Beautiful Broken Rules (Broken, Series #1)(6)

“Welcome to Journalism 359: Investigative Reporting. I hope you’re all in the right class. My assistant is handing out the syllabus, please take one and pass it down. You all know how to read, you wouldn’t have made it this far if you couldn’t. You don’t need me to read over every point on the syllabus, it’s your responsibility to read it yourself and do what is required of you.” Another reason, why I like Patterson so much, he gets straight to the point. We don’t have to waste an entire hour and a half doing exactly what we’ll be doing in all of our other classes the next couple of days.

“With Investigative reporting, you’re going to be thrown into a situation with people you haven’t met and you’re going to be required to come back with thebest possible answers you can get from them. You need to learn how to ask questions, good questions, on the spot. We’ll just do a small exercise today to practice this,” he proposed, while walking back and forth in front of us. “Everyone turn and pick a partner, no crossing the room, just pick someone next to you. Ask them as many questions as you can think of to keep the conversation rolling. You need to be able to keep up a dialogue and get crucial information out of people. I don’t need you to write this all down, because I don’t have time to read it. I just want you to get comfortable talking to someone you don’t know, and asking questions you wouldn’t otherwise ask if you weren’t working. Go.”

Jaxon turned his body to face mine in his seat. “Partner?” he asked and I nodded my head. I wasn’t sure if I wanted this gorgeous guy to ask me a bunch of personal questions; he seemed too observant. On the other hand, I was interested in getting to know more about him.

“Uh, excuse me, Jaxon, you should be my partner seeing as I don’t have anyone on the other side of me, Em can be her partner,” Tobias said, gesturing at the girl on my left, who clearly was already in a deep conversation with the guy in front of her.

“Nope, sorry man. I’m definitely going to sit here and enjoy getting to know Em here.” He said my name as if he was unsure that’s how to pronounce it. My real name is Emerson, but no one calls me that. Quinn said that it sounds like a guy’s name. I’ve never really cared, just thankful I didn’t end up an Ashley or a Sarah… blech.

Tobias was clearly getting upset that he couldn’t get his “assignment” started. “Dude, if you want to get into her pants, it’s not hard. You don’t need to sit here and ‘get to know her.’ She’ll give it up without the twenty questions.”

He started to stand up to walk around and find a partner when Jaxon put his arm around Tobias’ shoulders to stop his ascent. “Tobias, man, chill out, this isn’t even a graded assignment.” Jaxon’s hand clasped onto his shoulder looked totally innocent until I noticed Tobias grimacing, and realized that maybe Jaxon was squeezing him a bit hard. Jaxon didn’t appear to be angry; the only thing I could see that would give away his ire at Tobias’ words was the tension in his jaw and the steely gaze he gave him. “Now, apologize to Em,” he stated calmly.

What? Was he sticking up for me? I should probably stop him because it’s not like Tobias spoke an untruth. To be honest, his comment didn’t even faze me. I learned to block out any irritation toward the “slut remarks” back in freshman year. The only people ever to stick up for me were Quinn and Cole, a complete stranger. It’s not like he knows that I actually am a slut and that his defense is purely unnecessary. “It’s fine, Jaxon. Don’t worry about it. Tob, no hard feelings, but go find another partner,” I whispered to both of them, trying not to pull any other attention toward us. Jaxon continued glaring at him.