by R. A. Smyth
“Why the fuck are you staring at Mason?” I bark at her, drawing not only her attention but also Mason and West’s.
“What? I wasn’t—” she splutters.
“Yes, you were. You have been all night. If you don’t want to be with West, then you should have said no.”
“Like you did?” she snarks, spitting fire at me.
“At least I’m not pretending to like one guy while eye fucking his best friend.”
With a glowering look she storms to her feet, taking off toward Tiffany, dragging her deeper into the crowd and out of view. Two for two. I wonder who I can piss off next.
“You’re on fire tonight, aren’t you?” West deadpans, the pair of them still looking at me.
I shrug my shoulders in a what can you do gesture. “Hey, you guys are the ones that wanted me to come. Maybe next time you’ll think better of it.”
***
On Sunday, I get a notification on my phone that there is a parcel waiting for me in the post room. When I arrive, I find a stack of garment bags, each one containing a dress. What the hell? There are enough dresses to fill my entire wardrobe.
After getting help to carry them all back to my room, I flick through each bag, lifting out the dress and giving it a critical look before hanging it up. Each one falls to my mid-thigh and all of them are relatively conservative. No plunging necklines, and none of them are backless. Nothing like the strips of fabric the other girls wear. The most daring they get is a split up the side that I'm certain will show my panties. That I can totally live with.
I'm about halfway through the bags when I find a note stuck to one.
This should keep Hawk off your back for a while. W.
West. Why would he help me out, though? Not having any answers to that, I ignore it, instead focusing on my pretty new dresses. I've never had anything like them before. Nothing designer, nothing that was just mine. I can't stop running my hand down the soft fabric, a goofy smile on my face as I continue through the pile. I now have enough dresses that I could probably wear a different one to each party for the rest of the year and still have some I've never worn. That's crazy, right?
On Friday night, after yet another un-fun week of grapefruit slices, girls calling me a slut, and trying to avoid spending any more time than necessary with the Pricks, I'm dressed in one of my new dresses, strutting across the sand toward the fire pit. I have to admit; I feel like hot stuff right now.
All four boys are in their usual seats around the fire, but what's surprising is that they're alone. No girl of the month, or any other girl, in sight. Maybe that means they will let me off the hook for the night.
They all glance my way as I approach, various looks flitting across their features. While I see heat and surprise in Mason’s, West looks almost smug, an unusual look on him. Cam takes one heated look at me and storms off. It’s been yet another week of silence and avoidance from him, so I can’t say I’m surprised. Hawk, as per usual, has his characteristic scowl firmly in place.
“Better,” is all he says, barely glancing at the dress. “But you forgot the shoes.”
“Nope, I didn’t.” I stick out my leg, shaking it in front of him so he can see my usual, impossible to miss, scuffed, chunky boots, enjoying the disgusted sneer that curls his lips.
“Heels go with dresses, not those monstrosities.”
“Trust me, Hawk,” I say sweetly, giving him a blinding, innocent smile as I drop into Cam's empty chair beside him. “You don't want me to wear heels.”
His eyes narrow at me in suspicion. “Why is that?”
I make sure to keep my sugary sweet smile in place. “Because I won't be able to stop myself from stabbing you through the eye with it.”
Unimpressed, he glowers at me, and I swear I see West covering a laugh behind his hand.
“Beer?” Mason offers, stretching across to lift himself one.
“No thanks, I don't drink.”
“You don't? Ever?” His eyebrows lift in surprise as he cracks the tab on the beer.
“Nope. Never.”
“Huh. How come?”
I shrug my shoulders, not wanting to get into any of it. “I just don't. It's not my thing.”
“What is your thing?” Hawk sneers. “You don't like parties, you don't drink, what the fuck do you like doing?”
“I like pissing you off,” I retort sweetly. This time, both West and Mason snort, and Hawk turns his icy glare on them.
***
The same sort of truce I have with West in the computer suite seems to apply to my time in the gym with Mason where we both pretend to not notice the other as we go about our morning routine, but for the last two weeks, he’s managed to secretly sneak a high carb, high protein snack bar—one of the fancy, expensive ones—into my gym bag without me noticing. I feel like I watch his every move so I’ve no idea how he’s managing it, but it’s so much tastier than the cheap, unfulfilling shit in the shop, and Hawk still has the kitchen staff giving me only grapefruit for breakfast so I’m not about to argue.
I seriously don’t understand it. He’s not around when I eat the rest of my meals and the kitchen staff bring me whatever I order, but he’s intent on pissing me off every morning by dictating what I eat. What he doesn’t realize is that, every morning, as I tuck into my measly slice of fruit, I’m imagining all the horrific ways in which I’m going to get him back.
I’m putting my gym gear back in my bag after my workout when my tablet goes off in my bag and, pulling it out, I find a new message from Cam.
Cam: Library.
God, I’m getting seriously fucking sick of these demands. First Hawk, now Cam. I almost preferred it when he was ignoring me.
Grabbing my backpack, I take off for the library. Part of me fucking hates the fact I’m going to them as though summoned, but while I might be playing along, I’ve been using the time I spend with them to learn what I can about them. They think they hide themselves behind their public personas but they don’t realize how much they let slip; the small things about themselves that most people probably wouldn’t pick up on, but I do. I note every part of themselves they unwillingly offer me.
Entering the library, I don’t see Cam, or any of the others, at their usual table at the back of the room. Glancing around, I don’t see them anywhere. If this is some sort of fucking joke…
Someone waving catches my attention and I turn my head to find some dark-haired girl I don’t know waving me over. Cautiously, I approach the table, not able to work out what is going on.
When I just stand at the table, looking down at her, she must cop on that I’m not going to sit down.
“Oh, uh,” she stumbles, flustered. “Cam wanted me to give you this.” Eyeing the pages she’s holding toward me, it’s Cam’s half of our English project. Seriously? He’s getting minions to deliver his assignments to me? He could just have emailed the damn thing.
“Why isn’t he delivering it himself?”
She must not have expected me to question her as her eyes widen in surprise. “I don’t know. He just told me to tell him when I was done and he’d get you to come pick it up.”
Hold up. What did she say?
“When you’re done with it?”
“Yeah.” She’s looking at me like she can’t understand my confusion. With her hand still outstretched in a desperate bid to get me to take the pages, I glance over the work. It’s painfully obvious this is not Cam’s writing. What Cam wrote for our first assignment got us an A+, but this drivel is barely passable.
“You wrote this?” Obviously she did, but I want her to confirm it.
“Yeah.” She smiles brightly, clearly proud of the job she did. She really shouldn’t be, though. If this is who Cam has been using to do his work for him, it’s no wonder Mr. Greer looked at us with suspicious eyes when he handed back our last two assignments.
“I'm not taking that,” I state bluntly, gesturing to the pages, and she finally drops her arm, gaping at me.
�
�Wh...what? But you have to.”
“I don’t have to do anything,” I growl. Why the fuck is everyone making decisions for me and telling me what I can and can’t do? I’m getting seriously fucking sick of it. This is not what I signed up for when I came to Pac. “Why would you do his work for him?”
She shrugs her shoulders. “He said he would pick me next month.” The hopeful gleam in her eyes makes me bite back my words before I can snark out something insulting. I should have realized that was the reason.
Shaking my head. “It’s really not worth...all of this.” I wave my hand at the table where she’s got textbooks open and was taking notes when I arrived. I want to tell her it’s not worth the hit to her dignity, the selling of her pride, but I don’t know her and I’m pretty sure anything I say will only come across as judgmental and bitchy. If she’s going to be another Princess, I should probably at least try to not piss her off.
Turning on my heel, I head back toward the exit, ignoring her spluttered protests, but as I reach the door, a hand wraps around my wrist, yanking me away from it as I stumble.
Spinning around, Cam is dragging me into the stacks and when I pull my arm back, trying to break his hold on me, he tightens his grip, my teeth gritting as my bones grind against one another.
When we’re safely hidden from prying eyes, he lets go, using his larger body to push me against the shelves, glowering down at me with fire in his eyes. This is the first time he’s so much as looked at me in the last two weeks and, despite how angry he is with me, and how frustrated I am with him, my body reacts instinctively to his nearness, remembering what it felt like to have him pressed up against me last time.
Staring unblinkingly into his eyes, I can see he feels it too. Buried underneath all that anger, he still feels what I feel—the intense physical response we have to one another.
“Go back and take the assignment from her,” he growls, his voice a deep rumble that sounds barely human.
“No.”
His eyes narrow at my defiance, his jaw clenching.
“I’m not handing in something that isn’t your work,” I boldly tell him, not letting his icy glare scare me. “Do the damn assignment yourself. And don’t use some lackey to give it to me. I know you have a set of balls, so fucking use them.”
His nostrils flare, the brown around his eyes a thin ring as his pupils enlarge, his face darkening with rage.
His hand wraps around my throat, a move that takes me by surprise as his fingers press into the skin on either side of my neck. I can feel the strength in his grip as his fingers flex, the intermittent loosening and tightening of his hold as he struggles to decide what to do.
With a savage growl and a final squeeze, he drops his arm, storming away without a backward glance, leaving me sagged against the bookcase as I try to control my breathing.
Chapter 18
Still half asleep, I rub at my eyes, running my hand through my hair as I look at myself in the mirror. Reaching out for my toothbrush, I glance down as my fingers touch nothing but air. What the hell? I swear it was here last night when I went to bed.
As I glance around, I don’t see it anywhere. Grumbling under my breath, I turn on the shower and step in, letting the hot water flow over me. I can look for the damn thing when I’m done. Tilting my head back, letting the water splash into my face and over my hair, I blindly go to grab the shower gel, I feel bristles brushing against my fingers and, opening my eyes, my toothbrush is perched against the shower gel bottle. What. The. Fuck? I never brush my teeth in the shower.
Rolling my eyes at Cam’s new idea of a hilarious joke, I make a mental note to tell him to grow up. This is the third time my shit has turned up in weird places. At first, I shook it off, thinking I misplaced my backpack, but now it’s clear Cam has been messing with me. I guess this is his way of handling his rejection from Hadley. I knew that girl was fucking trouble; knew she would mess him up like this.
“Ugh,” West groans, lifting up the couch cushions, searching for something, when I enter the living room half an hour later.
“What’s up?”
“I can’t find my glasses,” he growls, still digging around down the back of the sofa. I have a sneaking suspicion I know who might have taken them, but I decide to give Cam another day or two of being an idiot, then I’ll tell him to wise up.
Once he’s finally found them, hidden in the coffee canister, and Mason has managed to drag Cam out of bed—you’d think the idiot would want to be around to witness the havoc he’s causing—we head down for breakfast, striding into the hall with our heads up as we look down at our peers.
My lips pinch as I find Hadley’s seat at our table empty. Why can’t that girl be on fucking time? I shake it off though as I sit down, Cindy immediately attaching her mouth to mine. Mmm, if she directs her lips further south, I definitely won’t say no to a breakfast blowie. God knows, with all the tension I’ve been carrying around, I need an outlet for it.
Hadley eventually storms in with her typical angry scowl, not looking at any of us as she takes her usual seat, stabbing her fork into her grapefruit. I’ve gotten way too much joy out of watching her grumble and glower at the measly piece of fruit, slyly eyeing up Cam’s loaded plate of food every morning. Any other girl here would probably think I was being sweet by setting that in front of them, but I knew Hadley would fucking hate it. Not just the shortage of food, but the lack of control as well. She’s just like me in that respect, she needs that control over her life. I saw it when I told her she belonged to Cam for the month. The hate in her eyes at my words, the spark of fear at her loss of control.
It’s the same with the dresses and forcing her to come to our parties every Friday night. It’s all about tearing her down. Although, I have to admit, I thought she would put up more resistance. She’s taken it all like a champ, despite the pissy look on her face. The problem is I don’t know her well enough to know how to get to her.
That’s why I take the master key from the admin office and let myself into her room while she’s in class. I need to know more about this girl in order to know how to get rid of her.
With the exception of a few stacks of books on her desk, a bunch of suspiciously new and expensive looking dresses, and a few uniforms in her wardrobe, you’d hardly know anyone even lives here. Her bed is perfectly made with the standard white sheets provided by the school. She hasn’t brought her own covers or put posters on the walls. There’s no photos or anything personal in the room.
Rifling through her drawers, there are a few measly articles of clothing, but otherwise it’s empty. There’s nothing under her bed either or hidden in books on her bookshelf. Nothing here gives me any indication as to who she is or what makes her tick.
Frustrated, I slam my fist into the backboard of her bookcase, but instead of the solid knock, there’s an echo.
I stare at the spot in confusion before scanning my eyes over the bookcase. It’s a freestanding bookcase with a few books on one of the shelves, but otherwise it’s empty.
Yanking on one side, it easily pulls away from the wall and, peering behind it, my eyes widen in surprise. Sneaky bitch. There’s a hole in the drywall. Wedging myself between the bookcase and the wall, I slip in behind it until I can look in, finding a black duffel bag.
Lifting it out, I set it on the floor, bending down as I unzip it. The thing is basically empty, nothing but a couple of old clothes. In an inner pocket I find a cheap, plastic ring, like one you’d get out of a gumball machine. Chucking it back inside, I push aside her clothing, pausing when I find a notebook buried amongst them.
She’s always writing in her stupid notebooks instead of using the tablet, but why would she hide her schoolwork in the wall? I dig it out of her bag, opening it up. Flicking through the pages, my eyes narrow, and I only become more confused the more I read. What the fuck is this?
Snapping it shut, I set it aside, zipping the bag up and shoving it back where I found it. I push the bookcase back in place an
d with a final glance around the room to make sure nothing is out of place, I grab the notebook and get out of there.
***
Some faceless blonde is giving me the best blowjob of my life as I fuck her face. Nutting in her mouth, she swallows every last drop of my cum before leaning back on her heels, smiling up at me.
Her mouth opens as she goes to say something.
“AHHHHH,” she screams, the loud, high pitched shriek making me jump.
What the everloving fuck?
“AHHHHH!” she screams again. I turn to look behind me, but I’m frozen, unable to move. I bring my hand up to cut off her screams, but again, my arm won’t move.
What the fucking hell is going on?
I jolt awake, flying upright in bed, the screaming noise still pounding in my ears.
No, wait. That’s not in my head. Someone is honest to God screaming.
My door bangs open, Mason storming in.
“What the actual fuck are you doing in here?” I can barely hear him over the continued screams of some girl, my brain too fogged with sleep to wrap my head around what is happening. Who the fuck is screaming?
Glancing around my room, Mason’s eyes narrow on my desk, stomping over to it and whipping open the drawer. The action has the screaming getting even louder. Holy fuck, my ears.
He throws my phone on my bed—aggressively. I snatch it up, glancing at the screen. It’s my alarm. My alarm is going off? I silence it, my head still fuzzy and swirling with confusion.
“What the fuck, man?” Mason grumbles. “Why is your alarm set for the crack ass of dawn? Turn the damn thing off when it rings. Some of us are trying to sleep.”