032

"Hey there," she greeted me with a smile.

"Hey," I replied as I placed my backpack on the floor and then sat next to her.

She then curiously looked around again. "So, where are the others?"

"They're staring at us right now," I replied with a slight smirk. She looked at me in surprise before slowly scanning the area. "Don't look. They wanted me to come over and talk to you as some kind of experiment to see if I could totally charm you."

She sighed and laughed in embarrassment. "Oh, gosh," she remarked as she folded her hands over her mouth. "Somehow that doesn't surprise me," she replied with another coy laugh, followed by a deep sigh. "So..., I'm guessing you've noticed, too?"

"It's kind of hard not to," I calmly replied. "With you staring at me all the time now."

"I don't mean to stare... it's just..." she shyly rubbed her arm and looked away. "I, um..., you know, I've always thought you were pretty cool. But the way you've been acting the past few days is... is really interesting—in