“FL?” I asked with a frown. What the hell was FL?
“Freeloader.” He winked.
If I could have smacked the smug grin off his face without being expelled, I would have in a heartbeat. What a conceited prick.
Why the hell did he have to be so hot? His arrogant smirk would be so much less irritating if it weren’t made up of plump lips and accompanied by twinkling blue eyes.
I loved blue eyes. They were so different from my dark ones. This close, I noticed a small fleck of green in his left eye shaped like a comma. One speck of imperfection in an otherwise flawless face that only made him more attractive.
Damn Ken Doll.
Since I couldn’t hit him, I settled for my usual weapon, my caustic tongue. “I suppose you paid for this with your lucrative job?” I snapped my fingers. “Oh no, wait, your mommy and daddy paid for it. Just like they paid for your clothes and your Tesla and whatever else you have that you didn’t earn yourself.”
I only had two seconds to enjoy the flash of surprise in his eyes before he grinned again. “Dayum, FL has a backbone. All right, I can work with that. Let the games begin. This is gonna be fun,” he said as he rubbed his hands together.
Maybe I should tell him I was gay. That would get his future-frat-boy ass out of that seat faster than anything. He was the type of jerk to be afraid of catching sexual orientation if he sat too close to a queer guy like me.
I’d be fine if he dropped out of the program. Completing the assignments alone had to be better than putting up with him.
“Excuse me, gentlemen,” Marissa said. She narrowed her eyes at us. “Save the chitchat for the breaks, please.”
“Sorry, ma’am,” Ken Doll said with a charming tone that probably had his high school’s entire cheerleading squad fawning all over him.
I resisted rolling my eyes.
Barely.
“FL here was just asking if he could borrow a fiver for lunch. Poor thing doesn’t have much,” he added in a faux whisper.
Oh, fuck him.
My ears burned. Why the hell wasn’t I born with the ability to disappear on command?
A few of my classmates snickered, but most remained quiet. Marissa didn’t get the joke. She had no idea I was there on a scholarship. She probably didn’t give two craps about petty high school bullying. “Doesn’t matter the topic of conversation,” she said with a tight-lipped grin. “Talk on your own time.”
What an awful start to my first day. “Sorry,” I mumbled like an idiot. Ignoring the murmurs and whispered chuckles of my summer classmates wasn’t possible. My face burned so hot my ears had to be smoking.
Kenn Doll didn’t seem to mind in the least. “Won’t happen again,” he said without an ounce of remorse while flashing that charming grin at our teacher.
Lucky for me that grin didn’t do a damn thing besides piss me off. It was so annoying, it canceled out his appealing features, like his blue eyes.
Tanned skin.
Plump lips.
Fuck.
“Thank you, gentlemen,” she said. “Moving on, let’s look at the syllabus. I’ll tell you a little about what you can expect in this lab for the next six weeks.”
As I slid my syllabus in front of me, Ken Doll leaned over. “Name’s Ryder,” he whispered, making electricity run down my spine.
Of course it was. Such a rich boy’s name.
His breath tickled my ear, which was the only reason I shivered. Warm air unexpectedly brushed across sensitive nerve endings. That’s all.
“Alex,” I ground out through clenched teeth. I scooted my chair away from him. “You’re too close. Back off.”
He grunted out a laugh, then finally turned his attention to Marissa as she reviewed the syllabus.
