She folded her arms. “Our conversation? Hmm, yeah, no, I don’t remember puttingwaste time conversing with a random loseron my schedule today.” She scoffed, brushing past metoward the mirrors. I watched her face in the reflection, keeping my distance.
“You used my answers for your test,” I said. She swiped her finger over her lower lip as if touching up her lipstick, but the motion seemed fabricated. She was nervous. Trying to look disinterested. “I expect to be compensated.”
“Compensated?” She laughed, glancing back at me over her shoulder. “Compensated for what? For me sitting next to you? A lot of people would paymefor that privilege.”
I had no doubt they would. But lucky me, I had something she wanted, something sheneeded.
Feeling this much confidence was such a head rush. I just wanted to see her squirm. “Sorry to break it to you, Jess. Things are going to operate a little differently now. If I do the work, I’m getting paid. That goes for your boyfriend too.”
I had plans for Kyle. The amount of blackmail I had on him could probably put that bastard in prison, but I considered myself a pretty nice dude. Nothing had to happen as long as he backed off.
“Is this part of your whole new thing?” she said, narrowing her eyes at me in the mirror. “The dark clothes, dyed hair, piercings. You shouldn’t let Manson and Lucas influence you like that, you’re better off staying a nerd.”
I’d changed my look, it was true. After a lifetime of wearing uniforms to school, polo shirts and khakis had been all I knew. But without my parents breathing down my neck, I let loose. Lucas helped me buzz my hair short and dye it. Manson pierced my ears and I’d stretched the holes. I was envious of Lucas’s tattoos, but stick-n-poke wasn’t my style, so Vincent and I were both saving up to get pieces done.
Maybe to Jess it looked like I was trying too hard, but it didn’t stop her from staring.
She looked at me differently this year. It was like somethingsurprised her every time she saw me. I wasn’t going to fool myself into thinking it was an attraction, but it was something.
It was a crack in her armor.
“I’m not joking.” I stepped closer until my reflection filled the mirror behind her. She smelled so good. Strawberry and vanilla, sweet cream and sugar. I wasn’t sure if it was shampoo, perfume, or that gloss she put on her mouth, but it practically made me salivate. “Either you start paying up every time you use me to cheat or I’m telling the principal.”
There it was, nice and simple. No real blackmail other than the simple threat that I would tell someone exactly what she’d been doing.
Her eye twitched. “Fucking snitch.”
I grinned as I reached around her, bracing my hands on the edges of the sink and caging her in. I’d never been that close to her, close enough that I could see the freckles on her shoulders and a tiny scar on her arm. The iridescent pink glitter from her lip gloss shimmered on her mouth, and it made me want to bite her. I wanted to take her lip between my teeth and hear her groan, feel her shudder. But it was enough to see the way she looked at me as I brought my lips close to her ear.
There was uncertainty, yes. But there was excitement too, a sudden light in her eyes that I hadn’t expected. It caught me off guard, and I lowered my tone as I spoke.
“A hundred bucks,” I said. “Every time.”
“Wow. Overpricing yourself a little, aren’t you?” Her voice had grown softer but her gaze hadn’t. “I think the principal will be a little more concerned about you following me into the girls’ locker room than memaybetaking a little peek at your test.”
“Let’s try it,” I said. “We’ll go talk to him together.”
Her eyes left my face, skating down my arm beside her. She seemed to stare at my hand for a long time, focusing on my knuckles wrapped tight around the edge of the sink.
“Fine. Back off so I can get my purse. Oh,wait…” She turned around. Chest to chest, toe to toe. Her tits were right there and I couldn’t stop myself from looking down at them. She looked so soft, her skin so smooth. When I forced my eyes back up to her face, she was smirking. “I don’t have any cash today. Oopsie. Too bad.”
But I wasn’t the only one whose eyes wandered. She looked at my neck, a flicker of confusion going over her face as she focused on the hickey my t-shirt didn’t cover. I used to be so paranoid about those marks, and with good reason. It was part of what tipped my parents off in the end, what made them start asking questions.
But without them to worry about, I loved the bruises. I loved looking at them in the morning and remembering how they came to be. Like last night, while Vincent’s teeth and hands left marks all over me, he’d made me talk about Jess. He’d made me say aloud all the ways I dreamed of fucking her — by myself, with him, with Manson and Lucas, everywhere and anywhere.
I had to stay focused. I backed away from her, shrugging like none of it mattered. “That’s too bad. So are you sitting in on this conversation or what?”
I turned and walked away, rounding the lockers but keeping my pace slow the closer I got to the door, giving her the opportunity to change her mind.
“Wait!”
I stopped, allowing myself a self-indulgent smile. It was a good thing she couldn’t see me, because what she said next almost made me choke on my own saliva.
“What if I gave you a nude?”
I poked my head back around the lockers so fast I almost got whiplash. “Nudes? Of you?” Thank God, Satan, and any other deity out there that my voice didn’t crack. I had to keep it cool. “Overpricing yourself a little, aren’t you?”
She didn’t look happy about me throwing her own words back in her face. “Frankly, sending you a nude is overpaying,” she said, waving her hand. “But whatever. Give me your number.”