Page 116 of The Bargain

“Wipe that smile off your face, Lennox,” a deep voice grunts, snapping me out of my thoughts. “Makes you look psychotic.”

I glance up past the pale columns of the Old Manor. Dimitri Kavinski is sitting at the top of the steps, arms propped on his knees, big body hulked, smoking a cigarette. He looks worse than I do, and I’ve just spent seven days in a cell, my body still restless and sore from lack of movement. He looks like he’s not slept in days. But there’s a shadow of a smile on his face when he looks at me.

“You’re one to talk,” I tell him.

“I’m the nicest guy around.”

“That why your fiancée tried to replace you?”

It’s a risky jab, but to my surprise, Dimitri lets out a bark of laughter, looking genuinely taken aback.

“Hah, you fucking dog. How do you even know?”

I wave my phone in the air. “The Inquisitor’s on your ass, mate.”

Apparently, I missed a whole lot of stuff while I was busy incriminating myself and getting myself arrested. Rich kids, it turns out, are just as good as anyone else at fucking up. The main difference is that while the rest of us common mortals are trying to deal with our problems, these idiots are out there creating their own.

Interesting—because for all the drama the Inquisitor dredged up, my arrest never made the cut.

Not one post.

“They let you keep your phone in jail?” Dimitri grunts.

“I caught up on the way back.”

“Got nothing better to do? Aren’t you supposed to be some secret physics genius?”

This time, I’m the one who’s taken aback. “Since when?”

“Since all the teachers in this place have been fighting for your cause. They got a real hard-on for you.”

I shrug. “Can you blame them?”

“Sure, I can. You’re ugly as fuck.”

I laugh and climb the steps up to him to grab the cigarette he hands me. For a second we just smoke in silence, and the air is so peaceful, with the fragrant rustling of trees and the tinkle of birdsong, that I could’ve given Dimitri a comforting pat on the back, if I didn’t think he’d rip my arm out of its socket for doing so.

I wanna ask him about his fiancée and Blaise, and what happened with all that, and what he’s going to do now, if he’s going home or if he’s going to Russia, but I don’t even know if we’re friends enough for that. And the one thing I want to know more than anything else is the thing I’m the most afraid to ask.

It’s Dimitri, in the end, who lets out a sigh, tossing his cigarette and crushing it with a loud stomp of his boot.

“Fuck, man, ask already.”

I blink. “Ask what?”

“About her.”

“Your fiancée?”

“Fuckwit. Your girl.”

My heart stutters in my chest, a malfunctioning, flawed machine.

“Desdemona’s not my girl.”

“No?” Dimitri sneers. “So you’re gonna let her leave without saying goodbye, yeah?”

I turn sharply. “She’s not been kicked out?”