I still have my head down so I only have a view of his gray sneakers but I can imagine his expression, since that’s my thing now, when he says drily, “That’s a very kind offer. I never knew how helpful schoolgirls could be. But I think I can manage.”
I’m afraid I’ll have to decline your offer of spreading your legs for me…
Jerk. Asshole.
Poe leans forward then. “Okay, real talk. I have no interest in soccer whatsoever. But I like you.”
“And what’d I do to deserve that?” he drawls.
“You helped our friend out last week,” Callie replies. “With those evil girls.”
“Yeah, I don’t care about violence,” Wyn goes. “Because why make war when you can make art? But we really appreciated that. So thanks.”
Oh yeah, they heard about that. They were all in the dorm when it happened and they were really impressed when I told them about it.
He doesn’t say anything but I can feel him jerking his chin at them in all his arrogant glory and it makes me squirm in my seat. I’m about to look up and put an end to this charade when Poe goes again. “Well, since you’re so helpful, maybe you can help our girl out once again.”
What?
“Yeah. She sucks at math. And Miller’s starting to notice. Maybe you can talk to Miller about it?” Callie chirps sweetly.
“Oh, and can you also teach her a little bit of trig, if you have the time?” Poe asks in her typical troublemaker voice.
Wyn throws out a soft chuckle. “I second that.”
I abandon all pretense of staring at the notebook then and look up. Only to find that his eyes are already on me.
Dark blue and hot.
But I ignore him for now and look at the girls. “I do not suck at trig.”
Callie reaches forward and squeezes my hand in sympathy. “You so do.”
“No,” I lie. “I like trig.”
It’s Poe’s turn to squeeze my shoulder. “No, you don’t. Because nobody likes trig.”
“You know –”
“Is Miller giving you trouble?” he cuts me off then.
Finally, I have to look at him and when I do I have to crumple the corner of my notebook because his eyes have gone completely black and he’s staring at me intimately.
I glare at him. “No. She’s not.”
He doesn’t like that, as evidenced by his sharp exhale. “I thought I told you to come to me if there was a problem.”
God, he makes me so angry with his highhanded ways. Like he owns me or something. Like he wants to slay all my dragons and make all my problems go away.
I tamp down the flutters it causes in my belly and how I want to clench my thighs at his dominating tone. “And I told you that I can handle myself.”
Arrow goes silent as he stares down at me, all tall and authoritative, the globes of his biceps and shoulders bunched up and on display in his gym t-shirt.
“Is that your trig homework?” He jerks his chin up.
I bring the notebook closer to me as if hiding it from his view. “Yeah.”
“I can teach you,” he offers.
“Excuse me?”
“They’re right. You do suck at trig.”
And oh my God, I lose my shit.
I completely lose it.
I shut my notebook with a loud snap, so loud that even I flinch. “Thanks for the offer. But I’m afraid I’m going to have to decline. I don’t need your help.” I even stand up under his fiery eyes. “I don’t need you to teach me anything. I can learn everything by myself. In fact, I’m going to get started tonight. Learning things, I mean. The basic trigonometry skills. And by the time I’m done, I’m going to be so good at it that you’ll cry and curse at your fate that you ever offered to teach me anything.”
Ignoring him and the tightly coiled and dark form of my sun, I turn to my girls who’re all looking at me with a mixture of amusement and awe. “I’m leaving. And you guys need to follow me so I can make a dramatic exit.”
Which I do.
I make a dramatic exit and my girls, like the sisters I never had, follow me.
Hours later at midnight, they follow me to the bar too where I plan on getting educated, meaning I plan on finding a random guy and fucking him and getting rid of my stupid virginity.
I know it’s an overly emotional reaction and I need to stop and think, which has all been said by my friends, but I’m too angry.
I’m too upset and I’m too hurt.
It hurts, okay?
It hurts.
It hurts that he’ll fuck anyone, any random girl that he finds at a bar, but me. It hurts that after all these years he finally sees me but still, I won’t hold his attention. He still doesn’t find me attractive enough to fuck me.