Page 5 of Go Luck Yourself
“I booked this study room.” I shove my phone into my pocket. “I got on the app. I booked this room. It’s mine. You need to leave.”
He sizes me up with renewed interest and leans one shoulder against the doorframe. “Ah. So you’re the one.”
“The one?”
“The bastard who’s been stealing it from me.”
I scoff. “Stealing it fromyou? You’re the one illegally here now.”
“Illegally? Get off it.”
Someone shushes us.
I rip a hand through my hair as I drop my voice. “At the very least”—all right, let’s not get carried away—“negligentlyhere. I booked this room.”
“I do na care if the King himself gifted this room to you. Is there some repercussion for not obeying that almighty app of yours?”
… is there?
My pause is answer, and he grins, victorious.
“I’ll be getting back to my work, then.”
He starts to shut the door.
I wedge my foot in it.
The look he gives is half disbelief, half disgust. “Oh, piss off—you canna be this high on the room?”
“You’rethe one high on it. Give it up. There are others you can use without breaching the agreed-upon social constructs of the Spacefinder app.” Do I sound as batshit as I think I do?
The guy’s brows twist in stifled repulsion.
Yeah. I do.
He leans towards me through the door. He’s taller than I am, which isn’t exactly a rarity, but he’s using that height now to his advantage, so I hate him even more on principle.
A billow of spice hits me, too-rich cologne undercut with a bitter chemical scent that makes my nose itch. And I feel like a moron forsmellinghim, because he’s definitely notsmellingme, but I can’t move back without relinquishing my hold on the door. He realizes that and presses closer, closer, and I bend back farther, farther, as mocking scorn rises on his face—
He stops. Sniffs.
“What kind of cologne is that, boyo?”
Boyo? “Eau de mind your own business.”
He snorts. “Rather more of an eau de I dropped my coffee all over myself?”
I was really trying to break out of my gloom today.
And you know what? I am.
I’m going from wallowing in self-hatred to being actively irate.
Which is an… unusual reaction for me. I can’t remember the last time I gotangry. Even my aforementioned prickish state manifests in me swallowing whatever irritable comments I want to make so I just end up depressed and sulky.
This is the first time I’m letting the angerout.
And I gotta admit. It feels good.
