I gape at it. “Fuck. What would I have to do?”
Not that I planned to slip again, but it would definitely help to no longer have that Damocles sword over my head.
Marina’s halfway through explaining the positions available at the newspaper when Olivia joins us. She immediately launches into her speech, but to save us all time, I tell her, “Rothford is less anal about our ranking for our scholarships if we’re good little team players.”
Olivia signs up immediately.
I’m glad to learn that theRothford Weeklystaff operates right here in the library, in one of the private rooms.
Marina has a bunch of ideas that she offers up, and some of them don’t even suck.
“I’ll take over the online presence,” Liv offers before I can.
I pout. I think most of the reason why no one bothers withRothford Weeklyis because it mostly distributes prints. No one in our generation actually read the news in paper.
“I think we all can; maybe on a different day of the week?” I say, reluctant to be stuck writing articles that no one will read.
Marina claps her hands together greedily. “Amazing.”
From what I understand, this year the entire staff is her and a freshman she managed to coax into handling photography with cookies. No wonder she was desperate enough to approach strangers.
The week flies by as I catch up with the previous issues in order to not repeat subjects already addressed over the last year, my classes, and trying to corner Claire for a good chat. I see her once or twice, mostly at the café downstairs, and she seems fine. I don’t miss the way she turns tomato red as soon as Keller’s mentioned.
I also do my best to avoid Cross like the plague he is, just as red as Claire at the very thought of him. I know better than to think I’m rid of him. I owe him a kiss and two blowjobs, and he’ll eventually collect.
By the end of the week, I’m wound up so tight I know I’ll explode if I don’t let go, so I bundle Olivia and Jack into Bertha and drive us to LA before they can protest. Potential kidnapping charges aside, I need to breathe, to relax, and to let my hair down.
I opt to drink just as much as my friend, and we check into a hotel for the night, crashing together on a twin bed, with my alarm set for five.
Driving back, the air in the car taste of stale beer and regret, but underneath the exhaustion, I feel better than I have for days.
Ever since I was reclined on a shark’s bed, legs spread, as he stood and dismissed me.
I know one thing with unexpected clarity: Cross isn’t done fucking with me yet.
15
LILY
Isuppress another yawn, partially due to the snore-worthy lecture on ethical business practices, but mostly because I’m a Comic-Con survivor. No one who hasn’t experienced it truly understands just how taxing a weekend of cosplaying, contests, booze, and partying can be.
The unbearable jocks lounging in the back row of our lecture hall think of us as Sheldons in skirts, boring nerds incapable of letting our hair down, but in actual fact, our crowd could out-party theirs any day, although their side of campus is almost constantly throwing keggers.
“Here,” Olivia whispers to me, placing a can of Red Bull on my desk. “I picked it up at the vending machine before class.”
“Oh, you beautiful human!” I grin at my friend. “I owe you, big time.”
I’m actually not a fan of the beverage, but right now, anything with caffeine sounds as delectable as ambrosia.
Retrieving another can from her bag, she grinned back. “Six hours. We can do it.”
“Can we?” I eye her dubiously. “Why do we do this to ourselves?”
After driving at dawn, we got into town at seven in the morning and our first class started at nine, so we’re both out of it right now. I’m certain poor Jack suffers just as much in his engineering classes.
“I’m an innocent bystander,” she protests. “Youconvinced me to tag along, remember?”
“Right,” I reply with a wink. “It takes so much convincing to wrangle you into Wonder Woman armor.”
