Is sixteen really that sweet? For Hazel Hart it seems pretty average until a new student arrives at her school.
PART I - PROJECT PARTNERS
Thursday. The second-best day of the school week, as any student knows. Why? Because it's the day before Friday, which is the best day. Hazel Hart rummages through her drawers for an outfit to wear.
Her father, Adagio, leaves for work at dawn. Sometimes it's days before he returns. She is still not exactly sure what his job entails. She knows it's in an office downtown, but he also can be called at any hour of the day and must leave to travel often. It's quite inconvenient, but she's used to it now and it's a part of her life.
Raine is her mother. Raine spends mornings taking in an espresso and doing yesterday's crossword. She's an international corporate lawyer, and spends some nights late at the office, but otherwise is home at a reasonable hour.
This leaves Hazel minding her little brother in the evenings. Harrison hates mornings, and he'll probably be scrambling to do his homework before the school bus arrives.
Hazel meets up with her BFF & Cousin, Ros, before their Literature Class.
"Hey Haze, guess what day it is?" Ros asks.
"Umm, Thursday? T.G.I.T am I right?" Hazel giggles.
"NO! It's..." Ros lowers her voice and turns her gaze down the hallway...
"New student day! Have you seen this Erik Denholm guy? Complete fox!"
Hazel is pretty sure the tall, dark-haired boy can hear Ros's obvious whispering and hurriedly ushers her into the classroom.
Lit class goes by fairly slowly, and they discuss Shakespeare. The teacher throws in a little twist near the end of class though, he's assigning partners for a presentation!
Some of the class moans and groans, others perk up. Hazel definitely perks up when the teacher reads "Denholm & Hart" as one of the assigned partnerships.
She wonders what kinds of books he likes, where he moved from, and why he is transferring in the middle of the school year. She supposes she can ask him when they get together to go over what play they want to do the project on.
He seems so cool and calm. Just the opposite she would be if she was at a new school on the first day.
After class, she can feel the jealousy radiating off the other girls for being the one to get paired with the 'cute new guy' at school. Ros isn't jealous, she has a boyfriend but is happy for her cousin for this opportunity.
Raine is home in time for dinner. Adagio is not. She avoids questions about where Adagio is, only that he was called out of town, and instead asks them how their day went.
Hazel makes a point to ask her mother if she plans on being late at work tomorrow night, and to make sure her father is still 'out of town' until the weekend. Raine confirms this with only a hint of suspicion, as Hazel is not one of those teens that plans parties behind her parents' backs. She maybe has other plans...
She walks into the kitchen the next day and is surprised to find her father at the espresso maker. She quickly recovers and bids him a greeting.
"Did you do something different with your hair? Why do you look different?" Adagio asks. He may be very busy but not too busy to notice his daughter wears her hair in a ponytail every day.
"It's nothing special! Can't a girl just do something different with her hair?" she gets a tad bit defensive, "Mom said you were out of town until tomorrow, did something happen?"
Her father lifts his coffee to his lips and nods, swallows, "The meeting was moved today. I'm flying out at noon."
This brings her ease.
Because it's a well-known rule she and Harrison are not allowed to have people over if Adagio is not in residence.
Unbeknownst to her parents, she went ahead, on Ros's advice, to invite Erik over to start on the project after school. He agreed, he even brought them refreshments!
She figures it's academic-related, so no harm done!
She gives him a quick run down of where the bathroom is and then suggests they get to work, pick a play and start making notes about what to present about it.
Erik Denholm, age 17. Born across the ocean in the lands of the east, of Ruskslovia. He speaks Simlish quite well, albeit with an accent. She likes that he pronounces her name "Haschel", where he makes the 'z' sound soft and smooth. He finds a Shakespeare play–one they both have read before and they agree to use it for their project.
He talks about the themes, and she notes down the particulars. They chat about stuff in between, like how Erik's mother works for the Regional government in the Mayor's office. He also has a little sister about Harrison's age.
"My mother is a lawyer, and my father is...well I'm not exactly sure what he does though he travels often for the job. Sometimes he brings us back things," Hazel absently converses while dotting her notes in bullet points.
"I bet you have quite a collection," Erik muses, getting ready to close his laptop for the night, "I best be off."
"Already?" Hazel laments but catches herself and nods sheepishly.
"Thanks for coming over to work on this. I think we have a great head start!" Hazel walks him to the door and bids him good evening.
"I agree, you are smart girl, Haschel. We will conquer this project together!"
His smile is warm, and she can smell his cologne. She returns the smile. Her brother must have decided 5 simoleons wasn't enough to keep him in his room all night because they hear him approach, which causes Erik to pause.
"Good night Foxy Foreign Guy" Harrison says in a high-pitched, mocking voice. Hazel just knows he was listening to her phone conversation with Ros through the wall their rooms shared.
Erik puts on a pleasant, puzzled sort of smile and Hazel glares daggers at her little brother.
Once she quickly introduces Harrison to Erik, and Erik leaves and after she chases Harrison around the house threatening to punt him across the yard, she breathlessly leans against her door and thinks the night went fairly well for what it was.
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