Aaron knew he screwed up when Keeley hit him and stormed off. She looked angry but more than that she looked scared and it cut him to the core.

　　Why? Why had things gone so wrong this time? She was supposed to be in love with him already! He hadn't meant to scare her off.

　　Even though she didn't wear the presents he bought her, she still looked like an angel in her cheap pink dress and loose curls. No sane man could resist kissing the woman he loves in that situation.

　　These days he wondered if he even was sane or if he was losing his mind over her.

　　Keeley's resistance to him was maddening. She was supposed to come to him; she always did before.

　　He remembered how she originally caught his eye.

　　He was at a basketball game because the son of one of his father's business contacts was the captain and his father wanted them to be on good terms with each other.

　　Aaron didn't care about basketball but orders were orders. Defying his father was not in his best interest.

　　He went to get concessions during halftime and briefly locked eyes with her. She turned bright red and looked away—a common female reaction—and scurried away into the crowd.

　　He would have thought nothing of it if they hadn't been seated next to each other in literature cla.s.s a few weeks later.

　　"Your last name is Hale?" she asked with a wide smile on her face. "Mine is Hall; we're only one letter off. What a small world."

　　A small world indeed. His world was painfully small. Everybody he knew wanted something from him or vice versa. It was oddly refres.h.i.+ng that she didn't know who he was before then.

　　Keeley treated him like a normal cla.s.smate rather than someone to be feared. Every day she greeted him with a warm smile and when he ran out of lead for his mechanical pencil in the middle of a quiz she gave him a piece of hers straight out of her pencil before he even had the chance to dig around in his bag to see if there was any left hiding somewhere.

　　He wouldn't have been able to finish the quiz on time if not for her interference. How had she known he was in need so quickly?

　　After that he paid more attention to the girl sitting next to him. She had an expressive face and sparkling eyes that were frequently focused on him when she thought he wasn't looking.