Jared intended to say something like, "Who you calling easy?" but decided that it was best to keep his mouth shut while Ricki and the girls handled the really inept pickup lines. Suddenly, the ladies and Carl were clearing, but Jared took a little extra time leaving.

It was funny enough, because Nick didn't have any really nasty things to say to Jared to his face -- there was the Gold Digger thing going around, but the one where Jared gave Livingston a really nasty hit to the face after being taken down, in addition to the way he could take a hockey stick to the face and keep going apparently made an impression around the school. It wasn't like he was actually some sort of goon.

"Hey Nick," he called out as the dude was about to leave.

"What?" It was an aggrieved sort of what.

"Do you shrink a couple inches when the viagra wears off?"

Nick and his buddy, whoever the guy was, were juniors and they were just a couple of dumb kids trying to make themselves look good by picking on someone to impress others, and that seemed to be back firing. However, Nick decided to get in Jared's face, or close to it and say, "Fuck you, man, just because you got there first doesn't mean you're better than me." 

"Get out of my face," Jared shot back; lately, the sort of alpha dick stuff was wearing on him, and he didn't generally describe himself as the sort of guy that was ready to swing, but being physically assaulted by a hormonal douche tends to change the calculus a bit.

And Nick seemed to relish the chance to act like the tough guy, especially after getting turned down by Ricki. Jared's response gave him the opening. "Or wha--" 

That was when a teacher intervened, "Get back to your table, Stevens!"

Jared got his bag over his shoulder and rolled out, though he noticed Gabe trying to talk to Heather, and it didn't look like that was working out so well. He wanted to shake his head and say, "Get her in private, dude!" because the entire school was watching and that probably doomed it but he just let it go.

Carl sent a text; [i]Art room[/i] when Jared was turning into the mens' room. On his way out, he ran into Heather Voss, who seemed...well, friendlier than he'd ever remembered her before.

"Hey, Jared, how you doing?" He wasn't sure whether to tell the truth, that he was annoyed and wanted the privacy, but that might lead to an unpleasant conversation.

"Oh, I suppose I'm doing alright. I just want to get work done on an assignment."

"I think I'll do the same," she said brightly, "Where are you headed?"

Therein lay the trap; a blonde, perky cheerleader with a sudden obsession about getting assignments done. Gabe was nowhere to be seen, but neither were her girls.

"Well," he said uncomfortably, "Ricki, Krista, Maureen and Carl are in the art room and Ricki and I have this thing we gotta work on for AP English..."

"Oh, really?" Heather said, apparently suspicious. "What's between you and Ricki? I mean, really Jared. There are rumors and the part about you getting attacked by David are apparently true." She glanced down at his hand, with the bruises.

"School, as far as I know. We have an assignment together. Livingston's got this complex going on." He wanted to get that off his chest all day long, but he'd been getting asked in public where he didn't want to feed the fire. But he felt Heather had a good reason to be interested, "But it's just schoolwork. I don't think she's actually seeing anyone right now."

"Well," Heather Voss told him, flashing dimples, "Neither am I." 

Oh. Shit.

-- 

Luck would have it that some of Heather's friends went hunting for her, and found her about the time he had to reply to anything, dragging her back to the lunch room while he straggled into the Art room looking a bit flustered. One of the cheerleaders shot him a look that wasn't hard to figure out; it was the 'what are you doing?' look. He could handle the aggression from other dudes, but being mistaken for some sort of Nick Stevens who hunted down the vulnerable girls and swooped in like a vulture on a carcass seemed a very real and imminent danger. In addition to being a gold digger -- someone had figured out that hey, he and his mother had to earn their money and held it against them.

He wasn't feeling particularly productive when he got to the Art room, but tried to put a nice face on it, "Sorry, got held up."

"Hey, at least you aren't in detention," Carl said. 

Apparently the Nick Stevens face-off made rounds already. 

"It might be the highlight of his week, but I've got too much shit to do to be stuck in detention."

"Look at it this way, Jared, by the time you get to the Santa Clara game, we can put you on the goon shift."

"Ha-ha, shut the fuck up, you bender."