Page 74 of Cross + Catherine: The Companion

Cross frowned at the way Naz twisted his words when he spoke about the school for gifted children. The district, his teachers, principal, and more had been pushing this goddamn institution on Naz and his parents since shortly after he entered Pre-K, and they realized he was not like the other kids as far as intelligence went.

Maturity-wise, though?

Naz was just like every other kid his age. He was not suddenly ahead of every other ten year old in most other aspects—except for intelligence—simply because he was brilliant. Sure, he could memorize everything he ever looked at and read, but he was still just ten years old.

Still a boy.

Naz didn’t want the special school. He wanted to remain with his friends—with kids his own age that he had known since being a toddler. Being around other kids who were brilliant like him didn’t really appeal to Naz, either, when the adults around him tried using that like dangling bait as a reason to get him to enroll in the school for the gifted.

Just because Naz was a fucking genius—by all measurable standards—didn’t mean he was also socially awkward, and needed to be put away with other people like him.

Quite the opposite.

People flocked to his boy. Naz also wasn’t so arrogant about his intelligence that he shoved it in other people’s faces like some might.

In fact, he never did that at all.

To those who didn’t know Naz, he seemed like a regular kid doing his own thing. It was only once someone spent a little bit of time with him, and saw him at work did they realize, holy shit, this kid is something else.

“To be fair,” Naz said as he tossed the rag away to a nearby metal table, “I did hand in every assignment the math teacher had planned for the rest of the year.”

Cross’s brow shot up high. “School just started three weeks ago, Naz.”

When did his kid even find time to do that?

Oh, yeah.

His boy slept four hours, and acted like it was a ten-hour sleep.

Naz shrugged. “Yeah, well …”

“How did you even get the list of assignments the teacher had planned? And for the whole year? Really?”

His son looked away at that question. “Plausible deniability.”

“Naz,” Cross warned.

“The assignments were on a district sheet of what they must teach—what the students must learn from semester to semester. The shit they test us on, you know. They even have assignments they must give out to us—they have to follow it, Dad. Maybe I hacked into the teacher’s—”

“Naz!”

“In hindsight,” Naz said, holding up a hand, “that was a bad idea.”

“You think?”

“I can tell Jaz that I got hacking down, though,” Naz said, grinning.

Cross sighed. “So did you get sent home, or did you get expelled?”

“Two-week suspension.”

“Oh, Naz, that’s going to go on your record.”

He didn’t really give a shit that Naz got suspended. He cared that hacking into the computer system would be listed as a reason why.

“Actually, I think they might let me work on coding their security, and conveniently drop that little part on my suspension form,” Naz said.

Huh.