I sat down heavily and braced my hands on the desk. I wasn’t paying any attention to much of anything while we all waited for class to start, I was already exhausted by the day and it had barely started. I carefully unpacked my notebook and the poetry collection we were reading — my arms like noodles from even that little effort — dropped my bag back to the floor, realized my mistake, then debated whether I had to get out a pen. Maybe I could just listen and memorize everything that was being said? Yeah, I’m totally absorbing complex information right now…
I finally caved in, reaching down for my backpack again as someone settled into the desk on my other side. Mr. Raide had arrived and was fussing with his notes as the rest of the class disbursed into their places, and I finally retrieved a writing implement and slumped down in my seat.
“Hey, do you have another pen?”
I stared dully at my book, wondering if I could get away with a short nap. Arthur Penkala was sitting in front of me, and he was a pretty big guy, I might be able to hide behind him and shut my eyes for at least a few minutes.
“Are you ignoring me? I seriously just need a pen.”
I could rest my forehead on my hand like I was staring down at my notes, keep my pen up in my hand, and use my hair to hide my face — it would be really hard to tell that my eyes were closed unless you made an effort to look under my hair.
“I’m talking to you!” Something slapped down on my notebook and my head shot up, looking at the front trying to figure out what the hell was going on. Mr. Raide was still messing with papers, he hadn’t even started taking roll. I stared down at the big, rough-looking hand covering my notebook, fine blonde hairs reflecting the light from the tan, sinewy wrist and forearm covered in some kind elaborate tattoo I was too startled and brain-fogged to decipher. My eyes followed a line up his arm to where the ink disappeared under the sleeve of a black t-shirt straining around his bicep, all the way over his drool-worthy shoulder and up to his handsome but scowling face. It was the new guy, the one who’d seen me checking them out and laughed at my dismissal. I wondered vaguely how he’d managed to disentangle himself from the ranks of my classmates surrounding him, then registered that he’d been talking to me.
“What? I’m sorry, I wasn’t paying attention,” I stammered out, blinking at him. He was even better close up. Remarkably symmetrical. Golden tan skin, strong jaw, high cheekbones, and those eyes… definitely more blue than gray. I think.
“Clearly.” He looked more amused than annoyed now, enjoying how flustered I was.
I blinked at him again, waiting. He stared back. Eventually I said “Well?”
“Well what?” His eyes narrowed.
“You seem to be waiting for something, but I don’t know what you asked me,” I said patiently.
“Oh.” He seemed confused by that, as though my inattention was just a ploy and I’d been completely focused on whatever pearls of wisdom had flowed from his firm, slightly chapped lips the whole time. “Uh, I asked if I could borrow a pen.”
I stared at his empty desk then met his eyes again, my own eyebrow arching up. “Yeah? Wouldn’t invisible ink work better on your invisible notebook?”
He smirked, but a tiny bit of pink tinted his cheekbones. “That was going to be my next question.”
“Not a boy scout, eh?” At his blank look, I continued, “Not always prepared.” He still didn’t get my reference but shrugged.
“My priorities this morning didn’t include school supplies,” he mumbled. If I were a different girl, a girl who cared about things like capturing and keeping a boy’s attention, I might have used that opportunity to ask him what his priorities were instead, or teased with imagined priorities that referenced his manliness and stroked his ego.
I’m not that girl, and the novelty of so many new faces had already worn off, so I grunted and kicked my backpack over toward him. “Help yourself,” I said, and let my head drop onto my folded arms as Mr. Raide called out “Nate Bezyski? Emma Charamut?” and onward through the list. I felt my backpack slide back against my legs under my desk before I had to jut my arm up for “Azzie Vokaty?” and only after Tyler Wentin and Bella Zubeck had been called did I realize that I’d totally missed any new names.
“What kind of name is Azzie?” I heard hissed from the new guy’s direction.
“What kind of name is… umm… what was your name?” I peered up at him with one eye, my head still cradled in my arms on my desk.
He snorted, shaking his head as if in disbelief. “You really have absolutely no interest in anything about me.”
“Look, no offense,” I whispered as Mr. Raide discussed some schedule changes that I’d find online later, “but I’m really freaking tired and I’m having trouble focusing on anything. Even if you told me your name right now, I may not remember it later, I’m that level of tired. But if you really want my approval, then take notes during class for me because I have a feeling I’m not going to get much out of today’s lecture.”
“Want your approval?” Apparently that offended him.
Oh well, I guess we’ll never be BFFs. I shrugged again and buried my face in the crook of my elbow trying to block out the light. Arthur Penkala was a substantial dude, but not big enough to shade me from the annoyingly bright fluorescent lights.
What felt like twenty seconds later, a heavy hand settled on my shoulder and I jumped, disoriented and confused. Mere heartbeats ago, I’d been riding my bike through an old-growth pine forest listening to a podcast about Chaucer, and now I was in an almost empty classroom with a concerned teacher standing over me and a few lingering students staring as they gathered their things.
“Azzie? Are you okay?” Mr. Raide asked, removing his hand now that I was awake. “You slept through the entire class.”
I blinked at him as my brain tried recalibrating.
I was at school, but I didn’t really remember getting there let alone coming to class. My recollections were all hazy and dream-like and populated by an inordinate number of really hot guys unlike any that I’d ever seen before in town, and I think going off my birth control was fucking with my hormones. That’s the only reasonable explanation for these fantasies I was having of sexy Native American phlebotomists and blonde Viking-wannabes trying to have conversations with me about pens.
“Uhh, yeah, I’m okay. Sorry, Mr. Raide—”
“You’re really pale, Azzie, maybe you should go to the nurse.”
My teachers all knew about my PV; even when I hadn’t told them directly it was the kind of thing they discussed amongst themselves, and all of them were at least tangentially aware that I had daily phlebotomies to control my disease. I didn’t think it required explanation when I said, “It was an especially big blood draw this morning, and I haven’t quite recovered. I’m sorry I slept through class, I’ll try to get notes from someone.”
He nodded, leaving it up to me to know when or if I needed medical intervention, and I appreciated that. I much prefer it when they respect my ability to manage my own illness instead of treating me like a stupid kid, and I especially didn’t like it when they fussed. “I think Sasha may have recorded it,” he said. Distracted by students filing in for his next class, he turned and walked away without another word, and I scurried to gather up my things. We had ten minutes between classes but I’d still be cutting it close.
It wasn’t until I was halfway to my Statistics classroom that I registered what he said.
Who the fuck is Sasha?
Chapter Three
Azzie
I saw him the moment I crossed through the doorway into Statistics, sitting smack in the middle of the rows of students looking possibly even more handsome and Viking-like than I had dreamt. His sky blue eyes skipped right over me as I scrambled to get to my desk before the last bell rang, and I collapsed into it as he turned to smile wanly at something Leia Martin said, causing my libido to take off like a racehorse released from the gate even for that half-ass attempt at being friendly.
&n
bsp; I cursed my inner nerd for wasting the opportunity of such a vivid dream about him on a lame conversation about pens when I could have easily come up with something better. And dirtier. I’d read enough of Rachel’s romance novels to have a very healthy amount of material in my spank bank, so why my unconscious didn’t tap into that, I’ll never know. And why it replaced his blue t-shirt with a black one, instead of just stripping it off him, was another mystery of my hormone-addled brain that I’d probably never solve.
This time, I was paying attention, and heard it when Mrs. Ramsey called out “Sevastien Kolek?” and he responded with a grumbly “Sev” in a familiar raspy voice. His voice was so deep for a high school senior, with a gravelly quality that made my nethers thrum whenever I heard it. I repeated the name Sev Kolek over and over in my mind to make sure I wouldn’t forget it. We had two classes together, and even though he didn’t seem to even be aware I existed, I’m sure we’d end up interacting at some point and I wasn’t going to run the risk of offending him again by not knowing his name. Or is it really an “again” when the first time was some kind of fever dream born of iron deficiency?
Despite years of advanced math, Statistics tends to kick my ass — in a fun, challenging way that keeps me coming back for more — so I spent the next hour completely focused on the teacher and making sure I understood all the concepts and instructions thoroughly. We had the last ten minutes of class to get started on our homework, which almost everyone else used to socialize and commiserate over their utter confusion, but I managed to get through the first two problems without issue which made me think I had a good grasp on the material. Smiling to myself, I closed my notebook and looked up, locking eyes with Sev who was watching me intently.
I shot him a small smile, an “I’m sure you’re wondering why I look familiar, and I’m not going to be so presumptuous as to assume your attention is for any other reason, so just know that when you finally figure out I was also in your English class, hopefully you’ll realize this means you’ve got a friendly face in both classes” smile, which I’m pretty sure he took as a “wow, the cute boy is looking at me!” smile. I came to that conclusion after he narrowed his eyes and turned away without returning anything, not even the same polite but noncommittal facial tic he gave to Leia Martin.
I sighed inwardly and gathered my things so I’d be ready to go when the bell rang. I needed to stop at my locker before Geography, a class that I thought I would love but I found just made me feel really sad. Don’t get me wrong, I really did love the subject matter and was learning a lot, but I left every class like a little kid who just found out that Santa Claus wasn’t real: disappointed, maybe a little regretful, and feeling a whole lot of loss.
All I’d ever dreamt about when I was a kid was traveling to all the places I read about, and Geography just reminded me every single day of all the places I’d never go. I didn’t even have the pretty lie of someday to retain a little hope, not unless I could believe in reincarnation.
Sev was leaving the classroom right in front of me, and I marveled at his body, which was a welcome distraction from my otherwise depressing thoughts. I knew he was tall but he was easily seven or eight inches taller than me, and I was five-foot-seven barefoot. He was lanky with long arms and legs that made me think he’d be a monster on the basketball court, easily able to palm a ball in his big hands. I had a very distinct memory of those hands resting on my notebook, but he didn’t have any tattoos on his forearms so clearly my brain had its priorities straight during dream time and painted his skin just the way I liked it.
He stopped suddenly and I stumbled right into him, knocking him forward but he held his ground and didn’t slam into the people that had stopped in front of him. That was really good because then I didn’t go tumbling forward any farther than getting a face-full of his t-shirt — and deep sniff of his delicious woodsy-musky scent, which might explain my dream of bicycling in a pine forest — rather than ending up in a painful dog-pile. He grunted and looked back over his shoulder at me, annoyed, as I grabbed on to his arm on one side and messenger bag on the other to regain my balance.
“Sorry,” I mumbled, blushing, and stepped back, reluctantly releasing his arm.
“You should pay attention to where you’re going,” he stated, voice cold and critical as if I’d been glued to my phone or gossiping with my friends when I walked into him. Given that we’d had two classes together now, and he’d stared right at me in both yet still didn’t seem to recognize I was the same person, I was getting seriously annoyed with this jackhole.
“I was distracted by checking out your ass,” I said baldly, ignoring the indrawn breaths and shocked giggles from the people around me.
One eyebrow shot up, and the tension around his mouth visibly softened. “And?”
“Eh,” I shrugged and his eyebrow shot up. “Good enough to distract me, but not enough that I thought to grab it when I had a chance. Three stars. Might recommend.”
He tucked his lips inside his mouth like he was stopping himself from replying or maybe laughing. Hard to say. I gestured to the clear doorway and he jumped slightly, hesitating for just a second before continuing through it, and I’m pretty sure he turned back to say something once he was out, but I’d already darted past him and was halfway down the hall in the other direction. Ten minutes was not a lot of time when I was feeling this draggy and my joints were aching like a bitch. Geography was on the second floor, and my knees were already sparking with pain in anticipation.
I hit my locker for the first time that day and was glad it opened on the first try — my nap during Lit had served me well. I balanced my backpack on my knee while I switched out books, not planning to return until after Geography, lunch, and Comp Sci. And as I struggled with some unnecessarily heavy and awkward books, I thought about how back in junior high we had e-readers with all our textbooks on them. We’d been as close to paperless as you could be in a school, but that was either another casualty of the pandemic or it was some kind of security issue with being on the base. Either way, my backpack was almost unmanageable at this time of day, but the cafeteria and Comp Sci were right near each other and on the other side of the building from my locker, and from an energy-conservation standpoint, it made more sense to carry everything.
I slammed my locker door shut and jumped about a foot in the air because there was a guy right there, the dark haired guy from Lit class that I’d forgotten about completely, and sure, maybe he was just getting books out of his own locker but he about gave me a heart attack.
“You about gave me a heart attack,” I gasped when he looked over to see why someone was flailing around like an inflatable tube dude from on top of a bank or car dealership, one of those random, pointless things that somehow managed to survive the apocalypse.
He grinned at me as I shook off the scare. “Sorry, babe.” He didn’t even sound remotely contrite.
“Sure you are,” I grumbled, reaching for the backpack I’d dropped in my cheetah-fast defensive reaction, but he beat me to it, hauling it up onto his own shoulder like it weighed nothing. “Umm, I sorta need that,” I said, not quite to the point where I’d grab for it, still hoping he’d surrender it without too much effort on my part.
“I’ll carry it.” He slammed his own locker door and turned to me expectantly. After I didn’t move, he gestured with his hand. “Lead the way.”
“Uhh. I don’t know where you’re going.”
“Same place you are.” At my utter confusion and mounting suspicion, he sighed and rolled his eyes. “There’s only one Geography class. I saw your textbook when you were putting it in your bag.”
Oh. That makes sense. I nodded and headed off down the hall, feeling awkward not having my bag and I kept glancing back over my shoulder to make sure he was still there. Not that I thought he’d take off with my stuff or anything, just that we might get separated in the crowd but then again, he was a pretty solid dude. I was more likely to get knocked off course than he was.
“Would it make you more comfortable to walk, I don’t know, next to me?” He was laughing at me beneath that neutral question and I blushed, frustrated that he was holding my bag hostage and I couldn’t get away from him.
“No,” I said, and picked up my pace. Without my bag dragging me down, I could afford to move faster without repercussions.
He was laughing outright now, but kept pace behind me and didn’t try to catch up even when the crowds thinned, not until we reached the classroom door then suddenly he was close up behind me, heat radiating off him.
Goosebumps cascaded down my body when his breath tickled my ear as he leaned in to whisper, “Glad you stayed in front, I had an excellent view. Four and a half stars, would recommend.” My head shot around so fast I almost head-butted him, and he laughed again but didn’t move back one centimeter. “You didn’t even notice me in Stats class. That might be a first for me,” he confided, his self-confidence — borderline arrogance — grating against me. Then he ran his nose and cheek down my neck, breathing deeply. “Challenge. Accepted.”
I’m not sure what the fuck he thought he was doing, what fucking joke he was playing, but he definitely wasn’t expecting me to yank my backpack off his arm and back away into the classroom, scrubbing at my neck with my shoulder trying to rub off the sensation of his breath and skin against mine. He was frozen in place, eyes widening.
My cheek began to itch. Fuck.
“Do not touch me,” I growled, on the bleeding edge of losing my shit right then and there. I pulled down my shirt sleeve and rubbed at my cheek and neck, too roughly but the itching wasn’t fading one bit and my eyes began to sting. I felt the looming presence of Mr. Kalkunen behind me and managed to get out “I have to go take care of this” without my voice breaking, but it was close.
Book of the Dead: AESLI-00: (A reverse harem, post-pandemic, slow-burn romance) (The JAK2 Cycle, Book 1) Page 3