“How’s your studying with Mr. Popular?” Lee asked when they meet up at the cafe by the beach.
It’s been a week and the study session was a regular thing now. Everyday after school for an hour, sometimes longer when needed, Hazel and Marlon locked up in the English lab to catch up with Marlon’s study. Everyone in school knew that now. They can be seen through the window from the soccer field and the girls envied her for having the chance to spend the time with Marlon Dean Reynolds.
People talked about them. Most of what goes around were just gossip and speculations. Lee was so caught up with his dancing he was beginning to worry if he had been too ignorant of his girlfriend’s new activity.
“It’s fine,” she shrugged and kept her eyes on the book she was reading.
Nothing had changed between them. She was there for him for every rehearsal and his practices at the studio, except for that one time. They made out every day at their hiding spots around the school, she made time for him whenever possible just to hang out and talk. She was still and always will be his best friend.
“Anything interesting you want to tell me?” he was fishing.
She glanced at him curiously, “What do you mean?”
He raised his shoulders, “I don’t know … he’s an interesting guy, you never really talked about him … you spend time with him everyday … I thought there must be something interesting about him you can talk about, right?”
She thought for a moment, “Well … he’s bored out his wit studying in the English lab, he fell asleep a couple of times,” she rolled her eyes remembering how annoyed she was to find Marlon sleeping beside her after he went quiet for 20 minutes.
“You know people are talking about what’s going down at the English lab everyday? Well … more like speculating, I guess, Marlon is not exactly a ‘good boy’,” he said.
They looked at each other. Lee was trying to find a clue that indicated if he needed to worry about his girlfriend’s new friendship.
“He never tried anything with me, if that’s what you mean?” she finally said.
Lee didn’t want to seem like the jealous type, but he wasn’t exactly comfortable with what people were talking about the two of them.
“Does he know you have a boyfriend?”
This question startled her. She realized she never mention it to Marlon. It wasn’t because she wanted to hide the fact, it just never come up. Personal issues were too private to be discussed. But looking at Lee now, she wasn’t sure how he was going to react to know that he was never mentioned.
“No … I don’t think so, we never talked about personal stuff … it’s not like that between us, we’re just study partners, or … I’m just his tutor as far as he’s concerned.”
Lee believed her. She had never given him a reason not to. It was Marlon he didn’t trust. The conversation in the boys locker room was much different than what Hazel must’ve heard among her friends.
All the boys knew about Marlon’s drug use, his promiscuities, hanging out with the wrong crowd, and all that bad boy stereotype was fueled with money, fame, and his dysfunctional family.
“Just be careful around him, a guy like that has a way of luring people in with his charm,” Lee winked, his dimple deepened on his cheek.
Hazel blushed, “Are you jealous?’ she pulled him in.
“No, I … just … heard a lot of things about him … and …” he was blushing too.
“Oh, you’re jealous … that’s so sweet …” she put her hand on his cheek and landed a kiss on his lips. “I love you,” she said.
He wrapped his arms around her, nose to nose, he looked deep into her eyes, “I love you too … I don’t have to worry about him, do I?”
She laughed lightly, “Absolutely not … he’s not my type … he wears too much perfume.” She slipped her arms under Lee’s shirt, the feel of his warm and firm body made her shiver. “Can we go back to your place now?” her eyes were getting heavy with the thought of being skin on skin with Lee.
He landed sweet little kisses on her lips, and from the corner of his eyes, he could see a group of people were being loud at a few cafe next to the one they were sitting. One of them was a familiar face. And as they were kissing on the bench, for a brief moment, Marlon was looking their way and noticed them. His expression didn’t change, but his eyes were sharply looking at Lee. For the first time, the two had a really good look at each other.
“Your friend is here,” Lee said between his kisses.
“Who?” she turned to look and saw Marlon wrestling with some of his guy friends. Few of them were school friends but the rest was unfamiliar. They must’ve been his city friends that he’d been hanging out the past few days. “Oh,” she turned back to him and continued their kissing.
“Do you want to say Hi?” Lee was mostly curious, he was never properly introduced to this new guy whom everyone in school have claimed to know.
Hazel shrugged lazily, “No … he looks busy with his friends … like I said, it’s not like that between us … we just know each other at school … I’d be more interested for you to take me back to your place now,” she smiled sweetly.
Lee tightened his arms around her, “Okay … I have practice later, we better hurry then.”
They walked away from the cafe in each other’s arms not looking back at the group of boys who have taken the attention of the beach goers because they were behaving like the IT crowd of the town. Some of them recognized Marlon for who his parents were and whispered about it.
As they walked away in glee, they had no idea that Marlon was following their every footsteps with his gaze.