He leans back in his chair and crosses his arms.
“I don't expect you to ever stop fucking with me. You came to this school swinging, like we wouldn't swing back. I meant your assignment.”
My eyes narrow. This is a trap. He is far too smug right now.
“It's a shame about the computers,” he says innocently. “Sounds like they'll be out for the whole week.”
Fuckingbastard.
“Seriously? That's all you've got?” I say with confidence that I'm not feeling, and I stand up with my tray. I walk out of the hall to the sound of his raucous laughter.
* * *
It takes two seconds in the library to discover that he has in fact messed with all the IT systems in the school. My completed assignment is stuck on the little USB stick I’d been forced to buy. There’s a chance the computers will be fixed before classes resume, but I’m not really one for taking chances. It's such a rich kid thing to assume that he's won because I can’t access the computers, and yet the school has a bigger and better stocked library than my home town does, so I pull a dozen books and spend the day rewriting my assignment before he decides to burn the library down instead.
After six hours of intensive work, Harley shows up with a smug look that only falters on his face for a second when he spots me in my fortress of books. I give him my own smug look and finish off my attempts at perfect penmanship, though I can never completely disguise my scratchings successfully.
“I didn't expect to see you here. I thought you were so out of touch from the library that you wouldn't know where to find it.”
He grins wolfishly at me, and my breath catches. Goddamn it, why is he so hot!
“I know the library well.” He pulls a chair out across from me and straddles it. “I've fucked quite a few girls in the stacks.”
A shiver runs up my spine. I should feel disgusted, like I had at every other boy who's said that kind of thing to me, but all I can think is how much I want him to take me into the stacks. How sick is that?
Maybe foster care messed me up more than I thought.
A slow grin spread across his face.
“Don't worry, Mounty, I don't want to fuck you. There's at least three guys in this school who don't want you.”
Himself, Ash and Blaise. My stomach drops, and I want to scream at myself. Why the hell do I want them so much, when they are the ones torturing me? Some secret part of my brain whispers to me that the last few days hadn't felt like torture. They’ve been the most fun I'd had since I'd come to this pretentious school.
“What a relief. I suppose none of you needs the money.”
His eyes tighten like he's taken a hit. I open my mouth to ask him why, but he cuts me off.
“Not enough to fuck trash, no.”
I would have given anything to be able to stop myself from blushing, but I couldn't. I tell myself it a flush of anger, but it's shame burning in my gut.
“You might want to bury your nerves a bit deeper, Mounty. Putting them on display like that just gives us all a target.”
He winks at me,fucking winks, and then leaves me.
I tell myself I'm not gutted.
But I am.
* * *
The students all arrive back Sunday night.
By Monday morning, Harley's head is shaved and he looks at me like I'm nothing again.
Chapter 17
Miss Umber is late to my choir assessment by twenty minutes, which is coincidentally just long enough for me to start sweating bullets at the thought of singing for her. The choir room looks so much bigger without the other students milling about. I’m glad she agreed to do it here, and not at the chapel. Standing on the stage there, where I’d heard my 911 call, I would’ve lost my mind. And my lunch.
