by Angel Lawson
It definitely wasn’t a Devil.
I like competing, and I genuinely enjoy swimming with others, but there’s nothing better than facing an empty, still pool. The flat glassy surface, as if suspended in time, the whirr of the pumps, the sharp scent of chlorine; this is home. Most swimmers and divers prefer just jumping in, but me? I like toeing the surface before I take the plunge, feeling that first zing of cool water and following the ripple it creates—our fond ‘hello’.
My toes push off the side of the wall and my body slices through the water. Each stroke gets me closer, each turn an opportunity to get ahead. Down in the blue, where the water is clear and the only sound is the muted whoosh of my strokes, I can finally and truly escape it all. I don’t think of anything but cool enamel blues, the burn of my muscles, and water rushing against my sides. I don’t think of Sky. Of Hamilton. Not anyone.
Although I guess I do think about Tyson a little bit.
His arrival had been a surprise.
After we parted, I did my research by checking him out on social media. To my relief, he actually does seem entirely legit. Photos on ChattySnap show him at dive competitions all over the country. There are a few pictures of him at Northridge’s homecoming a few weeks earlier. He looked adorable in his tux and was obviously having a good time with his friends, particularly the cute girl that seemed to be his date. He’s a junior—not a senior—which makes the school transfer far less suspicious. Truthfully, even I had flirted with the possibility of transferring when everything happened with Sky. Mom and Dad offered, but really, I didn’t want to start over. I just want to move on.
I finish my final lap and check the clock on the wall. Coach James will be by soon to lock up, and I’m not supposed to be in here—not exactly. There’s no guard on duty and it’s against school rules to swim without one. I know the schedule, though, and I know if I get in between 8:15 and 9:20, after water polo practice finishes but before lockup, no one will be the wiser. The clock says 9:13.
Plenty of time.
Water rushes down my body as I pull myself out of the pool. I grab my towel, wrapping it around my midsection, and then enter the small co-ed locker room. The main one is always closed once activities are over for the day, but this one has a combination lock, allowing for after-hours entry. I walk in and head to the locker where I left my towel and a change of clothes. After hastily drying off, I pull on my flannel pants right over my suit, hoping they’ll warm me, then bend over to wring the excess water out of my hair. I’m just like that—head between my knees, hair all tangled in a towel—when the door opens.
I freeze.
Shit. If Coach James catches me, I’m beyond screwed.
I fling my hair back, prepared to twist it into a bun, but instead yelp when I realize that I’m not alone.
And it’s not Coach James.
I still with my hands over my head, blinking at the scowling boy in front of me. His eyes dart down to my chest, and hey. I just got out of a pool that isn’t heated particularly well. It’s cold. I don’t have to look to know my nipples are peaked.
His cold gaze slithers up to mine, mouth slanting into some unholy marriage of sneer and smirk. “Well, well, well. Happy to see me?”
I don’t even grace him with a reply.
“Using the pool after hours? With no guard on duty?” Hamilton’s smirk transforms to an amused sort of satisfaction. He shakes his head, tsking. “This doesn’t seem like the kind of behavior befitting a student vying for team captain. I’m thinking it might be my duty to report this to the coach.”
His hair and T-shirt are dark with sweat. The sleeves of his shirt have been ripped off, allowing my eyes to take in his wiry biceps, glistening forearms, and the weight-lifting gloves covering his hands.
I raise an eyebrow. “I could say the same about you. The gym closed an hour ago.”
His eyes flash in anger, weightlifting gloves rumpling as he fists them. But his anger is just as quickly gone, replaced by the same cool demeanor. “Go ahead and tell whoever you like. You’ll find I have permission for extra gym hours for physical therapy.”
I have no idea if he’s telling the truth or not. His poker face has always been eerily immaculate. It’s one of the reasons he’s so dangerous. It’s one of the reasons my nerves are always on edge around him, constantly trying to find my footing, but never quite able.
“Of course,” I say, twisting the band around my hair. “Nothing you do is ever against the rules. There are always special circumstances, always an excuse for your behavior, right?” I level him with a look of utter disgust. “The Devils are always covered.”
His eyes spark once again, but I avoid them by reaching for both my shirt and the flimsy pretense that I don’t sense his absolute hatred of me—hatred simply for failing to be a perfect clone of every other student here. Closing my eyes, I pull my shirt over my head, relieved to be hidden from his glower, however brief it may be.
When my head emerges from the shirt, however, he’s inches from my face.
I jerk back, crashing into my locker.
“Here’s what you don’t get, Adams.” His voice is carefully controlled, but even still, I can detect the barely restrained growl of anger in his words. “There is no room for mistakes, excuses, or bad behavior in my life. I follow strict rules, codes, and procedures. I surround myself with people who adhere to the same values. The same ideals. The same understanding of how life works—what it takes to succeed.”
He’s so close that I can smell the mixture of sweat and deodorant on his skin. I try shifting away from the locker handle stabbing into my back, but I’m pinned by his glare and the solid wall of him.
His eyes narrow at the movement, eyes tightening as he continues, “I know you think I was involved with what happened to your sister, but let me make something perfectly clear.” His jaw flexes as he tilts his head closer, voice pitched low and harsh. “She’s trash. You’re trash. Your whole goddamned family is a bunch of feral, abandoned rejects. Your blood, your saliva? It’s all dirty. There’s no way I’d contaminate my dick or any other part of my body with it. Understand?”
God, he’s so predictable and childish and... well, just so utterly lame. His words don’t even graze me, they’re just that over-the-top ridiculous. A laugh bubbles from my chest and escapes in a snort before I can stop it. Hamilton’s eyes flash even hotter, and then—because god, I just can’t even help it—I reach out and caress his cheek, running my fingertips down his chiseled jaw.
He jolts back as if being burned.
“What the hell are you doing?” he spits.
I smile serenely. “Soothing you like a child. That was a tantrum, right? I’m fresh out of binkies or blankets, else I’d give you one.”
He lunges, completely closing the distance between us, his two palms meeting the metal of the lockers with a resounding bang. His muscular arms pin me there, one on each side, but I hide my shock enough to fight back a flinch.
Instead, I raise my chin.
The dark pupils in his eyes are blown with anger and I’m surrounded by him. Too close, too tall, too big, too Hamilton. In all the years I’ve known him, been forced into classrooms and gyms with him, I’ve never been this close to Hamilton Bates. I’m not sure why, but the first thing I notice about his proximity is the annoying lack of flaws on his face, even this close. You could probably put this guy under a microscope and find the answer to the universe or something.
My eyes track a drop of sweat as it falls from a lock of his inky hair to clutch at his eyelash. “You think baiting me is funny?”
“You want to know what I think?” I hold his gaze, completely calm despite the percussion of something hot and frenetic in my veins. “I think you’re a joke, Bates. I think you’re weak and painfully unoriginal. I think you’re so transparently pathetic that you believe controlling your minions might make you look stronger, even though it really doesn’t. But mostly I think one of them dared to show up with my sister instead of raiding
your Approved Bitches stash, so you showed him what you really thought she was worth.”
He reacts, by grabbing my wrists and slamming my arms up and over my head.
He leans his hard, powerful body against mine, pinning me with all his crazy heat. “Shut up.” His warm breath washes over my face, the sharp scent of old cinnamon gum making my throat bob with a swallow. “Jesus fucking Christ, do you ever just shut the fuck up?”
His grip, damp and slippery against my wrists, flexes once, twice, and for the life of me I just can’t stop myself. “Nope.”
His nostrils flare on a long, sharp inhale, eyes closing as if he’s asking some higher power for the strength to put up with me. It must not work, because when he opens his eyes again, for the first time, I almost feel genuinely afraid of him.
If you asked me if he would have ever gone this far, I’d say no. I’d say that he was all bluster and pedigree, just a chess piece playing the board he was raised to dominate. But now I’m not so sure. His carefully composed poker face is crumbling, I can tell, and behind it is something crazed and red with intent, a sharp edge that trembles down my spine.
No, he’s just trying to intimidate me. He can’t control me like he can the others, this is nothing more than a last-ditch effort. That realization gives me renewed strength.
I fight against him, hiding my wince as the bones in my wrist strain against his grip. “Let go.”
But his grip just tightens. “Come on, Gwen. Admit it. You’d love it if I caved—just once—for a piece of trash like you, wouldn’t you?”
I freeze, not even sure who he’s arguing with right now. Me or himself? Either way, it’s clear that he’s not releasing me. Now it’s just the two of us caught in some battle of impulses, a battle I’m not sure I entirely understand. If he hates me so much, if I repulse him so deeply, why is he holding me like this? Touching me?
The same question is clear in his eyes, eyebrows tightly knitted together as his gaze dips to my parted mouth.
He’s wondering the same thing.
His face tilts and I see the muscle in the back of his jaw twitch. But then his palms finally loosen around my wrists, and it’s like a cord has been cut, because I figure this is the end. He’s about to release me, and then we can both walk away from this whole awkward, strange, bewildering encounter.
His lips twist into a sneer as he mutters, “I hate you.”
I roll my eyes. “Well the feeling is mutual, you gigantic assho—"
His lips crash into mine.
Briefly, I ponder string theory.
Because you see, the Gwen in any other universe would be so shocked, so grossed the hell out, that she’d probably vomit all over his dumb, wet, obnoxiously perfect mouth. Probably, she’d knee him in the balls. Likely, she’d screech and shove him away. Whatever she’d do in that other universe—the Alternate Universe of Sense-Making—it definitely wouldn’t be this.
I’m wholly unprepared for the jolt that runs through me—this spike of white-hot, senseless want that consume me so forcefully, I actually whimper against his mouth.
His mouth, what the actual hell, warm and soft and hard, all at once.
Lost in the hot, confusing tangle of it all, I’m only vaguely aware of him releasing my hands, but I feel it like a lightning bolt when he shifts his grip, one clutching my hip while the other winds itself in the hair at the base of my neck, pulling our bodies flush.
An inkling of sense manages to make it through the fog, long enough for me to be aware that he’s not pinning me anymore. I should definitely run. Or like, that whole ‘kneeing him in the balls’ thing that Alternate Universe Gwen was so fond of? That’s pretty good. I should totally do that. I should escape.
I do none of those things.
Instead, I part my lips and deepen the kiss, hitching a breath when our tongues finally meet. My spine does something weird and liquid when he licks into my mouth, all slickness and heat and sharp edges.
My hands glide over his chest, exploring the hard muscles from years of intense competitive swimming. He feels solid, hot and alive. Not like a cold-hearted demon, at all. From here, all pressed against his skin, our tongues sliding together, I can feel his pulse beneath my palm.
It’s racing.
Just like mine.
His abs jump when I graze his taut lower belly, and his groan sounds ragged at the edges, like it’s being torn from his chest. He surges forward in response, hips pushing mine into the lockers, and there’s no mistaking the length of him against my belly, hard and eager and willing. I gasp into his mouth at the feel of it, going still.
He jerks back.
His eyes are hooded and glazed, but I can still see the creep of hysteria in them, and I know that—for the first time maybe ever—me and Hamilton Bates are on the exact same page.
This has gone too far.
Way too far.
Actually, it passed ‘too far’ a hundred miles back and is now crossing an Atlantic-sized ocean of weird.
The door to the locker room suddenly creaks, and it’s like an ice-cold bucket of water. Our eyes widen and I freeze, trapping a tense breath in the pit of my chest. The sound of distant, shuffling footsteps fills the room, right before the lights go off. Darkness shrouds us, but only briefly, before the bright ‘exit’ signs above the doorways on either side of the room bathe us in a buzzing ominous red.
Shakily, Hamilton exhales, and I follow. I feel his chest dip under my hands, but my pulse fills my ears until I can hear little else. If we’re caught like this… Hamilton Bates and Gwendolyn Adams? Obviously, the consequences would be unbearable.
Our eyes meet, the knowledge of that truth passing between us. What would the Devils say? Oh god, how would I explain this to my family? To Sky?
The betrayal drops like a stone in my belly. “I won’t tell,” I whisper, although I’m not sure why.
Then, as fast as this all started, it ends.
He jumps back, swatting my hands away. “Go,” he says in a low, rough voice. “Just get the hell out of here.”
I stare at him owlishly for a long, suspended moment, fighting the impulse to touch my abused lips.
His responding glare is probably meant to intimidate me, but it’s a bit dampened by the way he reaches down to adjust himself in his shorts. “What the fuck do you want, Adams? Go! I told you, I hate you. I hate everything about you. You’re ugly. You’re stupid. Your sister is a goddamned whore.”
The insults that spill from his mouth are limp, like he’s just pulling from muscle memory at this point, but the last one is enough to finally shake some sense into me.
I slap my palms onto his bare chest and shove. Clearly caught off guard enough to lose his footing, the back of his knees slam against the bench, toppling him backwards. While he’s down, I grab my bag and leave, putting as much distance between me and Hamilton Bates as I possibly can.
4
Hamilton
If anyone finds out…
The thought throbs through my mind as I rush across the quad. Thankfully, it’s dark out and nearing curfew, which means that there are few, if any, people to see my walk of shame. A gust of cool, November air sends a shiver rippling across my limbs. I left without my workout bag, which included my sweatshirt. Doesn’t matter. That was the very least of my fuck-ups tonight. I need to cool the fuck off anyway, from head to toe. And—shit—yes, that apparently includes my dick, because Jesus Christ.
What just happened?
No fucking idea.
One minute I’m taunting her, just hoping to put her off all this shit, and the next thing I know, I’m kissing her.
And she kissed me back.
I come to an abrupt stop as a gag seizes my throat. My stomach twists in disgust, but I luckily manage to keep the contents down. I drag a wrist over my mouth in a futile attempt to rid myself of the ghost of her kiss, the taste of her mouth.
Fuck.
What have I done?
The thought that responds to me is, a
nnoyingly, my father’s voice. If he ever—god fucking forbid—found out about this. It’s what he’d think. It’s what he’d say. It’s what I’d be.
Weak.
She’d said it, too. “I think you’re weak...”
My hands clench around the thought. Is that what set me off? Her calling me out like that?
It’d be easy to say it was. But I’d been on a hair trigger from the instant I’d accidentally walked in the room and saw her in that tight swimsuit. The girls always wear these racing suits, low in the back and cut high on the hips, revealing plenty of skin, leaving nothing to the imagination, and come on. I’m only human. Her nipples were pebbled from the cool air.
That’s not what I saw first, though. It’d been her wide blue eyes and her flushed cheeks. Her full, pink lips. Not like the other girls—no need for pounds of makeup or hushed procedures over spring break.
Just seeing her, knowing how much trouble she’d caused me, made my blood boil. And the thing is, she doesn’t care. She never has. She calls us all cruel, heartless sociopaths, but in reality? She’s no better. And now that I’ve had time to really turn it over in my brain, I remember that whole situation in the locker room was her fault. She’d baited me. Humiliated me. Basically, dared me to scare the hell out of her.
I push open the door to Cresswell, and take the stairs two at a time, passing the first three floors, up to the fourth—the senior hall. I cast a furtive glance down the hallway to be sure no one is around. If anyone found out…
Fuck, I’d never live this down. Never. Not after years of ruling the Devils with an iron fist. Not after setting such an immaculate standard on who we associated with, and how we treated those we didn’t. Sure, I’d been cruel to those who stepped out of line, but it was for good cause, no one could fault me for that. That’s what leaders do. They lead.
...by example.