Every time he tells me what I need to do, I open my bag and hand him the half I am required to do. The first time, he had scoffed at me but taken the papers anyway. After reading my work, he was incredulous and pissed off. After I've done this to him in five different classes, he is now used to lagging behind me, eating my academic dust.
“How far ahead are you, really?” He’s holding my half of our French Revolution assignment. I am particularly proud of this one and tempted to give Harley the other half. If I thought he would take it, I totally would, just to know how highly the teacher would mark it.
We're sitting in our history class, and we're supposed to be plotting out how we plan to do the assignment. Harley is reading through my half with raised eyebrows and a little frown on his face. I’m reveling in that look. I’m gloating. I’m feeling fan-fucking-tastic.
“I could catch a plague and be out for three months and still be the top of the class.” I'm so damn smug. I can't help but be.
He shakes his head at me, but he drops my work into his binder and snaps it shut. Avery is whispering furiously at the girl she's partnered with, and I feel sorry for the poor soul. Dealing with the devil is never pleasant.
“I heard you're going to Joey’s party tomorrow night.” A statement, not a question. I give him a look.
“I promised I would, so I am. If I say I'm going to do something, I always follow through.”
He blows out a breath, and then leans forward on his elbows toward me. I can see his brain working, the cogs moving and mice running on the wheel. He's not happy about something.
“Look, I get that I've been a dick to you. I get that Avery has been full-on, and you have no reason to trust me, but you should not go tonight. Joey is up to something, and when he's scheming, it never turns out good. Things have gone really bad in the past before, likepermanent-damage-and-deathbad. You should just pretend you've gotten sick.”
How do I explain to this gorgeous, infuriating rich prick that there is no way Joey Beaumont could break me? That I'm friends with the Jackal and I survived becoming the Wolf? He wouldn’t even understand what any of that means, that I’d been put to the test by the most dangerous underground criminal organization, and I hadn’t just survived. I’d won.
There is no way to say it without risking more questions, so I shrug at him vaguely.
“Seriously. What do you hope to gain by going to the party with him? He’s not going to date you.”
I snort and give Harley an incredulous look. “You think I want to date anyone at this pompous school? None of you lot know a damn thing about real life. None of you will ever have to live in it! You’ll all graduate and then live in the perfect little worlds your parents have already carved out for you, and then you’ll go on to have kids and set them up into your billion-dollar empires, while I scrape to make sure I can afford to eat and keep the lights on each month. Fuck you and fuck your assumptions. I’m just here to graduate and get scholarships for college.”
He looks at me like I’m a piece of shit, which is so damn confusing.
“Yeah, well, fuck you and your assumptions about me.”
* * *
Because my week hasn’t been bad enough, I have to sit through another choir class watching Ms. Umber fawn over Blaise.
Choir and voice development is the only class I hate going to, and I sometimes fantasize about faking a recurring head cold to get out of it. I tell myself I hate it so much because she’s a teacher and at least thirty years older than him, but I think I might be a little jealous that he smiles at her and jokes along with her. It’s fucking pathetic of me. We break up into our groups to run through our warm-ups, and Avery slips into the class. Her lips look pouty and bruised, like she’s been making out for hours and only just come up for breath, and she smirks at Blaise. He gives her a look in return, and if I had to guess, I’d say he was pissed off. Ugh, he is probably in love with her, and I’ll have to deal with them getting together and running off into the sunset and having beautiful, talented, rich babies.
I need a drink.
Maybe going to this party won’t be the worst idea I’ve ever had.
Lauren is nice enough to take the lead in the warm-up, and I can fake my way through. Dahlia is too busy watching Blaise to contribute much, but I don’t blame her. The second I hear his voice, my skin prickles with goose bumps and I mentally weep over my misfortune at going to school with him.
“Ash is going to murder Rory. Well, if Rory is lucky it’ll be Ash. Otherwise Harley will do it, and Rory willactuallydie,” Lauren whispers to Dahlia, and they giggle together.
“Who the hell is Rory?” I ask. Ms. Umber is busy teaching one of Avery’s flunkies proper breathing techniques, so I’m not worried about my class marks.
“He’s Avery’s new boyfriend. He’s in our grade, but he’s—well, not as bright as you, so you wouldn’t have any classes with him. He plays football.”
A jock. Of course she would date a football player. I glance over at Avery and find Blaise frowning at her and talking in quiet tones. I can clearly read the disapproval in the tense lines of his shoulders.
“Why will they kill her boyfriend? That’s pretty misogynistic; they all date too.”
Dahlia and Lauren share a look, and then lean in toward me.
“First of all, the guys don’t date, they sleep around. And Avery is the center of her brother’s life. He does not cope with any sort of sharing unless it’s Harley and Blaise. Last year she kissed one of the upperclassmen at the end-of-year party, and Ash broke the poor fool’s jaw.Broke it.”
He did not seem like the type to rule over his sister. It was jarring to think of him like that. My face must give my thoughts away, because Lauren gives me a half-smile. “Cillian is a dickhead. He told his friends he would bag her and her fortune, and it got back to Ash. He was already pissed about the kiss, and when he heard that, he took Cillian out. When Cillian came back to school this year, Harley had a… chat with him, and then Cillian changed schools.”
Fucking rich people.
