Hearts In Winter Collection: The Complete Series

Excerpt from Hearts In Winter Collection

“Mrs. Thompson,” Drew Peterson begged his English teacher, fighting for all he was worth to keep his voice collected and professional, “can't I please work with Adam and Jamal on this project? I don't like romance. War is much more interesting to me, so I'll do a better job. You'll see. We'll have the best project in your class… in all your classes. I promise.”

“I'm sorry, Drew.” Mrs. Thompson said, her chins jiggling as she shook her head, “but a group of three is too big for this project. I want you to work with Alyssa.”

“I don't like her,” he argued, inwardly raging. “She doesn't like me either. There's no way we can work together. It would be a disaster.”

She closed one eye halfway, in that oh please look all teachers seemed to have. “Listen, Drew, sometimes in life, we have to work with people we don't like. Do you think I enjoy the company of every other teacher in this school? The real disaster would be if you two refused to do this project and got a bad grade for the whole semester. You're not changing groups. Make peace with it and get to work.”

Muttering under his breath, Drew returned grumpily to the desk where Alyssa was sitting, along the wall under a large poster of a bear with paws over its face groaning about forgotten homework. “Sorry, Miller,” he said in a sarcastic drawl. “No go. She won't let us switch.”

“Shit,” Alyssa whispered, shaking her head so her strawberry blonde hair danced around her shoulders.

“No kidding,” Drew agreed at normal volume. “Well, I don't know about you, but I'll be damned if I get a bad grade in this class. We'll have to make it work somehow.”

She leaned her head back against the wall in defeat. “I guess. I need a scholarship pretty bad, so I have to keep my grades up and pass the A.P. exam too.”

Drew didn't respond. He turned his attention to his nemesis—now his project partner—and considered what the statement might mean. It struck him how much worse off she suddenly looked, her clothes shabbier than he recalled and her cheap makeup not doing her skin any favors. A twinge of pity snaked its way through his insides.

She lifted her head and opened her turquoise eyes, suddenly determined. “Well, Peterson, let's brainstorm. What kind of project do you want to do?”

He shrugged, not yet finished being annoying. “I don't know. What do you think?”

She frowned at his obvious attempt to push the decision making back on her, but gamely stuck to the topic, suggesting, “A diorama? I think I have an old shoebox.” She began to sketch in her notebook with a purple pen.

“Naw.” He dismissed her thoughts with a wave, plucking the pen from her fingers. “That's pretty middle school. What about a commercial?”

“What kind of commercial?” she asked in a hard voice, narrowing her brilliant turquoise eyes.

He grinned at her annoyance, then he got down to business. “Like, what if all our plays represent romantic getaways,” he mimed quotation marks in the air, “each one with a caution, like those medicine commercials. We could talk about passionate Ancient Greece, where you can marry your mother, but the side effect could be gouging your eyes out, Venice, specializing in the interracial scene, like in Othello…”

“But you have to watch out for treacherous friends. Good idea.” He could see Alyssa starting to get inspired. Her hard expression had softened, and her turquoise eyes sparkled. “And how about a cruise, like in that Eugene O'Neill play, but you could end up…”

“In the zoo.” They both laughed.

“I hate to say it, Peterson,” she admitted, grabbing her pen out of his hand, “but you do sometimes come up with a good one. Let's do it.”

“You know what would make it even better?” His enthusiasm sparked higher at his next clever inspiration.

“What?”

“If we recorded it on a video and played it for the class.”

Alyssa got quiet, her smile inverting itself as the sparkle faded from her eyes.

“What's up, Miller?” he asked, wondering what had deflated her high spirits.

“Do you have a video camera?”

“No, but I think we can rent one.”

“I can't afford it.” Her pale cheeks turned pink.

It was a perfect opportunity to make fun of her, but for some reason, he didn't want to do it. Teasing her about her dimple is one thing, he reasoned to himself, but Dad always told me not to be cruel to people. Making fun of a girl for being poor is going a bit far. He refrained. “Well, the camera was my idea, so I'll take charge of renting it. How about if you work on the script? You’re an okay writer.” She’s really a great writer, but I’m not going to say that. Let’s not go overboard.

It would have been the perfect opportunity for her to make a cutting comment about him buying his A, but she didn't. “That sounds fair,” Alyssa said, and then, with a touch of intensity in her voice, “Thank you, Drew.”

They never called each other by their first names, and he knew what she was trying to express—that she understood why he had said what he said and she appreciated his kindness.

“You're welcome, Alyssa.”

She gave him a little smile and leaned over the notebook to start working on the script. She kept running ideas past him the entire period, some that, even as she spoke them aloud, both could see wouldn't work. Others were so funny they had him roaring with laughter, to the point where the teacher had to tell him to calm down several times. He had never had so much fun in English class, at least not while working on his lesson, and it shocked the hell out of him. Stubbornly, he reminded himself, Everyone knows Alyssa's smart. That's not the problem, never has been, and I won't start liking her just because we have to work together.

At last, the bell rang.

“Alyssa, do you think you can finish the script this evening?” Drew requested as they gathered their books and pencil cases.

“Maybe. At least, I'll try,” Alyssa replied. “See you tomorrow. I have to get to choir.”

“Bye.” He waved, friendly in a way that would have shocked him, had he taken the time to consider it.

As Drew made his way down the red and white tiled hall, Dave and Jamal came up behind him, nudging him with their shoulders. “Looks like working with Alyssa is going to be okay after all,” Dave commented.

“Yeah, you too seem almost like… friends,” Jamal added.

“I'm not going to screw up my grade just because it's Alyssa,” Drew shot back, trying to sound grumpy. “Come on. Physics. If we're late, Mr. Rodriguez will not be happy.”

“Nerd athletes to class!” Dave shot one letterman-jacket sleeve into the air like some kind of dorky superhero.

“I'm looking forward to A&P this afternoon,” Jamal added, scratching his head. “The cadaver lab is going to be so gross.”

“Maybe if you're not planning to become a surgeon,” Drew shot back. “I need to be able to look at gross things and not get sick.”

“True,” Dave agreed. “I'm not sure why a future PT does. I'm going to stick with the outsides of people, thank you very much.”

“We go because it's a class requirement, even for future engineers who are only taking A&P to stick together,” Jamal reminded them. “So, let's get to my favorite class before we're late. We can debate the relative merits of corpse gawking later.”

They laughed. “Oh, by the way,” Dave added as they neared the physics classroom, “I can't go to practice today. My mom's taking me to the orthodontist. Coach Berry already knows, but can you guys remind him?”

“Sure thing,” Drew agreed. “Sorry to hear that though. I'd much rather work on my jump-shots than get my braces tightened.”

Dave shrugged. “I want to be able to eat pizza on Friday after the game. It's better to get the pain over with early in the week.”

They ducked into the classroom and took their seats, ready for another lesson. We are a bunch of geeks. Good thing we play football and basketball, or we'd get beat up.

Mr. Rodriguez stepped up, the fluorescent lights shining on the bald top of his head, and indicated the discussion question on the board.

Throughout the rest of the day, Drew found himself slightly distracted. A soft pink mouth turned up in a smile, a deeply dented cheek, and a pair of sparkling turquoise eyes kept lingering around the edges of his consciousness. He angrily tried to push the images away, but he couldn't do it.