“What can I do for you, Beaumont? I have homework to get to.”
He drops his feet back to the floor and then leans forward towards me as I empty out my bag. He doesn't have any of his own class work with him, so I'm hoping he'll disappear once he has what he wants. “What's your poison? I'm having some supplies sent in, and I don't know what you like to drink. Any party favors you like? I can get whatever you’d like, on me as my guest.”
Party favors.
He’s asking me if I want him to buy me drugs. I give him what I hope is a bored look. His smile doesn’t falter.
“I don’t need anything. I’ll drink whatever, I’m not a rich dick with fussy taste,” I say in an airy tone.
Joey grabs one of my pens and twirls it in his fingers. I wonder how many girls he’s done this with, this casual dance to lure in a victim. He’s attractive, but all I see when I look at him is the evil in his eyes when he looks at his siblings. All I can see is the guy who talks down to everyone around him, the guy who calls girls he’s slept with sluts.
He’s waiting me out. He wants to see if I’ll tell him to leave or try to get him to talk to me. I choose to ignore him instead. I’ve spent years learning to study no matter where I am or who is around me. I focus on the Lit assignment in front of me, and I’m jolted out of my study by another voice.
“Chatting up the Mounty? I thought she was off limits.” I look up and see a familiar senior. It takes me a minute, and then I realize it's the dickhead I punched in the throat, the one who told me he would schedule me in for a fuck. Guys like this are the type to rape a woman and then tell his friends she was gagging for it. The type of guy who thinks he's a gift to the world and everyone should get on their knees for him.
I fucking hate him.
Joey is watching me with this sly look on his face, like he knows what I'm thinking. The other guy doesn’t notice at all. “I don't really think that's fair-”
“Fuck fair. If you don't leave now, I'll have to make an example of you, Devon.”
A single bead of sweat appears on Devon’s brow and rolls down his face. It's not that warm in the library. I can see the tremble on his lip. The tiny flick of the muscle in his cheek.
Joseph Beaumont Jr. doesn't have friends.
He has victims, plebs, and pawns.
Better to be a pleb, out of his eye line and safe, than to be a pawn in his game. I don’t think I have that option anymore. I think he’s toying with me, testing me, until he knows whether I will have any use to him.
I fucking hate him, too.
Devon leaves without another word, and I get back to my studying, intent on just blocking him out. I can study under any circumstances, so it’s nothing for me to shut him out and get back to work. “What if I want to buy you something? I’ve invited you there as my guest, it would be rude not to.”
I grit my teeth. I don’t want him to think I owe him anything. “I’m not interested, thanks. If there’s not going to be some sort of drinks table, I’ll just go and dance. Not a big deal.”
He blows out a breath like he’s frustrated. I don’t think he’s ever really known that emotion. “Suit yourself. You sure do make it hard to impress you, Mounty. I’ve had girls start Fight Clubs over who got to have me for the night. I’m a little put out.”
“No, you’re not. You’ll forget I exist the second you leave this room.”
He laughs, and then finally he does leave. I try to ignore the sinking feeling in my stomach. I don’t like the way Joey speaks about me, like I’m a thing to possess. It takes me a minute to realize why it feels so wrong, but so familiar.
That’s exactly how Matteo talks about me.
* * *
One of the perks, or drawbacks depending on how you look at it, of sitting next to Harley in the majority of my classes is that we are always paired up for assignments.
Hannaford is big on joint assignments, as they like to foster working relationships. I know this is because the other students all come from their own dynasties, and they’ll all be dealing with one another once they take over the family businesses. I’ll never have to worry about that shit. The best I can hope for is to be accepted into a pre-med college course.
Harley is an exemplary student, we are neck-and-neck for the top of every class, but working with him can be a major pain in my ass. He likes things done his way, to the point that compromise is a dirty word to him. He will look at the syllabus and just cut the assessment down the middle, the exact middle, and in the same way every time. I'll be handed one half, and he will do the other half.
After my first experience with him, I'd made the decision to just roll with his shitty attitude, but that means that it is difficult to get ahead in my classes without knowing how he is going to split the assignment up. So I do what only an insane person would do.
I do the entire assignment, and then give him whichever half he deems to be mine.
This has become a truly joyful experience for me.
The highlight of my week, even.
