Try To Change Me

Chapter 36

Finn's tapping fingers were slapped to the table beneath Hazmat's open palm, and he flinched back, raising confused and afronted eyes to the man's.

"Stop that," Haz grumbled, glaring at him, "Now."

Ripping his hand free, the teenager sunk back into the booth seat, wedging himself into the corner. He dragged his hands down his face, peeking out from behind his fingers.

"Sor-ry," he said with attitude, rolling his eyes, "But just sitting here is giving me a headache."

"Well, your incessant jittering was giving me one, so..." Hazmat growled back, "stop that."

Grinding his teeth, Finn jammed his hands together, interlocking his fingers as he seethed. He'd always had a short temper. When you were as accident prone as he was, you caught a lot of flack. especially at sixteen. He'd been called a klutz, a girl, 'finnegan got-hit-again', or Carissa's personal favourite: punch bag. But the worst, he'd found, came from adults. Too many times he'd been in the nurse's office and they'd offered him a lollipop. For God's sake he was sixteen not six! And frail? Oh, how he hated the word. He was sick and tired of having frail bones and frail health and... It was a word used to describe an 18th century woman not a 21st century man.

Hazmat thumped his fist on the table, pulling Finn out of his thoughts. The man was glaring at him.

"You were doing it again."

He glanced down at his hands, twitching in surprise as he found them seperated and drumming frantically against the table. He stilled them quickly and met Haz's gaze. "Sorry."

The man's eyes narrowed at his tone, and they stared each other down, each willing the other to look away. After a few moments, it was Ms Smith's soft voice that interrupted them.

"Oh for God's sake, you two!" she snapped, waving a hand in between them. They blinked, squinted and rubbed their eyes, almost in sync, before frowning at her indignantly. "You're acting like bloody children!"

Mr Irving, who was sitting across from her beside Hazmat, stretched out his hand to lift her slim fingers off the table. He gave her hand a gently squeeze but she got the message: don't draw attention.

She swallowed, nodding sligthly at him but not pulling her hand free. Her hand in his - it felt so comfortable, so right. Shaking her head she quickly drew her fingers away, tucking them into a fist to try and retain his warmth. It was like stockholm syndrome or something, where a person began to feel attracted to the person who was keeping them safe from men with guns. Except now the man keeping Ella safe had a gun and she didn't mind.

When a slight blush licked at her cheeks, Ms Smith admitted to herself that that wasn't entirely true: Anthony hadn't suddenly become attractive in the last 24hrs - he'd been a drop-dead-gorgeous sweetheart for the last year. Unfortunately he'd also been the only single man under 55 on the teaching staff who hadn't asked her out, inlcuding a few prac students who'd mustered the gall after only three days.

Maybe he was gay.

Ella tsk-ed quietly, chiding her internal monologue: just because she was a young, available woman who flirted with him regularly and he was available but had ever asked her out didn't mean he was gay. He could just not be interested.

Or maybe he was dying.

She raised her gaze from her fisted hand, startled to find Anthony's eyes trained on her face. She blushed crimson, feeling the heat in her face as her eyes opened wide. "Sorry?" she squeaked.

Trying to hide a small, confused smile, Mr Irving said, "We were just talking about what we're going to do once the others arrive."

"I thought we were going to..." she paused to make air quotes, "...'we'."