see you in the morning, love ya," I tell him and wait for his reply before handing up. 

If he's not coming home then that means Riley's not cooking which equals to pizza. 

YES! I haven't had pizza in months, I can already feel my mouth watering.

As if on cue I heard the doorbell ring a d I hurried downstairs to see if it was a pizza guy but Riley has already beaten me to the door. 

But when she opened it the guy standing there was neither a pizza guy nor a delivery guy of any sort. 

It was our neighbor, Hero.

It was obvious that she was just as surprised as I was by his visit. 

"Hi, what are you doing here?" Riley said in a slightly flirty voice. 

"Hey, um your sister-

"Cousin." She cuts him off rudely. 

"Cousin." He corrects himself with a slight smirk before continuing. " was supposed to help me with my English assignment. So here I am." She says as he makes eye contact with me over her head. 

"I could help you with that." She offers without a second thought. 

"That's okay, we're in the same class so she already knows exactly what to do." He says before slowly walking past her and coming over to me. 

"So where do you want to do this?" He asks looking at me with no interest whatsoever. 

my

"Let just get this over with," I say in a flat tone and I lead him to, for some reason I have no idea why I was rude just now. 

He silently followed me up the stairs and I dared not glance back at Riley because I knew she is upset. 

As he enters my room he starts to casually look around, suddenly start to feel self-conscious and my palms being to sweat. To distract my self I start fixing anything I could find but that was proving difficult since my room was spotless. 

"So you're a clean freak?" He asks as he sits in the chair in front of my computer desk. 

"No." I say feeling a bit offended by his words. "Not because I keep my room tidy doesn't mean I have OCD," I say while fixing my mini-library.

"Sorry." He says in a low tone. 

"It's fine," I say with a light sigh as I push the final book back into its correct place. 

"So you're a book lover." He comments standing up from the chair and walking over to me, as he inched closer the room felt smaller. 

He slowly ran his index finger over the spin of all the books before suddenly stopping on the one I was currently reading. 

He looks at me with a sly smile before asking a question I was dreading. 

"Can I borrow this?" He asks with one eyebrow raised. 

I felt bad for making him feel bad at school earlier so I decided to say yes even though every fiber of my being wanted to say no and snatch the book from his hand. 

"Yes," I say before turning around so he couldn't read my face. I've read too many books to not know better. 

"Let's get started on that paper so you can go home," I say offering him the seat. 

"How are we you going to do this?" He asks as he takes a seat. 

"Not we but you." I correct him but that only earned me a weird look. Seeing him up close made me realize that he had one monolid and one double lid but I didn't comment on it. 

I would be lying to myself if I said it wasn't kinda cute. 

What am I thinking? I should be focused on helping him finish this paper. 

"Since you can speak English you'll write your paper and when you're done I'll fix any spelling and grammar mistakes you make. 

I tell him with a small smile. 

He makes a weird pouty face before turning to the computer and turning it. 

"What?" I ask because of his reaction. 

"I thought that I was going tell you how my summer went and you'd just write it for me."  He says nonchalantly. 

"Why would you think that?" I ask with a scoff. 

"Since you finished yours I thought you'd just do mine, you know, for free." He says with a weird shrug. 

"Why would I do that?"  I ask him as I think about the thought myself. I'm not stupid enough to do a guy's homework just because he's good looking. 

So you think he's good looking. My subconscious chimes in. 

Shut up you stupid subconscious. 

"Because I'm the new kid and I need help?" He asks with a dumbfounded look on his face, which I obviously knew was fake. 

"And?" I ask pretending to not get his point. "You do know that what I'm doing is helping you right?" I ask him slowly. 

"No, it's torture." He says with a flat expression. 

"The quicker you finish the quicker it will end," I explain as I chose a new book to read. He silently watches me as I open the book and take a seat on my bed. Without sparing him a second glance I starter reading the. 

"So you're just going to sit there and read a book when I need help?" He interrupts me before I even finish the first page. 

I close the book and walk over to him, only to find the paper was blank. He looked at me with an innocent smile. 

"If you're not going to take this seriously you can just leave," I mumble in a low tone. 

He seems a bit shocked by my words and also taken aback. The surprise went as quickly as it came and as his expression went blank he turned to the empty paper and began to write. 

I simply went back to my book, I don't know how much time had passed during our silence until he spoke. The question he asked caught me off-guard. 

"Did you hear me?" He asks without looking at me. "Why didn't you come to the end of summer party?" He repeats his question louder than before. 

I was about to answer when Riley suddenly walked in startling me. 

"Pizza's here." She says holding two plates with pizza on them. 

She hands one to Hero with a bright smile then hands me mine with a less than friendly look. I know the only reason she brought some for me is because he was here and she wanted to look good. 

She must really want to impress him because I've never seen her act like this for a guy before. 

He bows slightly as he told her thanks, then went back to his work without a second glance. 

She glared at me as she roughly shoved the plate towards me and I gasp when one of the pizza slices almost slipped off. 

"Hey what was that for?" 

She huffs then rolls her eyes before spinning on her heels and walking away. 

"Stop being such a baby." She mumbles as she exits my room. He curiously glanced at me but I avoided her gaze so he went back to his work. 

"She forgot to bring drinks I'll go get some," I tell him so I can leave the room. 

"I'll have a Sprite." He mumbles.

I hurry down the stairs to talk to Riley. 

"Hey what was that about?" I ask her feeling a bit confused. 

"You know exactly what it was for." She grumbles as she stuffs pizza into her mouth. 

"I don't." 

"Stop playing innocent Naomi, your trying to get with Hero when you know I like him." 

I don't know where it came from or why but I started laughing at her words.

"Stop laughing. You know it's true!" She whispers yells.

"Look, I don't know who put that idea in your head but getting close to him is the last thing I'm trying to do." My only plan is to stay away from all boys." I tell her trying not to laugh in her face again as I grabbed the beverage. 

"Why was I even worried, your such a weirdo he wouldn't even look your way." She scoffs flipping her hair and walks off to the living room. 

I can't say that didn't hurt but whatever, she talks about me like that all the time anyway. 

"Just in time, I just finished the paper," Hero says as I walk in. 

"Great," I say handing him the sprite he asked for. 

I quickly get to work correcting his paper, he ate silently as I worked. 

"Okay, I'm done." I smile at the paper before handing it to him. "Your English is better than you give yourself credit for, there weren't a lot of corrections to be made." 

"Thank you." He bows slightly before sitting in front of my computer again, then he started to type up his work. 

"You not doing that at home?" 

"I haven't gotten a PC yet." He mumbles and I suddenly become aware of how deep his voice is again.

I stay quiet and let him focus as I finished my pizza. 

"You never answered my question from earlier." He mumbles capturing my attention. 

"What question was that?" I don't recall him asking me a question. 

"The party." He paused, "why didn't you come?" 

Why would he care if I came to the party or not? To him, I'm just the creepy girl from next door. 

"Umm. I wasn't invited." I mumble before biting down on the stuffed crust of the pizza savoring its taste.

"Why?" 

"The answer is simple. I'm not one of the cool kids." 

"Who cares? I saw a lot of nerds there so you could have definitely come." 

"I didn't want to come," I say in a low tone. 

"Why." 

"Why do you care?"

"I don't. I'm just curious." 

"You're being so persistent so it kinda seems like you do." 

"Sounds like you want me to care."

"Trust me. I don't." A fake laugh escaped my lips and that caught his attention earning me a weird look from him. 

I stayed quiet hoping that will end the conversation and luckily it did. When he finished his work he emailed it to himself and left. 

On the other hand, I kept reading until I fell asleep again.