Chapter 3: The Geometry of a Desk
The English wing of Covington High smelled of floor wax, old paper, and the frantic, sweet sweat of three hundred teenagers. For Katherine Becker, it was the smell of home. For the boy sitting in the third row, it was a buffet.
Katherine stepped into Mrs. Walker’s classroom, her boots clicking softly on the linoleum. Mrs. Walker, a woman whose wardrobe consisted almost entirely of beige wool and who viewed silence as a sacred rite, looked up from her lesson plan.
"Hello, Mrs. Walker," Katherine said, offering a practiced, polite smile.
"Ah, Katherine. Welcome back to the grind," Mrs. Walker replied, her voice warming slightly. She pointed a manicured finger toward the cluster of desks. "Pick your spot carefully. It’ll be your assigned seat for the rest of the semester. Choose a neighbor you can tolerate."
Katherine nodded, her eyes scanning the room. She knew these faces. There was Marcus, who had been in her kindergarten class; Sarah, who still smelled like the horses she rode every morning; and then, there was the anomaly.
In the back corner, bathed in the pale light of the window, sat the "Oasis" Ashley had been obsessed with.
Noah Riley didn't look like a high school student. He looked like a statue carved from marble and then dressed in a denim jacket. His dark brown hair was perfectly disheveled, and as Katherine approached, he turned his head.
When their eyes met, Katherine felt a jolt—not of romance, but of pure, unadulterated electricity. His eyes were a deep, piercing green, the color of a forest after a rainstorm. But he looked... confused. He raised an eyebrow at her, a silent question hanging in the air.
Katherine sat in the empty desk beside him, her heart hammering against her ribs like a trapped bird. She bit her bottom lip, a nervous habit she couldn't suppress, and stared fixedly at the whiteboard. Up close, he was too hot for his own good. She found herself memorizing the line of his jaw and the way his hands—pale and steady—rested on the desk. She felt a magnetic pull she couldn't explain, a sudden, desperate urge to know everything about the stranger who smelled like cold rain and cedarwood.