From the Bad Boy with Love

Third Encounter

Rosa was lost on how to reply to that. It was definitely the seat she had been assigned to on her first day. She steeled herself and readjusted her thinking. Lukas wasn’t good looking enough to cause her to lose all reason.

“It’s my seat,” she protested.

She dared to glance at how the rest of the class were reacting to the scene and regretted it. All the girls were glaring daggers at her for the special attention she was being given. Rosa refocused her eyes on his face and saw a glint of mischief in his eyes. She never got to find out what he would have done as the homeroom teacher interrupted.

“Sorry Lukas. I gave the seat to our overseas transfer Rosa. You can sit on her other side. That’s still an empty seat.”

The only other free desk in the classroom was right by the window. At first Rosa had coveted it as it would be nice to look out at the view of the woods next to the school instead of wondering if people were making fun of how she spoke.

Lukas took a last glance at her and moved away to his new seat. Rosa breathed a sigh of relief and turned her attention to Mia who had her eyebrows raised.

“Rosa Russio, turn around,” Mrs Haruna ordered. 

Rosa flushed in embarrassment. She didn’t like attention like that. Her idea of an ideal high school life mainly involved getting through it with minimal attention. American films and TV shows had been her gateway into the culture and according to them getting the attention of bitchy girls would be lethal for her.

She was jerked out of her thoughts by the sound of a snigger from Lukas. Rosa bit her lip and resisted the temptation to glare at him. It was hard given her personality.

Homeroom passed by at an agonisingly slow pace as did the next few lessons. Rosa was very ready for lunch break. She was sure she could feel Lukas’ gaze on her the whole time. It was probably paranoia though.

The first person to stand up when the lunch bell rang was actually Lukas. He left the classroom right after the teacher. Rosa was glad she didn’t have to worry about him for an hour. She turned around to Mia.

“Was it me or was he staring at me?” she asked quietly.

Mia nodded with a blank face.

“He did stare at you constantly. It was odd,” she said. “Anyway, I find talking about him boring, let’s decide on lunch.”

Rosa forced her mind to think about something else. Food was enough of a distraction. Cafeteria food here was weird. Things called pasta weren’t something she considered worthy. Just because it was boiled pasta with cheese on top didn’t make it a pasta dish.

“Sure. Let’s go to the cafeteria,” she agreed.

They walked down to the cafeteria together. They passed various groups of girls and she kept hearing Lukas’ name mentioned. She was longing to ask Mia more questions about him, but she could tell Mia just didn’t want to talk about him.

“Let’s get pizza today and you can slate it like you always do,” Mia suggested when they got to the back of the queue.

The pizza in the cafeteria varied a lot in quality. Some days it was thin and somewhat burnt and others it was thick and doughy. Other days it had pineapple on which Rosa considered a travesty.

“It’s your ears that are going to suffer,” she said cheerfully.

Rosa discovered when she finally came to the front of the line that it was a thick and doughy pizza day. At least there was no pineapple.

“Your brother’s table has two seats empty, let’s sit there,” Mia suggested when she walked away from the counter with her tray.

Rosa followed her and approached the table. Her brother had his usual friends with him, but there was an unfamiliar face sitting next to him. It was the second time that day that her standard of good looking boys had been broken. This one had brown hair neatly arranged, soft hazel eyes and a very cheeky grin.

“We’re too lazy to find a table for ourselves, so here we are,” Mia said and took a seat first.

Rosa sat down next to her and looked curiously at the new face. He looked friendly enough unlike the other new face that day.

“Mateo, aren’t you going to introduce your new friend?” she asked her brother.

Mateo finished his mouthful of pizza and gestured at the boy next to him.

“Rosa, this is the new boy in my class, Daniel,” he said.

Daniel smiled directly at her. It was a very nice smile.

“It’s nice to meet you, Rosa. You’re just as good looking as your brother.”

Rosa fought back a blush. Daniel was quite the charmer. It was true her brother was good looking with a perfect nose and rosebud mouth and sparking blue eyes, but the resemblance between them wasn’t too strong. Her hair was brown and curly and her eyes weren’t such a vivid blue.

“...It’s nice to meet you too,” she said awkwardly and turned to Mia. “This is my friend Mia.”

Mia did one of her cool nods and Daniel also smiled prettily at her.

“I love your eye make-up,” he said enthusiastically.

Mateo’s new friend went up in Rosa’s estimation. He was a nice person. Most people had something ruder to say about Mia’s bold eye make-up.

She got stuck into her pizza and struggled with chewing it. Why was cafeteria food so terrible in the US? To think that people ate like this every school day for a number of years was painful.

“The pizza is exceptionally terrible today,” Mateo commented.

Rosa was in complete agreement. She was thinking longingly of some homemade pizza from Italy. Their neighbour had a pizza oven and they used to join together to eat sumptuous pizza.

“Definitely,” she said out loud. “The school food system here needs an overhaul.”

“How come you two have such good English?” Daniel asked admiringly.

That was a very American question. Rosa was used to it by now. It never seemed to occur to people that learning two languages fluently at a young age was possible.

“English is taught in schools early on and our mother was from here so we did have to learn it fluently early on,” Daniel explained. “The accent is what we both have trouble with. We haven’t managed to drop the Italian accent yet.”

That was one of Rosa’s biggest woes. She didn’t like having to speak in class especially when hard words were involved because of her thick Italian accent. Her father had assured her that she would lose it as she spent more time in the US, but that hadn’t happened yet.

“I think it’s cool,” Daniel replied. “I wish I could speak another language fluently.”

“Me too,” Mia agreed. “The education here on foreign languages is lacking.”

Rosa found that she was enjoying the company. Daniel was a very positive person and Mia seemed to be getting on well with him. That was a miracle given Mia’s picky personality.

“Daniel, do you want to come round and taste some real pizza?” Mateo asked.

Rosa blinked. Mateo must really like Daniel to invite him around within hours of meeting him. That wasn’t something he normally did.

“Is that okay with your family?” Daniel questioned with a glance at her. “I don’t want to intrude.”

Rosa waved her hand.

“It’s okay. My father loves cooking, he’ll be fine to add more.”

That was true. The more people around to compliment his cooking, the happier he was.

“He’s not home for dinner. You would know that if you got up on time,” Mateo said with a nasty smirk. “Did you have a nice run to school?”

Rosa fought the urge to say something nasty in Italian and settled for a simple insult.

“Don’t let Daniel’s experience of Italian food be hampered by your cooking,” she said.

It was an empty insult and they both knew it. Mateo had inherited her father’s cooking skills and she had received her mother’s, which actually meant she had no culinary skills at all.

“She’s lying,” Mateo whispered loudly to Daniel.

Lunchtime continued with that happy atmosphere and Rosa completely forgot about Lukas’ existence until they returned to the classroom after the bell and he was sat in the corner. It was unfortunate that their homeroom class had been put together from people who had picked all the same subjects and were at the same level.

He met her eyes when she sat down and raised an eyebrow at her. Rosa glared back and got out her textbook so she could be ready for the next lesson.

***

Rosa managed to forget about Lukas’ gaze and immerse herself in the contents of the lesson. She had moved to the US quite suddenly and was having to do a lot of work to catch up with everyone else.

When the lessons finally ended she looked automatically towards the window and caught gazes with him again.

What was his problem with her?

Was it because she had been in his seat and he had been forced to sit somewhere else?

“Come on Rosa,” Mia said and pulled her arm. “I want to get the bus on time.”

Rosa packed her books into her backpack and glared in Lukas’ direction one more time before leaving the classroom. Mia didn’t speak until they were outside school.

“I know I can walk to the bus stop by myself,” she explained. “I just thought you would appreciate some tidbits about Lukas. I’m in the mood to talk about him now.”

Rosa perked up. Finally she would get some information.

Mia held up one finger.

“He’s this school’s ‘bad boy’. He doesn’t talk much, has no friends and doesn’t interact with anyone outside of group projects. Despite that a majority of girls at this school have a thing for him and the boys seem to admire him.”

Rosa understood that phenomenon. She had consumed enough American movies and shows to know the power a bad boy held over females.

Mia put another finger up.

“His family is filthy rich- it adds to the charm. His brother is nothing like him thankfully. I don’t know why he keeps staring at you. He might be trying to work out what he’s missed in the two months he was gone. It should stop.”

Rosa breathed a sigh of relief when she heard that. He was making her feel like she had done something wrong.

“Ah, my bus is here. I’ll get going now! Have fun with Daniel!” Mia said hurriedly and ran off in the direction of the bus stop.

Rosa waved and started the walk home. By the time she was outside the front door her stomach was rumbling. The combination of very little breakfast and a terrible school lunch led to her stomach emptying quickly. Mateo had better hurry with the pizza making.

She unlocked the door and took her shoes off. There was no smell of pizza in the air, but there were already unfamiliar shoes in the entryway so she assumed Mateo had already arrived with Daniel. Dinner couldn’t be too long. 

The sound of the xbox became apparent and she walked into the living room to find Mateo had already introduced Daniel to his latest favourite game.

“When are you making dinner?” she asked loudly.

“In about an hour,” he replied vaguely. 

Daniel smiled at her from the sofa.

“Is it okay my brother is here? Our dad isn’t home so it made sense to bring him here instead of leaving him at home alone,” he said.

Rosa looked around for his brother and met the amused eyes of Lukas on the armchair in the corner. 

She had the school bad boy for company at dinner.