Page 215 of Swallow Your Sorries

“Hypnotic,” Étienne adds, and Hale tucks a lock behind his ear.

“Who gives a fuck?” Kesia shrieks. “His whorishness hasn’t helped anyone, except to send them running to the clinic far more often.”

“Who do you suggest?” Gant asks between bites. “Or do you want to run too? What are your credentials? Besides constantly lying on your pussy?”

Juice shoots through some kid’s nose a table over and the entire room erupts into giggles. That is, until a dish, a ramekin, sails past my head. One second I’m sitting up, the next my head’s pressed flat on the table beside the waffles, and the sound of breaking ceramic echoes a half second later.

What the-

But I don’t have time to even think before blonde hair is tossed into my face from across the table as Stassi lays flat beside me at both Zedd and Hale’s prompting.

My eyes fly to Kesia in time to see her throw another dish, a teacup, in my and Gant’s direction. But it doesn’t make it to us. Instead, it side-swipes Rin’s cheek and nearly clips Aria before shattering near her feet.

“Watch where you’re throwing that bitch,” Rin hisses indignantly.

Something tells me she and Kesia aren’t actually friends. Then again, Rin clearly knows the girl lies, and she still tolerates her. She’s Beaussip’s right hand after all.

She knows everything.

“Then get the fuck out of the way,” Kesia retorts, holding up another ramekin.

“Don’t get pissy with me. It’s not my fault you lied.”

Rin ducks as Kesia launches a drink over her head but as she does, she grabs her own ramekin, still filled with the molten lava cake she’d been nibbling on earlier. Faster than a blink, she chucks it back in Kesia’s direction… who twirls out of the way. But it does reach another target.

Bae.

He doesn’t flinch as it clips his shoulder, but I know it must hurt. He looks down at his sleeve, watching the chocolate lava that’s now soiling his white turtleneck and his cheek.

Everything stops then, with both girls staring in seeming horror. But Rin snaps her mouth shut quickly, her expression hardening.

“Didn’t you hear the newest decree?” Gant says, peeling me off the table where he’d been holding me down and back against his chest. “No more food fights. It’s a waste.”

I pause at that. Since when-

“Since when do you give a damn about food waste?” Kesia asks, reading my mind.

“Since he helped me with the dining hall’s budget for home economics,” Zedd says. “We’re aiming for low to no waste and you’re fucking up the per cent already.”

He did?I look up at Gant, but he’s glaring at Rin.

“No wonder the buffet has half the choices now,” Rin snarks.

“Clean it up,” Gant says lowly. “Now.”

“I’m not cleaning up shit,” Rin snaps. “I don’t take orders from you anymore. You’re no one. Just like your little rag doll, remember?”

“You’re right,” he says, surprisingly calmly. “Hale?”

“He hasn’t been elected!” Kesia shrieks. “We’re not taking orders from—”

“All in favour of Hale being the new king,” Zedd asks, cutting her off, and more than half of the hall raises their hands.

“Great,” Gant claps Hale’s shoulder. “The coronation will take place at Hale’s grand opening for Libuelle in two weeks.”

Libuelle.

How would I avoid Gant all opening? I’d had all that mouth about the club not being a part of his territory, but I doubt he’d see it that way.

---