Our Roundabout Love

8

Hope's POV

My current mood would be frustrated. You might as why and to give a simple answer it’s because my mom won't stop treating me as if I'm a child. When is she going to realize I can simply make my own choices? Or that she can't just compromise with me. It's infuriating and I'm pretty sure every teenager feels this way but I wish she would just stop being such a helicopter parent. But it could be worse. Luckily she didn't find out about last night. She would have grounded me for life.

"Come on mom let me go I'm pretty sure I'll be back well before nine." She sighed and looked at me with sheer disappointment.

"No, school first then boys" I groaned but sat down at the kitchen island anyways.

"You let Cooper leave to go hang out with Jess and I know he still has homework to do."

"It's different. Hope unlike you he has something motivating him to do his homework." I sighed once again she doesn't get it and I don't know how.

"Mom, that's a double standard and you know it."

"Just do your homework Hope." I ended the conversation with a fine and checked the time. He told me at lunch that he wanted to meet at 4:30 it's 4:45 and I have no way of contacting him to let him know that I can't come. I mean I could of asked Cooper but that seemed weird to ask for his friends number and then knowing him he'd asked questions about it and also I'll be called stupid. No one has time for all of that nonsense.

Another five minutes went by of me suffering and I heard a knock at the door. I sighed and went to open it. To my surprise it was a Leo who had a stupid grin on his face. This is not supposed to be the face of a boy who just got stood up. Weirdo.

"What do you want?" I said leaving the door open walking away in my own way inviting him in. He laughed behind me shutting the door following me back to the kitchen. Where my doom awaits me. Homework.

"Don't be rude, you stood me up and I wanted to see what better things you were doing other than being with me." I rolled my eyes, pulling out a seat and holding up my physics homework.

"This. This is what I had better to do, my mom won't let me leave until this stupid assignment is done." He frowned for a second and then shrugged taking off his jacket and I got a good look at him. He was wearing another band tee but this time it was Queens and some dark wash jeans. He looked good. His hair was also tied up and he shaved. What a pretty boy.

"Why didn't you text me?."

"The same reason you didn't text me stupid." He looked confused at first but then the thought hit him like a train. What an i***t.

"I can fix that." The smile on his face was too big for me to stop him from grabbing my phone that was sitting on the counter. Within a second he handed it back to me. I looked back at it and saw he had put his name as 'Neighbor who’s Annoyingly Cute In A Sexy Way' with a winking emoji at the end. I snorted and put it down.

"Rather long don't you think?" He shrugged once again, taking a seat. I went back to looking at the numbers on this worksheet and I have never felt more confused in my entire life.

"What's the subject?"

"Physics and it's kicking my ass." He grabbed the paper from me and looked it over for a couple of seconds and I snatched it back. "Ask first." I said playfully with a grin and he grinned back.

"Do you want me to help you?" I snapped my head at his words and almost asked him to repeat himself.

"You can do this type of math?" He let out a quiet laugh.

"Do you really think I'm stupid? I thought that was just a little cute pet name we had going."

"You wish I had a pet name for you."

"You're right I do but, yeah I can do this in my sleep." I gave him a side eye and scooted the paper between us so he could see it better.

"No need to gloat hun, I just need help." I saw a little bit of red on his cheeks but ignored it. I'm just glad I got the satisfaction of seeing it. Twenty minutes go by and we are halfway through the worksheet and I find myself understanding what all these numbers mean by some grace of god. He explained everything so well and answered my questions with ease that he made numbers and letters that were together sound easy.

"To find the velocity of car 'A 'you need the speed of car 'B' and the time from car 'C' to find the displacement so you just put that in the formals you're given. This one might take you a little longer since you need to use three different formulas but you'll get it if you follow it through." I nodded and asked him for help again because I was getting lost. He scouted close and explained it a little deeper. I brought my head up to thank him but our eyes met closer than I was anticipating. So I kinda got lost in them. It was almost like he had a whole forest in his eyes. That forest was staring right back at me to and neither one of us was breaking eye contact.

"Hope who was at the door?" I snap back into reality at the sound of my mother's voice and scoot away, not wanting to be lectured by her on the topics of slacking off and not being responsible when I'm actually doing what I'm supposed to do and that would lead to an argument. My mom rounds the corner and Leo greets her instantly like he was waiting for this moment.

"Hi ma'am nice to see you again." My mother politely smiles at Leo coming closer to us looking over at my homework which irritates me.

"As you can see I'm doing it." She nods walking past me and looking at the spare paper I got Leo to actually help me with practice problems. If only she knew i tried convincing him to do it for me so many times before she came back down stairs.

"Sorry she couldn't come and see you Leo I just wanted her to get this done first, she can be irresponsible at times when it comes to certain things." I curse underneath my breath and Leo let's out an uncomfortable laugh.

"It's okay helping her has been fun too." His picture perfect smile was showing and I wanted to laugh at how awkward he was being.

"Oh that's right you are a year ahead I forgot. How's school treating you?"

"It's fine, very easy. I like the change of pace from the academy I used to attend." She nods and smiles at him like he's perfect.

"Mom we have to finish so could you be elsewhere." She gave me a disapproving look and almost said something to me but realized someone that wasn't her family was present and she didn't want it to get out that she was a human that felt anger. That would be a real shame.

"Fine, have fun with my unruly daughter." She smiles at me and kisses me on the forehead. I sigh once she is gone. That woman is always making me so angry.

"Your mom is nice." I look at him like he's stupid because he is and just look at my worksheet. I wanted him to know that he just said something that I didn't want to hear.

"She's a southern belle so being ‘nice’ is what she prides herself on." He nods and continues to teach me these numbers that still don't make sense but I can do the problems at least.

"How are you good at this? I find it annoying that you are but I would like to know how." I was getting frustrated with this one problem that he solved with ease a few moments prior.

"Numbers have always come easy to me, there is nothing to interrupt, just write out numbers in the designated slots then solve." He explains with such focus in his eyes.

"I like Interpretation, it's free, nothing to get wrong or right just choose your own answer." He smiled down on me and gave me that look that made me want to punch him. "What?" He giggled to himself and just continued. I didn't push it any further because I just wanted to be done with math.

"Looks like your done and you'll get a good grade on it." He says standing up and stretching. I smile at the worksheet. This thing couldn't even beat me even if it tried.

"Yeah my teacher’s going to think I cheated." He let out a light laugh.

"Perhaps but I'll most likely be grading it so don't worry." I flew up out of my chair and in disbelief stared at him.

"What do you mean Leo?"

"You didn't know my initials are on the bottom of the worksheets. I grade for your teacher. I kind of placed out of all of my math classes so they gave me this to do instead." As he was talking I dug through my backpack to find one of the old worksheets. And long behold I see LF on the bottom. "Yeah I'm a TA for your math teacher. But I don't sit in for your period." I wanted to hit him.

"You're telling me you could have just passed me through." He shook his head and made a ticking noise at me.

"Yes but you have to learn the material, I don't grade tests and that's worth more than this homework assignment by a lot." I narrowed my eyes at him and turned away. Pissed that I wasted my time. And also upset that he had a point.

"If you want I can help you with all of them, just let me know." I turned back and sighed

"No thanks Leo." He frowned and stepped closer to me getting in my bubble.

"Why not." He asked with that stupid grin.

"Never mind, are you ready to go." He looked at his watch and made a face of discomfort.

"It's kinda past the time that I wanted so maybe another time." I felt upset but I didn't want to say anything. I had no reason to. I mean he did just spend his whole afternoon helping me with homework. But I still wanted to go out. "Wanna watch a movie."

"That seems pretty date like to me." He shook his head and walked over to my living room. I followed right behind him and wondered what he was doing.

"No, not at all. You will know when I want to have a date, I'll ask, be a gentleman about it, make it all romance, no math." His tone was aggravating as he spewed these stupid lines to me but I guess they worked because I caved and within minutes we were watching the movie I picked out.

"Paper Towns?"

"Yes, it a book that I liked and the movie is okay but it has a certain appeal." I say coming back with popcorn that I put in the middle of us. I noticed he was sitting further away than usual. I guess my talk about not wanting to do anything got to him. If only he knew that I wanted to rip his clothes off the moment I met him.

"Whatever you say."