This is for Brittany. Today's her birthday and she's extremely awesome, so I hope she likes this!
HAPPY BIRTHDAY!
It's short, but I hope it's good.
Studying
Brittany groaned as she turned the page of her massive history book. Maybe waiting until two days before the final exam to study something she’d barely looked at once wasn’t the best idea, but she’d had too much fun all semester to really focus on history. And now when she really needed to concentrate, the person across the table kept interrupting her.
She knew she had bad luck, but this really was the worst. Whoever decided to pair her up with Joe Jonas for study time had to be off their rocker. Didn’t they know he was nothing but a nuisance?
Sure enough, as she tried to cram the important dates of all the wars in her head, she happened to glance up to find him staring at her.
“What?” she snapped, her dark brown hair falling in her face. Irritated, she pulled it up into a loose ponytail before scowling at Joe.
“We’re supposed to be study partners,” he said grinning, “and you’re not helping me.”
Brittany was thankful of the fact that she had younger brothers and sisters, otherwise she was sure the pencil she was holding in her hand would have found itself wedged between Joe’s eyes. She had a little more patience than that, thankfully.
“You’re not helping me over there, Mr. Distraction.” She said, her voice rising above a whisper. “Stop staring at me and let’s memorize these dates. If I fail this exam because of you, you’re dead.” Her serious words seemed to mollify him for a few minutes, and he and Brittany spent a good half hour swapping dates and random facts to each other.
They were laughing about the similarities of one battle when the bell rang, signaling the end of the study time.
“Same time tomorrow?” Joe asked jokingly, to which Brittany just rolled her eyes and nodded. If you could actually get him to study and not be the class clown, he was sort of…alright.
--
A very frazzled and tired Brittany strolled into the library the next day. The exam was tomorrow and she was worried she didn’t know nearly enough for the test. Joe smiled at her, but she barely acknowledged him, so focused on studying.
“Okay, so I guess we’re studying alone today.” He said, more so to himself than her, but she nodded her head quickly, fumbling for her study guides.
“Sorry, it’s just…I’m really nervous about this exam.” She said, victoriously dancing in her chair when she found the sheets with random pieces of information scrawled all over it.
They sat in relative silence for ten minutes, with only the sound of papers shuffling and pages turning coming from their table. It was when Brittany looked up from her sheet on the 1940s that she noticed Joe wasn’t studying at all, but instead looking at her.
“Joe, what are you doing?” she asked, her dark brown eyes curious.
“Studying,” he replied, tilting his head to the side and looking at her through the hair that fell onto his face.
She quickly glanced around the table and was shocked to notice that her books were the only ones opened, and her papers the only thing scattered on the table.
“But your books—“ she said, before she was interrupted.
“Did you know that you repeat the same fact three times before reading the next one? And that you tap your pencil to your chin when you think you have something down?” he said, shocking Brittany. She didn’t know that.
“And that when you’re excited about a random fact you’ll underline it twice and smile, but only from the corner of your mouth.” He continued.
“W-what?” she stammered, confused. “How do you know all this?”
Joe smiled at her before standing and walking around the table to sit next to her. “I told you I was studying. Something far more interesting than history.” Before she could process what he was saying, he gently pressed his lips to hers.
And that’s when all of the history facts she memorized may have escaped her brain. But that was okay because kissing Joe Jonas was a lot more fun that committing stupid dates to memory.
