Chapter 2 Orion
Orion
Harper’s eyes flared in alarm. “What are you doing here?”
She hit me with the question like she wanted to shove me off my lab stool, but I didn’t miss the little flicker of…something in her eyes. A tiny spark. And while I was used to girls sparking around me, usually I didn’t spark back.
Usually.
I tapped my chin, pretending to consider it. “What am I doing here, what am I doing here… Ah, I remember now. I’ve been assigned third-period chemistry with Dr. Langford.”
Harper faced forward stiffly. “I meant, why are you sitting next to me?”
“Shouldn’t I?” I glanced around. “Too late now, love. The tables are full.”
The word love made her blink.
“You’re stuck with me,” I continued. “And to avoid further nasty surprises, I’ll share that I have History with Callister next, and then Advanced Piano with Wolfe to finish off the day.”
“You’re joking.” Harper had beautiful brown eyes. They softened for a heartbeat, then hardened again, as if my class schedule was both the best and worst news she’d heard all day.
“No,” I said. “If I were joking, I’d have said, a priest, a nun, and a whore walk into a bar…”
She shook her head, soft dark curls falling around her shoulders. “I also have History with Callister and Advanced Piano with Wolfe.”
Despite the sour look on her face, the news made me surprisingly happy.
Spark, again.
“Do you?” I mused. “Isn’t that lucky?”
“Lucky isn’t the first word that comes to mind,” she muttered.
“Not luck? So it’s on purpose, then? Are you stalking me, Harper Bennett?” I heaved a dramatic sigh. “Story of my life.”
She tried not to smile but failed. “You’re a lot, aren’t you?”
“I’ve been told.”
“I can see why.”
She faced forward again with a distinctly conversation over manner.
“Have I offended somehow? I seem to recall heroically securing not one, but two protein bars from Bandit’s claws just a few hours ago.”
She laughed a little—almost against her will, but her gaze was wary and untrusting.
“Sorry,” she said. “It’s my first day here, and I’m out of my element.”
For a brief moment, her walls came down, and I saw a flash of uncertainty.
Vulnerability. The kind I liked to pretend didn’t exist in me whenever I stepped into a new classroom.
When I didn’t yet know the teacher’s methods or moods, the workarounds I’d have to deploy, the shit I could get away with…
“I understand,” I said.
Harper’s expression softened. “You do?”
“Sure. I was a new face in these dusty old halls, once upon a time.”
She smirked. “Dusty?”
“This’ll be my fourth year. Anything can get old if you give it long enough. Where do you hail from?”
“I hail from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.” She arched a brow. “Now I live in the Bend.”
“Should I take offense?”
“Shouldn’t you?” she countered. “I didn’t get three steps away from my car before I was labeled a Bender.”
I frowned. “Ridiculous, isn’t it? An actual caste system in this day and age.”
Harper organized her materials. “Your heroic disapproval from the heights of privilege is duly noted.”
I grinned. “I like you, Bennett. You’ve got some fire to you. Some real spunk.”
“Orion, do not say spunk.”
“Why not?” I asked, the paragon of innocence, but when she’d said my name…
Spark in the prick, if we’re being honest.
“Because,” Harper said, “on this side of the Atlantic, it doesn’t mean what you think it means.”
“Perhaps I know exactly what it means.”
She rolled her eyes, but color came rushing to her cheeks. “Are you always this crude to girls you just met?”
“You’re right,” I said. “That was crude. I suffer an acute inability to govern my tongue.”
She narrowed her eyes at me, studying me. A wayward curl fell over her cheek, and I itched to brush it away.
“Fancy British accent aside, you’ve got quite the vocabulary for a high schooler.”
I shrugged. “I read a lot. Always have. You?”
“Not as much as I’d like lately, but yes.”
“Why not as much?”
“Well…” She toyed with her pencil and glanced at the door, as if looking for our still-absent teacher. “I have a brother, Dash. He’s seven. My mother works two jobs, so I spend a lot of time taking care of him.”
My facade slipped a wee bit at that. She was right; I did perch on the heights of privilege, and while I believed my fellow Richies were too hard on the Benders at school, I never much thought of their lives and struggles beyond the walls of Castle Hill Academy.
“And your father?” I asked, then waved my hands. “No, never mind. That’s personal. See? I am capable of behaving myself. But I promise I won’t make a habit out of it.”
Another laugh escaped Harper, sounding rusty. “Here’s a British word for you: incorrigible.”
“Yes! Incorrigible. Intractable. Irredeemable. If only there were someone who could put me in my place.” I wagged my brows. “Or your place? I’m not picky.”
“Oh my God.” She covered her eyes with one hand.
“I was quite nearly well-behaved, wasn’t I?” I sighed. “But I blew it.”
She was outright laughing now. “Stop.”
I didn’t want to stop. I was used to making people laugh. The sound of it wasn’t uncommon music to my ears, usually as a deflection or diversion. But Harper’s laugh…
I might be addicted already.
From the sound alone, I knew she didn’t laugh often. Her heart-shaped face was made for it, but from her first defensive glance at the vending machine, I knew she was more accustomed to frowns and tension. Her large eyes were soft around the edges but hard within. She was on her guard. Defenses up.
I could relate. While I had a different set of defenses, I recognized a fellow soldier when I saw one.
Maybe if we shared war stories…
“So sorry, so sorry,” Dr. Langford said, breezing in at last. “It’s rude of me to be this late on our first day but…” He heaved both a sigh and a briefcase onto his own big lab desk. “Hello, class.”
The students offered enthusiastic hellos. Dr. Ian Langford was the most popular professor in the STEM department, if not the entire school. In his mid-thirties, he was handsome, friendly, and almost as witty as me. Everybody loved him.
He scanned the group. “Wow. You may have heard I say this to every class, but don’t believe it. You are the most attractive, and obviously the most brilliant, group of students I have this year. I can tell already.”
Appreciative laughs. I glanced at Harper, whose brows were furrowed.
I leaned toward her. “Not charmed?”
She shrugged. “Chemistry is what I want to do for a living. I want a serious education from a serious teacher.”
“He’s the best, don’t worry.”
“If you say so.”
“Before we begin,” Dr. Langford said, “I have a major announcement. This year, Castle Hill Academy has partnered with major universities, both at home and abroad, for a very special contest that has been years in the making.”
Harper sat up straighter.
“It’s called the Novus Prize for Scientific Innovation, or NoSci.
The winning student must come up with a science project of epic proportions.
Something original, innovative, and groundbreaking.
First prize is twenty-five thousand dollars cash and priority status in the admissions pool for universities such as MIT, Harvard, Stanford, Caltech, NYU, Oxford, Cambridge, the Imperial College of London… Shall I go on?”
I noticed Harper gripping the edge of the table, her fingers white.
Shit, bollocks, fuck.
She really wanted this. She might need this, and I…did not. But as one of three heirs to the Mercer Chem dynasty, my parents would expect me not only to enter this contest but win.
Given their pull with the Academy, a win might be all but guaranteed.
They don’t have to know about it. I’ll hope the deadline passes before they get wind of it across the pond.
Doubtful given the close tabs Father kept on me, but worth a shot.
“I’m on the panel of judges for the NoSci prize,” Dr. Langford was saying, “so if you want to start sending me your bribes now, I’ll post my office hours after class.”
The class laughed. Harper did not.
“The contest will consist of three steps, the first being the most perilous,” Dr. Langford continued, holding for dramatic effect. “You must sign up.”
More laughter.
“Step two: Submit your entry. Step three: If your entry is chosen to continue, you will present your project before the judges in April. I’ll put email links for more information, full contest rules, requirements, and deadlines in our class notes on your iPads.
” Dr. Langford gave us all a sly smile. “Now, down to business. I hope you chose your seats wisely because the person sitting next to you is going to be your lab partner for the entire rest of the year.”
I solemnly offered my hand to Harper. “Congratulations.”
She smacked me away without looking.
“Careful, Bennett,” I whispered. “You keep flirting with me like that and I’ll think you’re in love with me already.”
“You wish.”
I rolled my pen across my knuckles, a small smile on my lips.
“May I have a volunteer?” Dr. Langford asked.
Out of twenty-four students, twenty hands went up.
Langford grinned. “I love your enthusiasm. You, sir,” he said, picking a student. “First lesson in my class: Never volunteer for anything.”
Everyone laughed as a student came up the aisle only to be loaded up with heavy chemistry textbooks. He plunked them down on our desks one at a time.
“All of the information contained in these extraordinarily heavy textbooks is also in your iPads,” Langford said. “But these are for you to take home in case of technological malfunctions…and our icebreaking assignment today. Introduction, page three.”
I stiffened. Harper pulled her book toward her and opened it to the intro. I left my book untouched.
“Most everything we do in chemistry begins at the atomic level.” Langford gestured at the huge periodic table on one wall.
“I thought it’d be fun to begin by examining how our understanding of atoms and molecules evolved over time.
Please read the paragraph on the different atomic models as described by five different scientists. ”
Shit, bollocks, fuck again.