Chapter 3 Acquainted

“Taine! Hurry up; you are going to be late.” My mom shouted. I combed the curls in my hair up and watched them spring back. Perfect. Today was the first day at that new school. Urgh. At least we didn’t have to wear a uniform. I chose a pair of ripped black jeans that showed off my knees, a plain black cotton shirt and a yellow plaid jacket. I, of course, had on my favourite batman necklace and my rings. There were 5 rings in total, 3 on my left hand and 2 on my right.

I had a single diamond stud in my left ear. I had painted the nails of my pinkie fingers black and checked if the paint was chipped. Nope, I popped the black nail polish into my pocket just in case. I scanned my appearance in the mirror and smirked. I had brown hair with sexy amber eyes that appeared almost gold in the sunlight. My coloured skin was clear of acne and well taken care of. Damn, I look dope.

I grabbed my school bag and walked out of the bathroom. My mom and I lived by the orphanage. We had a room each and a bathroom that we shared, but everything else was communal space.

“Ha! Taine painted his nails!” One of the kids laughed.

“It’s called fashion.” I rolled my eyes.

“Oof, burn.” Another kid yelled. Children were weird. They found the stupidest things funny and annoyingly went around saying yo mama jokes. Ironic, since most of them didn’t have parents.

“Taine, can you help me paint my nails later?” A little girl asked and walked over to me.

“I can, but I only have black.” I smiled and snuggled my head on the side of her neck.

“That’s okay,” she said through laughs.

“Come here, Widi.” My mom stated and took the little girl from me. “Have a great first day!” She cheered and placed a kiss on my cheek, then went off to help the children with breakfast. I caught a lift with the bus that took all the children to school. Encore High was for all children from wealthy families, so I was the only person from the orphanage that went there. D.T.A. paid for all my schooling fees, but the cover story was that my selfish lawyer Dad paid for it.

They enrolled me in Geography, Maths lit, Consumers, Business and obviously, English and Afrikaans. I liked those subjects, so it’s not like D.T.A. forced me to take them.

“Awe, my brother!” Morando greeted me when I walked into the gates of the school. We had been in the same primary school, but I didn’t know his parents could afford to send him here.

“Ai didn’t expect to see you here. At least there is one other normal person here besides these stuck ups.” I laughed.

“We aren’t all that bad.” A white guy behind me stated he had on a rugby jacket, and I noticed he also painted his pinkie nails black. “I’m Cameron.”

“Taine Mecer.” I greeted and shook his hand.

“Dude, those kicks are fly!” The guy next to Cameron cheered and pointed at my shoes.

“Thanks. You look grand, my mate.” I smiled and complimented him.

“That’s Freddy,” Cameron stated as Morando and Freddy walked off. “He’s a complete nerd, so we keep him around so he can do our homework.”

“So, I take it your mister popular around here?”

“You can say that.” He shrugged. “Many of the students from my last school also got accepted into Encore, but here most of us are all strangers. Take Gale over there.” He gestured towards a girl with blonde hair. She was surrounded by other girls and had all their attention focused on her. “She and I used to hook up before she won miss pre-teen of KZN and started thinking she was better than anyone else. My suggestion, stay away.” He added.

“Thanks for the heads up. Do you have your eye on anyone here?” I questioned. Cameron seemed like an excellent guy to make friends with, he knew most of the students in the grade, and I could use that to my advantage.

“Bro, there’s this chick. Hmmm… so fucking hot. Let me see if I can find her.” He smiled and looked around. “You see that white girl over there by the rose bush? The one all in black?”

I looked over that way and recognised the girl as the girl in the picture I was given. Cameron liked my target.

“Jane Randall?” I asked, confused. I glanced at her again. Yeah, she was pretty but nowhere near hot. What the fuck was Cameron seeing?

“What? Who’s that? No, no. Not the white girl; I like the girl next to her. Rocksyn.” He laughed. I shifted my attention to Rocksyn. She had fair black skin with great cleavage and a nice ass. She had on a bright pink skirt and a white crop top with a blonde afro. That made more sense. Rocksyn was damn hot.

“Hmmm… now that’s hot.” I nodded, and he agreed.

“Do you have your eye on anyone?”

“Haven’t really checked out the playing field yet, but I like to keep my options open. Not really a one girl kind of guy.”

“I get you, as long as you keep Rocksyn for me… you and I can be mates.” He smiled and walked off. I looked back at my target. The mission was to get to know her better. That’s tomorrow’s problem; now it was time to mingle. I looked up and noticed a cute Indian girl staring at me. She looked away and blushed when I caught her staring. I smirked and walked on. Getting that Jane chick to talk to me would be easy. Who could resist all of this?