Popped

by Elizabeth Stevens

  “You totally could,” Georgie said, turning to me. “Couldn’t you?”

  The idea was actually somewhat attractive. Get a guy to fall in love and then dump him, making sure there was enough public humiliation to pop his fragile male ego and giving the rest of the boys in the school something to think about. It was about time that someone showed them they weren’t as untouchable as they thought they were. But it sounded like an awful lot of work.

  I smiled. “If I wanted to? Probably.”

  “No way,” Mia said adamantly. “None of those three are capable of falling in love, even with Paige. They’re just destined to go through life leaving a bunch of broken hearts and hymens in their wake.”

  “You know the hymen doesn’t actually break right?” Georgie said.

  “What?”

  “Like, it’s not breakable. It’s like a ring.”

  “Then where does all the blood come from?” Mia asked like it was obvious.

  “If you’re relaxed enough and wet enough, you shouldn’t bleed,” Georgie answered matter-of-fact. “It’s from friction and irritation.”

  “Is that true?” Mia asked me.

  I shrugged. “I don’t know. She’s the genius.”

  “The genius who managed to lose it sans blood, thank you very much.”

  Mia was looking at her in awe. “You didn’t tell me that.”

  “You didn’t ask. And you’re not distracting me. Paige is totally capable of having a Baker Boy fall for her.”

  “Paige is good, but no one’s better than Bash at the ol’ take them and leave them. That guy breaks as many hearts as he does hymens.”

  “You’re very worried about hymens today,” I commented dryly.

  But Georgie wasn’t being deterred. “So why not let Paige show him he’s not all that? She could totally manage it. Paige.” She turned to me. “Tell me you’re okay with the number of girls he seduces and then tosses like garbage. And we probably only see a small percentage of them.”

  “That’s right. He’s already eighteen. He’s licensed to booze and schmooze.” Mia nodded.

  I thought about it.

  No, I wasn’t okay with the number of girls Bash Baker treated like crap. He was the worst of all the guys at our school. The others could be called ignorant, young and stupid, following the crowd. But Bash knew exactly what he was doing with every girl he smiled at.

  Just thinking about it made my blood boil.

  “No. No, I’m not okay with it. Someone has to put him in his place. Pop that egotistical narcissism of his,” I said vehemently. I looked at the girls and grinned. “And who better than me?”

  “See?” Georgie asked. “Told you.”

  “She said she’ll do it. She hasn’t done it yet,” Mia said.

  “Fine. Let’s make a bet,” Georgie said.

  “What kind of bet?” I asked.

  “You pop Bash’s fragile male ego by…formal or…?”

  “Or you have to give Arthur his first French kiss!” Mia burst out excitedly.

  Georgie nodded. “Sounds good. You in, Paige?”

  Honestly, there were worse penalties. “Okay. Agreed. Bash’s male ego is mine by formal or I’ll kiss Arthur,” I said with a disbelieving giggle.

  My eyes wandered over to where Bash and his friends were sitting and I found him looking at me. He winked at me, almost like he knew about the bet we’d just made, like he was daring me to give it my best shot. I felt my cheeks heat and looked away quickly, trying to get lost in whatever direction Mia and Georgie’s conversation had gone in.

  Getting Bash to fall in love with me was going to be like getting any guy to fall in love me. Wasn’t it? I mean, I’m Paige Nicholls for God’s sake. Every guy wanted a piece of me. Why would Bash Baker be any different?

  Chapter 5: Bash

  Mr Kaplan was yet again talking us through the requirements for our final project for Creative Arts after Recess on Wednesday while most of us got on with said projects. With only a few more weeks left until we had to hand it in, we were getting into the nitty gritty of submission details.

  Jendo was kneeling on his chair and leaning on the table to get a better look at my sketchbook.

  “I still dunno. I see her being kind of…?” he petered off and I knew he was trying to think of the best words.

  “Bustier?” I asked.

  He chuckled quietly so those kids actually listening to Mr Kaplan didn’t get distracted. “No. She’s kind of more…badarse. You know?”

  “Like what? Rugged? Rough?” I asked flipping to a clean page.

  He shrugged and nodded. “Kinda. Can’t you just make something and we can go from there.”

  I slid him an annoyed look through my hair. “And potentially waste more hours?” I asked.

  He nodded. “Yeah, but you won’t because you know what I mean.”

  “Really? Then why is this,” I tapped the end of my pencil on my book even if it wasn’t on the right page anymore, “not good enough?”

  “Because that,” he pointed at my book, “is too pretty.”

  “Too pretty?” I asked sceptically. “She’s a fucking warrior princess. Of course, she’s pretty. What do you want? One arm, a peg leg and a seriously bad case of bacne?”

  Jendo snorted. “Not quite was I was imagining.”

  “Well you draw her then.”

  “Man, I write her. I don’t draw her. I’ve got you for that.”

  I sighed as I ran my hand over my jaw. “Okay, fine. Get your sorry excuse for an arse–”

  “How are we doing, guys?” Mr Kaplan interrupted, appearing at my shoulder.

  I nodded up at him. “Fine.”

  “Creative differences?”

  I shrugged. “Jean doesn’t think she’s right.”

  Mr Kaplan tried to hide his smile at my use of Jendo’s real name, mispronounced and all. “Okay. And what’s Jendo’s vision?”

  “He’s having trouble articulating it,” I said, glaring at Jendo.

  “What? Words come out fingers, not mouth,” was Jendo’s shrugged excuse.

  I rolled my eyes. “Fucking helpful,” I muttered.

  Mr Kaplan didn’t even bother trying to reprimand me for my language. “I’ve got every confidence that the two of you will work it out in time.”

  I nodded. “Sure.”

  “You will. Keep at it. I’ve seen you two have screaming matches across the classroom over a difference in opinion. And that all worked out fine.”

  Jendo sniggered. “He’s not wrong.”

  I waved my head noncommittally. “Yeah. All right.”

  “Let me know if you need an adjudicator, but I think you’ll be just fine,” Mr Kaplan said, then wandered off to check in on someone else.

  I huffed at Jendo then got back to sketching. Before I had a chance to ask him more about it, he spoke.

  “So, are we going to start Operation Cherry Pop at some point? Or do you think she’s just going to hand it over without you speaking to her?” He was acting overly nonchalant which was his way of telling me he was thinking of siding with Rufio after all.

  “Piss off,” I told him.

  “I am genuinely interested in how you plan to bed her without talking to her. I know you’re good, mate. But that would be something else,” he chuckled as he dropped back into his chair and pulled his laptop to him. Which was bloody well because I was catching up to his portion of the work.

  “I am good,” I replied as I worked. “But even I’m not so good that I can pop her cherry without fostering a little less animosity.”

  “Oh, I dunno. I thought everyone liked a hate fuck?”

  “You reading your mum’s racy books again?” I snorted.

  “So, what if I am? What better way to know what the female body wants than to study up on what the female brain writes?”

  I wasn’t going to tell him all he was actually doing was discovering what his mum liked. It was partly
because we’d agreed to leave each other’s mums out of it, but also because I had better things to tease him about.

  I shook my head. “You can admit you like them.”

  “Oh, mate. I love them. They’re fucking juicy.”

  “And heart-warming?” I chuckled.

  “What is so wrong with emotions, dude?” he asked, exasperated with me already and it wasn’t even noon.

  “Nothing. For you.”

  “Yes. Because your hearts’ fucking impenetrable,” he scoffed.

  I looked up at him and grinned. “I’m a fortress, mate.”

  His eyebrow was raised in disbelief. But instead of calling me out on what he believed was bullshit, he just said, “You never did answer my question.”

  “About what?”

  “Courting the princess,” he said, putting on a fake posh voice.

  “I’ll start the way I always do.”

  “Yeah. And for those of us with slightly less swagger?”

  I laughed. “Flash her a few smiles. Look her over nice and slow. Give her a wink. She’ll be mine in no time.”

  “Uh-huh. I’ll believe it when I see it.”

  “Game on, mate.”

  And the game was on. I knew for a fact that Paige had a class near the Common Room the next lesson when Jendo had his free. So, I made sure to walk with him ‘on my way’ to English. As predicted, we saw Paige on our way. And she looked at me. Not overtly. She just lifted her eyes to mine as we walked towards each other.

  I gave her one of my cheekiest smirks and her reaction surprised me.

  Most girls, when I give them that look, get shy. They blush. They bite their lip. They try to hide their thrilled smile. They look away before sneaking a look back as though they think I might have turned away. They somehow try to bat their eyes at me while not looking at me.

  Paige did none of those things.

  Paige was confident.

  Paige stood her ground.

  Paige didn’t take her eyes from me.

  Paige returned my cheeky smirk.

  I went one step further and gave her a wink.

  Unlike Monday, she didn’t blush and look away. Instead, she slowly licked her bottom lip before catching it in her teeth and, as we passed almost level with each other, she dragged her eyes down and up my body far more appreciatively than usual.

  I felt an unfamiliar tingle of excitement run through me as we finally took our eyes off each other and continued on our way.

  “Dude!” Jendo hissed as he elbowed me. “Did that just…?”

  I nodded. “That went better than expected.”

  Jendo half-snorted and half-spluttered. “Is that you admitting you’re not infallible?”

  “That is me admitting than even Casanova has a kryptonite. And I was certain Paige Nicholls was going to be it,” I mused, turning back.

  She’d paused at the door of her classroom and I saw her clear as day through the throng of kids in the corridor. She gave a small smile before disappearing and I shook myself off.

  “Mate,” I chuckled. “This’ll be a piece of cake.”

  If she was going to respond to me like that on my first try, then getting her into bed was going to be too easy. At this rate, I’d have what I needed in plenty of time before the formal, and manage to walk away with my reputation and title well intact. Quite frankly, I couldn’t afford to lose.

  But I had every confidence I wasn’t going to.

  And lunch confirmed that for me when I bumped into her in the kitchen of the Common Room. Her hand planted on my chest and mine went to her arm as we looked into each other’s eyes. I’d never noticed the flecks of gold in the hazel of hers. Probably because I’d never been that close to her before.

  “Oh, sorry,” she laughed self-deprecatingly.

  “Nah. My bad,” I said, making sure my voice was nice and low. “You okay?”

  She bit her lip again as she nodded and didn’t take her hand away just yet. There was a definite hint of something between us. A hint of something that made me think this might not only work, but it might actually be a good time.

  The look of coquettish innocence left her eyes and a more rueful humour played there. “I’m fine,” she said and I wasn’t sure if she was actually implying the sassiness I heard in her voice or if I’d just imagined it.

  Normally, I’d have taken that as an opportunity to tell her exactly how fine she was – she was a stuck-up princess, but she was still a good-looking snob. But I had a feeling a slightly more subtle approach would work better on Paige. After all, we usually had nothing but disapproval for each other. It would be hard to convince the princess to suddenly agree to give me the all-important virginity when she hadn’t given it up for any of her boyfriends the last few years.

  “Okay, then.”

  Her eyebrow quirked slightly as she looked me over and I had the feeling she was surprised by that. And not necessarily in a good way. I had the feeling I’d failed to meet expectations. Which was weird because I had never failed to meet expectations before.

  She took her hand off my chest rather pointedly, rubbing her fingers together near her chin as though reminding me she wasn’t touching me anymore. My hand naturally fell off her arm equally as slowly, but went in my pocket instead.

  “I guess I’ll see you, Bash,” she said, her tone sounding rather disappointed.

  “Last lesson at least.”

  A hint of a smirk okayed at her lips. “Sure.”

  And she walked away, leaving me feeling like I’d lost.

  Bash ‘Casanova’ Baker didn’t lose. He won. Every time. As if anyone needed the reminder, my jumper nickname was even ‘Casanova’ – a dare from Jendo and Rufio I’d found it amusing to agree to.

  But Paige had taken me by surprise.

  To recap, she’d reacted favourably to my first advances. She hadn’t rolled her eyes, or just looked away. She was quite clearly amenable to this whole thing.

  So, what had just happened in the kitchen? Why hadn’t that worked? I’d played it cool when I could have just come out and flirted with her. I was playing the slow game, faking sincerity by not just ramming my interest down her throat. Usually, it worked. Usually, it had them eating out of the palm of my hand, desperate for my interest, giving me plenty of lines to respond to with flattery and flirtation. They did all the work and all I had to do was give them a couple of smiles now and then.

  Paige had seemed unimpressed with the game. She’d seemed uninterested in that game.

  The only way I could describe it was to say that I wasn’t the one leading this dance. I wasn’t quite following, but I certainly wasn’t leading. It left me with the singular feeling that Paige Nicholls was just as much the confident girl she acted, she wasn’t going to fall for me giving her a couple of winks, and I was pretty sure she was going to make me work for it.

  Good thing I was practised in working for it.

  Chapter 6: Paige

  The girls and I walked into our double Maths lesson on Thursday morning with a plan of attack; the day before, Bash had seemed open to this whole flirting thing and it was my job now to ramp it up a gear. I had just over four weeks to get him to fall in love with me so it was all battle stations on red alert.

  Bash was already in his seat, pushing himself back onto the rear two chair legs with his leg braced on the desk. As I walked to mine, he looked up at me and gave me a cheeky grin around the pen dangling from his mouth. One look and you knew the boy spelled trouble with a capital ‘T’. But if I was going to get him to fall for me, I’d have to find something to appeal to me, some aspect of him that I could work with.

  So, I took another look at him from the perspective that I was supposed to see him favourably – I’d have to in order to have any chance at seducing him. I looked at him and, honestly, I could see why so many girls fell for him. He was hot and, contrary to my previous statement, he had the potential to be something special. Extreme potent
ial. Potential he wasted.

  To his credit, his school trousers were always ironed, his shoes were as clean and shiny as all but the most meticulous student. He always wore his tie. Although it was never pushed right up to his collar and the top button was never done up, even when he left the top of his Year 12 bomber jacket open. Which he always wore, merely pushing the sleeves up when it was warmer. He filled the whole package out with not just the promise of a smoking hot body but also enough arrogance and insincerity to make him come across far too shallow for any real redeeming qualities.

  If this was going to work, though, I was going to need to find something other than that he was actually very attractive. And to do that, I was going to need to keep flirting.

  So, I pulled my books to my chest and gave him a demure smile back, enough for him to know I was flattered by his attention but that it hadn’t sent me weak in the knees or anything. It was a smile that told him I was interested but that a cheeky smile on his part – as nice as it was – wasn’t anywhere near enough.

  I saw the calculating look in his eyes and the slight nod before I turned away and sat down. The challenge had been issued, received and answered. The only question that remained was whether Bash was up to it.

  He might have been a Casanova, but I was a queen. And I was practised in the art of flirtation just as well as him. I knew how to get a guy’s interest and I knew how to keep it when I wanted to keep it. To be honest, I was also known to keep it when I was done with it.

  As Miss Marino walked into the room and called for us to get started, I snuck a look over my shoulder at Bash. He leant with his forearms on his desk and he was looking right at me. As our eyes met, he smirked at me. I licked my lip nice and slowly so he’d notice and was gratified when his eyes darted to my mouth and back to my eyes. His smirk grew and he quirked his eyebrow up for a second. I turned quickly so he’d think I was trying to hide my grin.

  “We are a go,” I whispered to the girls.

  I had to put flirting on hold while I listened to Miss Marino – just because I only needed like a 70 ATAR (university entrance ranking for those playing internationally) didn’t mean I couldn’t do my best. But I made sure to look back to Bash now and then for good measure.