I glared at him. “Where have you been all day?”
“Why do you care?”
“Because, in case you don’t remember, we had a competition on Friday night.”
“Of course, I remember,” he cut in. “And I remember that I won.”
“Yes. Which means I’m…your slave,” I finished with a mutter.
“What was that?” Taylor said with an innocent smile, gesturing to his ear, like he hadn’t heard me.
“Your slave!” I yelled. “Your fucking slave, okay? Unlike you, I’m not a sore loser. If you lost, I bet you’d have pulled some technically-this-doesn’t-count bullshit out of your ass.”
“I wouldn’t have,” he said. “Why are you here, anyway? I would’ve thought you’d hide in your room, hoping I’d forget about this whole thing.”
“I’m not a coward,” I said.
He raised his brows. “Tell me the truth. You want this,don’t you?”
Once again, I glared at him. I glared at him so frequently, it was probably going to give me wrinkles. You know how there’s smile lines and frown lines? I would have glare lines.
“Fuck off. I just want to get this over with.Tonight.”
He reached out and grazed his fingertips against my chin. “Eager, aren’t you?” he murmured.
I slapped his hand away.
Should I punch him?
I really wanted to punch him.
“No,” I snapped. “I’m busy this week, and I don’t want this hanging over me. But if you’ve changed your mind…”
He barked a laugh. “Definitely not. In fact, I was out today, preparing.”
My stomach dropped. “Preparing?” I repeated.
“Wait here a second,” he said, disappearing into his bedroom. I expected him to close the door behind himself, but he didn’t, which meant I had about fifteen seconds to look around.
I don’t care about Taylor and his dumb life, but it’s useful to know thy enemy, or whatever it was that Sun Tzu said. So I glanced around Taylor’s jail cell bedroom and was surprised to see that…
It was a total mess.
There were clothes on the floor, the bed unmade, and a stack of books on his desk that looked precariously close totipping over. His bedside table was covered with dirty mugs and a tangle of chargers and cables, and shoved into the corner of his room were running shoes, a plastic container of protein powder, and a random bottle of air freshener.
Sure, I’d never seen Taylor’s bedroom while we were in high school. I mean, of course I hadn’t — we weren’t friends, not even close. I didn’t even know which neighbourhood he lived in. But from what I had seen of him in high school, he’d always seemed put together: his notes were neat, his locker was organised, and his soccer jersey was always ironed.
I’d never expect him to have such a chaotic room.
Then Taylor returned from what he was digging out, and all of my thoughts about his bedroom went out the window. Because he was holding a…
“You can’t be serious.”
“I warned you,” Taylor said, smiling as he lazily swung the collar from his index finger.
It was definitely made for humans — I doubted dogs had necks that were as big. It was made of a simple plain leather, with a little gold loop at the front, and connected to that loop was a long, thin leash. “I said that if I won, I’d make you wear a collar that designates you as my property. Because youaremy property.” His eyes glinted.
“Only for tonight,” I said.
