"Ready to hit the library?" I asked as the four of us gathered our things after another class a few weeks later. 'Man, this spring quarter is flying by so quickly,' I thought to myself as I waited for their responses.

"Oh no! I'm sorry Ash but I forgot I told my parents I'd go straight home after class today to start cooking dinner. My aunt and uncle are coming for a visit."

"No worries Em. Tell your parents I say hi then."

"Of course. See you guys later," she waved as she rushed to get home.

"Dustin?"

"Not today, sorry. I've got a seven-page paper to write by tomorrow and I've been slacking off on it. I'm going back to the apartment to work on it."

A feeling of dread settled into my stomach when I realized what that meant. I put on a smile anyway. "All right. Well I guess we'll see you later then. Good luck with the paper."

"Thanks," he said as he too left.

I sighed as Jacob and I slowly followed the others out.

I felt him give me a look. "Are you up to studying today Ashley? You sound kinda beat."

'Of course I'm up to studying. Just not with you! Still, there's no reason for you to know,' I thought to myself. "Yeah, I'm up to it. No worries. Might as well keep up with the routine."

"Sure? I'd understand if you didn't want to study with me."

"As if I ever really want to study with you." It was out before I could stop myself. 'Good one Ash. So much for not letting him know what you really think.' I laughed a little, hoping he wouldn't take what I said to heart. He was quiet though, and I finally looked over at him after he stayed silent. "What? No smart comeback?"

The hidden look that had been on his face vanished, and he gave me a smile. "Not good enough to answer to that, no. You surprise me sometimes Ashley."

I gave him a puzzled stare. "I shock you? That's so hard for me to believe."

"Believe what you want then," he shrugged. "But I know there's more to you than you let on in front of me."

"Oh really? Why should you care?"

"You're a challenge."

"That's all I am?"

He smiled again. "That's all you let me know. For now, anyway."

I laughed. "That's all you'll ever know Jacob, trust me."

From the corner of my eye, I noticed him shake his head in disagreement. "Come on. Let's see if we can't teach each other something new about evolution," he said as we took a seat at a table.

"As if there's really anything more to learn about that," I smiled genuinely this time, and he returned that smile.

My good mood didn't last very long though. As soon as we'd opened up our things, it was back to the way before with him spoon-feeding me the information I already knew and then some. "You see, the thing with Darwin is –"

"Look Jacob," I said, cutting him off. "I don't need a history lesson here. We've been learning the same stuff about the guy since grade school. I just need a little help understanding the math part to these questions. That's it."

He sat back in his seat and looked at me for a moment, startled at my outburst. It had been awhile since I'd burst out like that, and the faint look of hurt that crossed his face before he could manage to hide it… I looked away quickly and started gathering my things. "Sorry about that Jacob. I think I better go. It's almost time for work anyway." At least that much was true. Certainly though, I just needed to leave before I burst out like that again. I didn't know how he was doing it, but he was bringing out a side that I didn't like.

I was already out the door when I heard him call to me again.

"Hey Ashley!"

I groaned, loudly enough to make sure he heard me. "What now? Why can't you just go away and leave me alone?"

"Wait," he said, stepping in front of me and holding me back by the shoulders. "I just wanted to know if this was your number."

He held a piece of paper in front of my face and I glanced at it. "Yeah," I said, recognizing the digits in front of me. "Why do you-"

"Good," he said, interrupting me. "Here's mine. Call me sometime when you need a break."

He scribbled some numbers on the bottom of the same sheet of paper, tore the paper in half, and gave his phone number to me. I looked down at it. "Huh? What would I want…" I looked back up to confront him and found him gone. I turned around and saw that he'd already started on his way in the other direction. "Hey Jacob!" I called out, catching up with him a few steps away. "What was that for?"

"What? You asked me to go away and leave you alone, so that's what I'm doing," he said, smirking a little to himself and giving me a sideways glance.

That stopped me in my tracks and I found myself at a loss for words. "You know, you can be so infuriating sometimes," I finally said after staring at him for a few moments.

"I know," he said, still walking away from me. "But soon enough, you'll come to realize that you like me because of it."

"As if I'd ever like you!" I spat out, horrified that he could ever think that. 'Honestly, am I the only one who knows this?'

He winked back at me. "We'll discuss this later when you call tonight. You'd better be off or you'll be late to work."

I looked down at my watch and saw that he was right. I cursed to myself and headed back the direction I came from, neither of us bothering to say goodbye to the other.

Once at work, I threw open the door and went over to my station of the lab. A little sense of relief washed over me once I saw that I had some work to do instead of giving me time to just sit around, waiting until one of my supervisors came up with something.

Whitney came out of the office. "Geez Ash. What's with all the racket?"

"Sorry. Just a little frustrated right now," I replied, not meeting her eyes.

"I can tell. Want to talk about it?"

"It's nothing I can't deal on my own, but thanks."

"Sure. Just let me know if you need to talk or something."

"I'll keep it in mind, but seriously. It's not a big deal. Just Jacob getting on my nerves again."

Whitney raised an eyebrow on that one. "All right, I'll let it slide for now then. You just let me know how things turn up in the end, all right?"

"Of course," I replied. "So anyway, how are things with you?"

Whitney instantly burst out into a smile as she told me the latest in her busy life and I found myself tuning her out for the most part as a certain face kept popping up in my mind. 'Dang it Jacob! Only you'd be able to bring out the worst in me this often and put me on such an emotional roller-coaster ride. We were almost being civil earlier until we had to start studying. Then you actually made me feel sorry for you and here you go making me pissed off once again, all in a matter of…' I glanced at a clock. 'Not even three hours!'

Jacob's cocky smile was always on the back of my mind the rest of that afternoon, so that even when I got home that night, I was still in a bad mood. After eating a quick dinner, I went to my room and started unpacking my backpack to get some schoolwork done. At the bottom of the pocket where I kept my pens and pencils, I found the scrap of paper with his number still there. 'Funny, I didn't throw it out right away.'

I made my way over to the trashcan to do exactly that but found myself hesitating once I got there. 'What harm can calling him this one time be?' I wondered, and just as quickly thought, 'Plenty. It'd probably inflate his ego again and show off how right he was about me.' Still, I found myself dialing the digits before I could stop myself. 'What is the world coming to that I can't even stop my own actions anymore?' I wondered as I waited for someone to pick up on the other end.

"Hello?"

"Hi. May I speak to Jacob please?"

"Speaking. Who's this?"

"It's Ashley."

"Oh hey Ash! How's it going?"

"It's going. How are you?"

"Not too bad actually. Thanks for asking."

"Uhh, okay, sure."

"So what can I do for you?"

"Huh? Oh, nothing I guess."

"Well, you call for something? Needed a break already? I thought you just got home."

Even over the phone, I could hear the smirk in his voice and that just got me angry all over again. "And how would you know?" I asked back a little testily. "I just found the paper in my backpack and decided to call."

He laughed. "Well then, I'm glad you did."

"And why would that be? So you could tease me and pick on me some more?"

"No Ash, not at all. Look, I'm sorry I do that. You just bring it out."

"Right. Like I'm going to believe you."

"Well, what'll it take for me to get you to believe me?"

"I don't know. It doesn't matter anyway, I guess. What I'm wondering is how you got my number."

"I got it from Emily."

"Em gave it to you?"

"Yeah."

"What!? Why would she do that?"

"Because I asked her for it."

"And why did you ask for it?"

"Because I knew she'd give it to me."

"You're avoiding the question!"

"No, I'm not," he laughed.

"Yes, you are! Why in the world did you want my number?"

"Ahh… Now that's an entirely different question. You didn't ask that before."

"Will you just answer me already so we can both get off the phone and move on to better things? I doubt you're enjoying this."

"Actually, that couldn't be further from the truth. I enjoy talking with you a great deal."

"Yeah right!" I scoffed.

"I'm serious!"

"What? You get a kick out of making me look and feel like an idiot all the time?"

"What? Of course not! I do it because you actually answer back. You're different from most other girls I know. Half of them are always stressed about school and that's it. They don't know how to relax and have fun sometimes. The rest are too lazy to care about school, and that just annoys me because I need someone who is serious about their future. With you, I get the feeling that, while most of what you let me see is just the stress with school, there's a part of you that enjoys the verbal confrontations just as much as I do, and you use that as a way to relieve the tension. As I said earlier this afternoon, I bet there's a lot to you that you don't let on in front of me."

"Am I that see through?" I asked myself out loud, almost forgetting that he could hear her on his end of the line.

I heard him laugh. "Do I take that as a yes, I'm right?"

"Maybe," I growled, a little angry at just how right he was. "But you still haven't answered my question."

"Why did I want your number?"

"Yes."

"I wanted it."

"There's got to be more to it than that," I pressed.

"What? I can't get the number of a girl I happen to like?"

I felt my jaw drop for a moment until the laughter kicked in. "Now you're really kidding. There's no way!"

"Ahh, Ashley. Only you would deny it," he replied, amusement in his voice, but there was a hint of something else I couldn't quite catch…

"There's nothing to deny Jacob. The only reason you got my number was to harass me some more, and while you're right in that I do enjoy it sometimes, I have a feeling that that's it."

"Are your feelings always right?"

"Depends on what we're talking about."

"Guys then."

"In that case, then no. I think out of everything else, that's where I mess up the most."

"Oh really?"

"Yup. I have a knack for ignoring my emotions when it comes to guys so much so that in the end, I never know how I truly feel about a guy. It makes for a simpler and less stressful life because I get too frustrated and give up trying. Besides, guys are just trouble, and I have no time for that."

"Boys or trouble?"

"Both."

Again, he laughed a hearty laugh, and I found myself grinning as well. "If you say so Ash."

"I do. Anyway, I think I better get going. I have a little bit of reading to do for my other classes."

"Yeah, I should probably get off and read ahead for tomorrow's lecture anyway to prepare for our next study session. The two of us have got a lot of teaching to do to make up for what Emily and Dustin missed today."

"You go do that, and I'll make sure to refresh myself on tomorrow's lecture too," I smiled.

"All right. Well, good night then."

"Night. I'll see you tomorrow."

"Of course. Bye."

I slowly hung up the phone as I shook my head. For some reason, I couldn't wipe my smile off my face. 'Was that the first conversation we've had where I didn't go biting his head off? Man, he's a strange one all right,' I thought to myself as I finally turned toward my desk and started to go through one of my textbooks.

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