Page 50 of Sweet Ruin

“The assignment will be done in pairs,” the teacher said as he walked down the aisles passing out the assignment. I’d completely missed the start of his explanation, but the thought of working with a partner made me want to groan. I was skeptical of group work. There was always the risk someone wouldn’t pull their weight, and in pairs, you were totally reliant on the other person doing their bit.

I felt a little better when I turned to my side and Lily was looking at me hopefully.

“Partners?” she whispered.

“Heck yes.” I nodded with obvious enthusiasm. Lily took her schoolwork very seriously because she was at Weybridge on a scholarship and had to make sure her grades were consistently strong. There was no way she’d slack off and leave me with all the work.

She grinned, apparently as happy with the suggestion as I was. She knew I took my grades seriously too. It seemed we weren’t the only ones with the same idea because the class was filled with whispers as other students tried to pair themselves up.

“Not so fast,” Mr. Brenner said, silencing the class. “I will be organizing the partners.”

Everyone started to grumble in complaint.

“We’ll be pairing up according to surnames.” He didn’t hesitate before he started listing off names. “Abbott, Alcott you’ll be together. Booth and Cooper...”

Nerves fluttered through me as I glanced around the room, trying to recall my classmate’s surnames and predict who I might be paired with. I couldn’t be sure, but there was one thing I did know that had me seriously concerned. Noah’s surname was dangerously close in the alphabet to my own. I could think of nothing worse than being paired with him. How could we work together when he so clearly hated me?

“Grace,” Brenner called out. “And Hastings.”

My stomach dropped through the floor, down three flights, and into the basement of the building. This was my nightmare. I would have preferred a partner who did no work at all over Noah. I couldn’t bring myself to look his way to see his reaction. I knew it wouldn’t be good.

As it turned out, I didn’t need to look at him to know exactly how he felt because he spoke up in front of the whole class.

“That doesn’t work for me,” Noah said.

“Excuse me,” Brenner replied.

“That pairing doesn’t work for me,” Noah repeated. “I think I’d be better off with a different partner.”

The room murmured with gasps and whispers. I could feel every eye in the class fall on me, and my cheeks flushed hot with embarrassment. I knew Noah didn’t want to work with me. I didn’t want to work with him either. But did he really have to call me out in front of the entire class?

“But, sir, I don’t think you fully understand—"

“Mr. Hastings. This is a business management class,” Mr. Brenner cut him off. “In the real world, you won’t always get to choose who you partner with in a professional capacity. If there’s a communication issue, you find a way to make it work.”

Everyone in the class turned to Noah, seemingly holding their breaths as they waited for his response. Noah was set to take over a billion-dollar business empire when he left school. It would look pretty bad if he admitted to the teacher that he couldn’t even handle working with me.

Noah seemed to realize that fact pretty quickly because his eyes hardened, and he grumbled his reply through gritted teeth. “I’m sure I can make it work.”

“Good,” Brenner said before he continued listing the pairings. He then handed out the assignment sheets as he described what was required of us.

“You’ll be creating a proposal for a business you want to start,” he explained. “I want to see a full business plan including all the elements listed on the worksheet. The assignment is due the last day before Christmas break. You may use the rest of this class to get started.”

Lily shared a sympathetic look with me. The partner she’d been assigned was almost as bad as mine. She was stuck with a girl who had spent all semester chatting in class. I doubted the girl had learned a single thing. Still, I would have taken her over Noah any day.

I let out a sigh before glancing over at him. He was looking at his phone, showing no indication he was interested in getting started on the assignment like Brenner wanted. I huffed and turned back to my desk. Other students were already sitting in their pairs and getting down to work while I stared at the worksheet, refusing to give in to the temptation to hazard another glance in Noah’s direction.

After pretending to read through the assignment instructions for what felt like the hundredth time, I knew I was going to have to take the first step if I wanted any chance of ever completing this project. Noah sure as hell wasn’t going to come over to me, and I wasn’t going to let him prevent me from passing this class.

Drawing a deep breath in, I gathered my things and walked over to his table. I hesitated when I reached him. Noah didn’t even pull his eyes from his phone to so much as acknowledge my existence.

“We’ll split the work half and half,” he said, still refusing to look at me. “I don’t care what the business is, so you come up with the idea and do the mission statement. I’ll do the rest. You can email me your part when it’s done. I’ll send the finished proposal to Brenner.”

Heat crept up my neck at how easily he dismissed me. I didn’t want to spend any time with Noah, but there was no way we could complete this assignment adequately without collaborating. It was like he hadn’t even bothered to listen to Brenner explain the task.

“We’re supposed to come up with a business proposal together,” I said. “It’s not as simple as just lumping it all on one document and calling it a day.”

“I’m sure you can figure it out.”

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