“Shut. Up.” Tess had shot up from her seat and reached over to slap a restraining hand over Bastion’s mouth before he finished that sentence. “Don’t you have any filter? I thought your parents were missionaries?”
War laughed.
She turned to give him a look and then sat back down, removing her hand from Bastion’s mouth as she realized that the attention she had been trying to avoid had been brought down by her own thoughtless shout.
“Missionary? I heard you like it from behind,” came a heckler. Damn it. “Don’t you know that Sebastian only gets to third base before the midnight bell rings and the magic is over?”
Whoever had spoken must have voiced an old joke because there was more laughter than that lame taunt deserved. Bastion didn’t say anything, looking at her right in the eyes. War stood up, hand on her shoulder so she couldn’t join him.
“Jealousy is all I’m hearing, Brian. Don’t come sniffing after the new girl because every other girl in this school with smarts won’t fall for your stupid tricks. Roofies are not the new yes, dog.”
The course of hoots and boos was loud but Brian backed off, not even bothering to reply. War sat.
“Just for the record,” Tess said, low enough this time to keep it between the four of them, “I would kiss Bastion, or any of you, over Brian. I hate dog breath.”
Kade reached down and grabbed her hand closest to him, drawing it up to the table and giving it a squeeze in front of all of them. “Well, there’s a sterling recommendation, if I’ve ever heard one,” Kade said. “So, is she in, guys?”
Three more hands piled on top of hers and Kade’s clasped hands. “All for one,” they spoke together.
It was lame but fun. Tess joined them for the end. “And one for all.”
“You do realize that there weren’t five Musketeers,” she said when they let go, allowing her to retrieve her hand back.
“And none of them were female,” War said. “Did you read a rule book somewhere about how to join the French Revolution when it has been over for a few years?”
“Fine, I’m in your lame group. There were no pumpkins in the Musketeers, either,” she pointed out.
“Just losers,” Kade said. “Outcasts that made something of themselves.”
Oh. She just realized that these weren’t the princes of the school she was sitting with in the cafeteria. Well, it had been hinted but she hadn’t thought it through until this moment. The girls in this school were blind and stupid. All the bullying she thought was directed towards her unintended kitten shorts flash-show, and maybe, a bit towards Kade earlier were just samples of what the Musketeers were warding themselves against by sticking together.
They were being inexplicably bullied even though everything about them screamed popularity, even Kade with his rebellious piercings. He was the bad boy that everyone was too afraid to refuse to friend.
“Well, I’m in the right group, then. I know about being an outcast and trying hard to get somewhere,” Tess said. “Or, more succinctly, ‘up shit creek without a paddle’ and the waterfall’s around the next bend.”
“Waterfall?” Keir said.
She met his grey-blue eyes with a smile. “Gotta flush shit down somewhere,” she joked.
“You didn’t mention she had a potty mouth,” Bastion said, looking beside her to Kade.
“Didn’t know that Pumpkin could get that dirty,” Kade joked.
She sighed. “I expect a better nickname by tomorrow. Use your big brain to come up with something more creative. Impress your tutor.”
A bell rang, signalling the end of lunch. She looked up at the clock, surprised. Normally, long high-school lunches gave her enough time to squeeze in some homework at the library before her next class, which was important when she used to have a couple of side jobs that she had to go to after school.
She never sat down and just joked around.
It had been the best waste of time she ever spent.
Chapter 7
TESS FELT THOSE BUTTERFLIES start up again as she wondered what the next class would be like without the guys. Her reception so far at the new school seemed to be one taunt after another from the rest of the students. Becoming friends with the Musketeers might make her an even bigger target.
Fresh blood.
“What is your next class?” Kade asked as he packed up his lunch.
“Calculus,” she answered. Keir perked up. She almost sighed out loud with relief.
“That seems unfair if Keir gets her all afternoon,” War said.
“Don’t whine because you took all your math classes ahead and have none left to fit in your schedule, even if Henderson would let you change with the semester already started,” Keir said. She almost expected him to stick his tongue out to finish the neener-neener taunt. “You have religion with Tess in the morning and physics at the end of the day, anyway.”
“You’re good at math, right?” Tess said, looking over at War and ignoring Keir for the moment.
War stood up, reaching down to grab her backpack for her. Instead of handing it to her though, he gave it to Keir to carry. “Yeah, I like numbers,” he said, sounding kind of embarrassed about it.
“Me too,” she admitted. “There’s lots of math in physics for us to do together. Are you guys on a vector unit?”
War smiled. “Yeah, Sweeny loves complicated equations. Are those your thing?”
“I love solving problems,” she said, knowing he was hitting a double meaning.
“Before we get another detention, get moving, Pumpkin,” Kade said, grabbing her elbow and guiding her towards the lunchroom exit.
“Listen, twinkletoes,” she said to him.
“Twinkletoes?” Kade repeated.
Keir laughed behind them.
“You were fast on your feet to get me out of the way of the jacketed jackal,” she explained. “Also, if you want a better nickname...”
“Jackal?” Kade said, not agreeing yet to her terms.
“His laugh,” she said. “If you don’t get more creative, I’m going to have to start calling your twinsy twinkledee just to be fair.”
“Hey,” Keir objected. She knew he would.
“Don’t I get a nickname?” War asked, walking up to her other side.
“If you don’t want ‘peace’ then I’ll have to think about it,” she replied.
“Too predictable,” he said.
“But true?” she said.
“Perhaps you need time to get to know me better,” he suggested.
“I know your mom,” she said. “Bet she has some baby pictures in her purse and lots of stories.”
“That’s blackmail,” he suggested.
“You can surrender and go with ‘peace’ until I find something more...”
“Lass, a Scotsman never surrenders,” he said when she trailed off.
That accent. He did it on purpose. “Fine, but I think you’ll regret it.”
“Try me,” War said, hot breath hitting her ear as he leaned closer.
“Luce,” she whispered back.
“What?” War said, pulling up.
“This is our classroom,” Keir interrupted, trying to elbow his way between them.
“Short for Lucifer,” she said as Keir tugged her into the class. She caught War’s shit-eating grin, which transformed his sweet face into the devilish one that she had suspected lurked beneath.
“Fucking right, he’s a devil,” Keir muttered so their new teacher couldn’t hear him.
“Hey Keir,” someone called. Tess groaned quietly. Did the heckling have to start before they had even taken a seat?
“Hi, George,” Keir said, waving to someone.
Wait a minute. Nobody was lobbing insults yet. She looked over.
“She’s cute. What’s her name?” George asked, giving her a flirty wink. That got the teacher’s attention.
“George, eyes to the front. Theresa is the name of our newest addition. Welcome. I’m Mr. Wilson.”
She t
urned to greet the teacher. He was middle-aged, with the requisite glasses all math teachers seemed to possess and an honest-to-god pocket protector adorned with pens.
“She’s sitting with me,” Keir announced.
The teacher had already turned back to the board and was drawing big circles freehand for their lesson, grunting a response. She would take that as a ‘go ahead’ and follow Keir. He wasn’t about to let her go sit elsewhere anyway, hovering like she was a new colt taking her first steps.
“Back please,” she suggested.
“Hey, Theresa,” called George. He was persistent, she’d give him that.
“Aren’t you supposed to be drawing circles?” she prompted, giving him a look that said she was as serious as she sounded. Deadly boring and a teacher’s pet to boot.
“Keir, come on, man. Sit with us,” George said. His friend gave her another flirty wink beside him. Blonde and blue-eyes, he was handsome, although he paled in comparison to Bastion. She liked her golden idols tarnished.
“Pumpkin, it goes both ways,” Keir whispered to her.
“What?” she said, breaking eye contact with George and his friend to look back at Keir. He pulled out a seat for her and she sat, after tucking her skirt under her legs properly before carefully lowering down onto the chair.
“You’re the only girl for us and we’re the only boys for you,” Keir said, giving her seat a little push in. “Group exclusivity contract. War told you at lunch.”
Tess rolled her eyes, although Keir wouldn’t be able to catch it, busy taking his own seat. “Even though I called him Lucifer, I don’t really think I traded my soul to the devil over lunch by agreeing to tutor him,” she commented, calmly taking out her binder and some pencils. The class was behind her, but that was to be expected this early in the semester when she had broken off her courses two-thirds of the way through the year at her previous school.
“That’s War’s best trick,” Bastion said, pulling out supplies similar to her own, except his binder was full of math problems from homework and notes from the previous classes. He was quite detail-oriented and neat.
“Stealing girl’s souls?” she said.
“Making you believe he’s harmless,” Keir answered. “He’s always underestimated and he laughs all the way to the winner’s line.”
Tess frowned down at her page, only half listening as she looked at the math problems competing for her attention. She was already done drawing the circles and she had the first problem the teacher had written halfway worked out in her head. This class wasn’t going to be challenging enough to keep her mind on it unless they were allowed to work ahead at their own pace. Hopefully, they didn’t get guided through the lesson step-by-step the whole way.
She started tapping her foot against one of her desk legs.
Keir made a little throat clearing sound. She stopped tapping, realizing he might be a tad annoyed with her fidgets.
“I was kidding earlier about the devil thing,” Tess said, chewing on the pencil eraser. She had worked out problem three, skipping number two because it was a simple variation of the first problem. Boring repetition.
“He won’t let you take it back now. Gonna wear Luce like a badge of dishonour and rub the rest of our faces in it unless you come up with better names than twinkletoes,” Keir said with a hint of grumble.
Twinkledee wasn’t amused by her fun.
“Is it like picking avatar names? Do you want to be ‘iron dick’ or something equally strong and masculine?” she asked.
“Theresa, talk to Keir on your time,” came from the front. She looked up with a guilty blush even though there was no way anybody else overheard their actual conversation.
“Yes, sir. And I prefer Tess, please.”
Keir chuckled quietly. “You don’t have much of a filter between your head and your mouth, Pumpkin.”
“This is my brain on drugs. Caffeine, to be precise. It’s worse when I’m in withdrawal,” she whispered, checking that the teacher was busy writing on the board up front and not looking at her disobeying him already. She didn’t want to be separated from Keir.
“You have a pretty hot brain, smartypants,” Keir said, peeking at her work. “Fuel it with whatever works. You’ve already stunted your vertical potential, anyways.”
“Why waste energy growing inches when I could be expanding my neural connections?” she retorted. They were a tangled mess of jumbled-up thoughts and random, divergent paths, but her brain was the key to her getting somewhere in life. Model looks were only good for the runway and she couldn’t afford to run further.
Great, now she was making lame jokes in her head.
“I need stimulation,” she told Keir, noticing he was done with all the math problems their teacher had put up as well.
“Hmm...” he murmured. “Pain, pleasure or tickle your funny bone?” he asked as he highlighted a problem in his binder. It looked like he colour-coordinated his notes.
She was slightly jealous. Her notes were a mess that only she could interpret. No way she had the patience to coordinate anything. “Pain,” she said, hoping to shock him.
He waited a moment until their teacher turned back to the board again, reviewing the first problem in detail as he took it up. Quick as lightning, his hand snapped out to grab her closest one, yanking her wrist to his mouth where he took a quick nip of her skin and released her.
It had hurt. She flipped her wrist around to see a tiny area of reddening where he had pinched her skin between his teeth. Well, she had asked for it.
He handed her an elastic band from his pencil case. It was thin and bright blue. “For distraction,” he whispered, then bared a few inches of his own wrist under his shirt sleeve, pushing the white cotton cuff up so she could see his own bands.
Pain, Meet Gain said one band, black and gold. Sweet Surrender said a green and blue one. She couldn’t read the other two, one red and the other purple. He hid his wrist back in his sleeve before the teacher called on someone close to them to answer the next question.
Did Keir have problems focusing too? What else would he be using snapping bands for other than boredom, like a fidget spinner? Her wrists might not be able to take the abuse his could, but it was worth a try.
She slipped on the band. It was like something you would buy from the dollar store by the bag, a very thin elastic that had a lot of stretch and wouldn’t hold up to much abuse. It wasn’t meant to last long, disposable and cheap. Definitely, her band was at the light end of elastics compared to the thick, embossed ones Keir wore, a beginner’s one.
Taking a breath, she snapped it.
It was hardly a pinch, but once she had done it, she could feel the elastic wrapped around her wrist, a reminder. She returned to her binder and wrote down the next three problems the teacher had put on the chalkboard, quickly working through them.
The classroom quieted as everyone else got down to work.
“So, why is a smart girl like you doing the shame lap?” Keir whispered as she finished the last problem. He probably had pushed himself to beat her, barely managing it.
“Victory lap,” she whispered back to him. “It’s a technical default to blame.”
His eyes looked serious, not a hint of the amusement she had expected. He seemed the type to joke around all the time so it threw her off. It was like he had switched places with his twin.
“Did Kade tell you?” she asked, glancing down at Keir’s work. He had done it to her, first. His answers were all neatly written out and perfectly correct.
“Nah, nobody switches into pre-university level calculus a month into the semester and whips out answers like she’s seen it all before and done it twice unless...”
“I didn’t fail. I came from a non-semestered school and-”
“Damn, you lost all your credits?” Keir interrupted. He sounded sympathetic.
“Yep. There are no refunds or returns,” she quipped. “I even had to let go of my pre-acceptance at U of T since I couldn’t comple
te the prerequisites.”
“Damn,” Keir whispered back again. His serious eyes didn’t joke about what was obviously a shitty deal. What she had given up to return home for the kids, nobody had appreciated. Everyone figured she would just apply and get in again next year. Keir looked like he understood that she had her birthday candles blown out by someone else before she got to make a wish.
“So, I hear Kade’s doing an extra lap as well?” she said.
“It's a long story,” Keir said. He didn't explain further, looking back down at his colour-coded notes.
Awkward much? She had been shut down, that line of inquiry closed to future business. Digging further might only bury the answers she wanted if Keir told his brother she was being nosy and he covered up. A better approach would be, to be honest with them all as they got to know each other and hope that they would return the trust.
“Thanks for the elastic,” she said, changing the subject.
“He’ll tell you, in his own time,” Keir answered, keeping it to a whisper, although the classroom was getting noisier with the buzz of their classmates talking. The rest of them must have finished the work or given up.
“Keir, can you talk us through number five?” Mr. Wilson asked.
Okay, more like ordered. Keir’s chair scraped back as he stood up and started to explain his solution. All he got was a grunt of approval and Mr. Wilson moved onto the next victim. The rest of the students stopped talking, trying to not get their teacher’s attention. Talking in this class was to risk getting called out on the spot.
Tess started tapping her foot on the desk leg again.
Keir reached over and snapped her elastic. “Shy of showing off?” he asked.
“Not much for public speaking,” she admitted. “Though I can get through it if I must. Also, stop talking to me. I don’t need any more trouble today.”
“Theresa?” Mr. Wilson said.
Shot herself in the foot. “Uh, Tess,” she said, scraping her chair loudly as she stood up. She wondered for an anxious moment if her kilt was straight and fought the urge to pat it down behind her.
At least she didn’t stutter.
Impetuous (Victory Lap Book 1) Page 10