"Hi, I’m Ashton. Ashton Cooper.”
No answer. Should he ask her name in return? Well, that was what he actually did with any pretty girl. However that one seemed different. Yet, he decided to go for it.
“Hmm…what’s your name?” he asked trying the direct approach.
The brunette whooshed round and stared at him with a measuring look. “Why do you wanna know?” she snapped haughtily.
What arrogance! Hell, what did she think of herself? His seventeen years old ego suffered a blow but still he offered her one of his dazzling smiles and cocked his eyebrows in a flirtatious manner.
“Why do you think a guy like me would ask a girl like you her name?” he drawled in his best macho voice.
At that, she laid down her pencil and sneered at him. “Oh, you think you are irresistible, don’t you?”
Taken aback, he frowned at her not knowing what to retort back for the first time in his life. It was usually the tactic that ticked the chicks off. Hell, no! Usually, he didn’t have much effort to do as the
girls were just waiting to be asked out by him. What was the problem with that one?
“Well, lemme tell you that I’m not impressed and I don’t like this kind of behavior,” she continued on the same tone.
“Hey, take it easy. I was only trying to be your friend,” he said feeling offended now that she should reject him so openly.
“Oh yeah? I know your type only too well. So why don’t you leave me alone and try it with some other girl-of your type?” she added on a derisive tone that made Ashton feel infuriated.
That was exactly what he should have done. Leave her alone and move on to the next prey but Heavens knew what took over him. Whether it was the blunt rejection or her damned attitude he didn’t know but he really lost it that day.
“What do you mean ‘my type’?” he exploded. “Who do you think you are to judge me in the first place?”
She narrowed her eyes at him in that regal stance of hers and folded her arms calmly while he was fuming.
“Do you want me to spell it out?” she mocked in a detached manner as if she didn’t really give a damn.
“Why not? Let’s hear it,” he yelled, so furious that he didn’t notice the whole class staring at them both, enjoying the ugly scene they were creating-or more probably he was creating.
The loose character type. The one who doesn’t spare anyone wearing skirts!!!”
“Oh,” Ashton exclaimed feeling the full impact of a blow at her words. “And you are the ‘touch me not’ kind, aren’t you? Think you are pretty special, don’t you? Well, let me tell you that you are not the only fish in the pond.”
”Exactly. That’s exactly what I am saying. So why don’t you leave me alone and shower your favors elsewhere?” she said in a voice dripped with so much sarcasm that it drove him speechless. It was the first time he had no words to retaliate. First time a girl had rejected him. First time he’d been humiliated so. First time he’d wanted to knock down a girl, no matter how pretty.
He clenched his jaws so tightly that he thought they would snap. Oh how he wanted to wipe that indifferent expression from her face. How dare she? She was new to town, to school and he had only been trying to be nice, well…among other things. But how dare she have such an attitude? Miss high and mighty! Touch me not princess! he thought nastily.
Get a grip, Cooper! he chided himself realizing suddenly that everyone was enjoying his discomfiture. Slowly, he relaxed his grip and tried to ease his tension. He even tried a casual shrug at the ‘touch me not queen’ who was not even looking at him.
From that day onwards, he, Ashton Jacob Cooper, swore that she was his enemy and that he would never ever say a nice word to her! Bloody ‘Princess Touch me not’!
