“Five. We can go straight after school.”
Jasper gives me a look. “Fine.”
I grin at him, knowing that in a few short hours, he’ll come undone under my hands.
“Yo, Jasper! What’d I miss? I completely forgot — ”
Jasper moves away from me so quickly, it takes my mind a moment to catch up. I look at where the voice came from and my smile disappears.
I walk away, joining the girls on the other side of the classroom, who are still gathered by the sign-up sheet.
“What’dhewant?” Fin asks.
*
Jasper collapses onto my chest, head burrowing into my shoulder, breathing out hard. I unwrap my hand from him, and slide my hand out from between us, and wipe my fingers off with tissues from the box on my bedside table.
Afterwards, I drop the tissues and look at the ceiling, keeping my free hand wrapped around Jasper. I came a few minutes earlier than Jasper, so I’ve had enough time to calm down. Everything is warm, the way it is after finishing. I slide my palm up and down Jasper’s back. If we were in his bed, he’d roll off me by now, but in my single, there isn’t enough space.
“Good?” I ask.
“Mm.” He shifts his head so he can look at me, his face very close. “Thirsty.”
“Congratulations,” I say. He looks at me, and after a few beats, I give up. “Fine.” Carefully, I get out from under him and pull on some gym shorts and a shirt. Senior won’t be home yet, but just in case. Besides, I’d feel weird walking around the house naked.
I leave Jasper blinking sleepily in my bed, and head towards the kitchen, taking a detour to go to the bathroom. In the kitchen, I fill two cups up with water and try to decide whether I’m annoyed at myself for getting Jasper water like a servant.
“I’m back,” I say when I return to my room, using my foot to close the door behind me. Jasper’s sitting up against the wall, perpendicular to the bed, blankets covering his bottom half. He’s holding a piece of paper in one hand.
“Thanks,” he says, taking the cup with his free hand.
I sit beside him, our legs handing off the side of the bed. “What are you doing?” I ask. Then I narrow my eyes at what he’s reading, because that’s my messy handwriting.
“It was on the ground,” he says.
I pull the page out of his hand. As soon as I realise what it is — a practice essay from English class — I scrunch it up and chuck it across the room.
Jasper takes a sip of water and looks at me. “It’s not bad.”
I roll my eyes. “Yeah right.” I’ve been getting the same average grades I’ve gotten since I arrived at Easton Grammar.
“I’m serious. Your ideas are pretty good. It’s just how you express them that lets you down.”
At least that sounds honest, which relaxes me a bit. “What do you get?” I ask, leaning over to put my cup on my bedside table. “Straight As?”
He shrugs. “It’s not that hard to do well in English. Fin gets As on his essays.”
“Bullshit.”
“It’s true. I can’t believe it either,” he says, then passes me his empty cup so I can put it on the beside table too.
“Trinity complains about you getting better scores than her a lot, like every week.”
“She said that?” He perks up.
I frown. “You still got the hots for her?”
“Who wouldn’t?”
