Dominic

I furrowed my eyebrows. "A hand with what? What is she doing down there when school doesn't even start for another ten minutes?"

The miss smiled. "Her and some other students are gettin' a head start on gettin' the hall ready for the Christmas concert. It's only a week away after all."

I widened my eyes. "Holy shite, the dates really got away from me. I had no idea Christmas was so close."

The miss frowned at me. "You have been a little detached in school lately, so I'm not surprised some things slipped your mind."

I swallowed. "Some things at home had my attention, but everythin' is fine now." I shook my head and chuckled a little. "I feel like my head has been buried in the sand to not know it is almost Christmas time."

The miss snorted. "It happens to the best of us."

I nodded my head then looked to the door. "I'll go help Alannah and the others then."

The miss waved me on. "Brilliant, the rest of the class will be down to help when the bell rings in ten minutes."

I nodded and left the classroom and headed down the empty hallways until I came to the main hall entrance. I thought it was funny that in ten minutes these hallways would be flooded with students, but now it was like a silent ghost town. When I entered the hall it was anything but silent though.

I inwardly groaned when I spotted Micah bossing some of her friends and classmates around while Alannah was off to the side painting some of the Christmas posters. I would rather help out by doing something by myself but if I had to choose between helping Alannah or Micah, I would pick Alannah every time.

"Hey," I said when I got to her side.

She glanced at me and widened her eyes a little when she seen it was me stood next to her and saying hello.

"Hey me?" she asked and glanced around us to see if I could be talking to someone else.

I nodded and she smiled wide. "Hey back, Bronagh. Are you here to help?"

I nodded again, and she clapped her hands together. "Brilliant, you can help me get this poster done if you want to? You don't have to, of course, you can do somethin' else if you want to be alone and-"

"Alannah," I cut her off, chuckling at her. "Helpin' with the poster is fine."

She stared at me. "Really? It is? You know I'll be here right next to you helpin' too, right?"

I smiled at her again. She was being very nice and considerate, offering me an out to work on my own so I wouldn't feel uncomfortable being so close to her, but it wasn't necessary. I didn't think Alannah was the type to ask me a million questions or randomly strike up a conversation to fill the silence, and that was a cool person by my standards.

"Yep, I'm aware that you will be next to me," I chuckled again.

Alannah only continued to stare at me, but when she blinked and shook her head a little she seemed to snap out of it. She turned and picked up a clean paintbrush then turned backwards in my direction and handed it to me.

"Thank you," I said.

Alannah just nodded and smiled before pointing to the blank section of the poster and pushed some red paint my way. "I was thinkin' you could fill in the title words with red paint then use a smaller brush to outline them in black paint? We can swap though if you want to?"

I looked at what she was doing and felt my jaw drop open. "Did you draw that reindeer?" I asked, my voice a little higher than it was a few seconds ago.

Alannah nodded her head. "I drew up all the posters with the art teacher, Mr. Wall, last week. No one else in art class wanted to help so it was just the two of us. I drew the animals and other little characters, and Mr. Wall did the all the wording in a stylish font and filled in the background with mistletoe and stuff. It turned out nice, didn't it?"

Understatement.

I nodded my head. "It really did. Seriously Alannah, it looks brilliant!"

Alannah blushed and gave a modest shrug. "Thanks, I'm afraid I might ruin them though with the paint, so that's why it's takin' me awhile to paint them. I'm bein' extra careful," she chuckled.

I blew out a breath. "I'm goin' to get chairs for us to sit on while we paint 'cause there is less chance of us makin' a mistake that way."

Alannah gave me a thumbs up. "Good thinkin', Sherlock."

I grinned. "Anytime, Watson."

Alannah shook her head and laughed while I moved over to the folded up chairs hanging on their hooks on the hall wall and lifted two off. They were light chairs so carrying them wasn't a problem. When I got back to Alannah and our worktable, I opened them up and looked over to Micah and her crew as I did so. She was sat cross-legged on the floor while she instructed her friends on what to do. They were decorating the big Christmas tree that goes to the back of the hall; it's huge, so it has to go there. I shook my head at how bossy Micah was. She was literally directing where her friends placed decorations on the tree instead of helping herself and just placing them anywhere.

I turned back to Alannah, and we got to work on our poster. Five minutes passed by when the bell for first period rang aloud. I jumped a little, and almost went outside the lines with the red paint, making Alannah laugh.

"Fuck," I gasped.

"Shite, that was too close," she cackled.

I lost it when she started laughing like that and burst into a fit of giggles which only made her point at me and laugh harder. We were still chuckling when shadows appeared over our worktop, and like a sixth sense, I knew he was there before I even looked to check.

"What do you want, stalker?" I asked without turning around while Alannah looked over her shoulder to see who was behind us. She blushed a little before going back to her section of the poster after she had seen who was there. Her blush and small smile gave away that Damien was standing behind us as well. I've noticed her doing that a lot when he looked at her over the last few weeks in class.

"Stalker? If you're going to title me with something, I think you should go with magic fingers."

Damien laughed while Dominic grunted thanks to the elbow I threw back into his stomach. He put his arms around me and leaned his head down to kiss my cheek and nuzzle his nose into my neck, inhaling. I closed my eyes and embraced the butterflies that consumed my stomach.

I shivered when he nipped my neck with his teeth, which made me moan a little.

I nudged his head with mine. "Go make yourself useful. You and Damien can help with the heavy liftin'."

Damien laughed then said, "You just want to see me work, pervert."

I snorted and glanced to his grinning face. We hadn't talked about any of the stuff that was told to me last week, even though he knew I knew about what he did, and we didn't have to. It didn't change my opinion of Damien; he was still a sweetheart and was rapidly becoming one of my favourite people.

"Oh yeah, because you're so hot I just need to see that body of yours do some hard labour."

Damien shot me a smirk while Dominic bit my neck again. "Cut out the flirting, bitch."

I rolled my eyes but grinned. "If you make me mess up on this picture I am goin' to kick your arse."

Dominic stood up straight and leaned over to check out what I was doing and kissed me on the head. "It looks good, babe."

I pointed to Alannah. "She drew up all the posters, I'm just fillin' in the lines with paint."

Damien moved behind Alannah and looked at her section of the poster and whistled. "Damn, Lana, you drew these?"

Lana?

Alannah face went purple. "No, not all by meself. Mr. Wall did the letters, mistletoe, and holly."

Damien grinned. "So you drew the awesome animals and characters?"