Page 23 of Beauty and the Nerd
“Excuse me?” Crystal said as the glare increased.
“I said, stay away from Ben. Tonight, tomorrow, next week, next month,” she said with a lazy smile glancing up at Ben. “He doesn’t want you anywhere near him, do you Benny?”
“Nope,” Ben agreed smiling back down at her. “Only one I want this close to me is you Em.”
“What the hell is this?” Crystal questioned as his hand slid up to cup her hip. “You are not seriously going to make me think this is true. You’re just mad that I slept with Sam, aren’t you? It didn’t mean anything Ben, you know that.”
“I don’t care who you sleep with Crystal. I never have but I certainly don’t now,” Ben stated, as others turned to stare at his hold on Emma. “Why would I when I have Emma?”
“You’re lying,” Crystal said, and Emma turned her gaze back towards the girl.
“No, he’s not,” she said resting her hand on Ben’s chest as he brought her in a little closer to him. “So let me make it explicitly clear to you. Ben is mine, continue to throw yourself at him and I will make sure you have averyunpleasant final semester here, got it?”
“He’s not yours you stupid little…”
“Finish that statement or try to call her that again and I won’t care that you’re a girl,” Ben warned keeping his arm around Emma as a couple people moved through the crowd towards them.
“Come onto my boyfriend again and I guarantee you’ll regret it. Stop looking at him and offering to sleep with him again, he doesn’t want you,” Emma added making the girl’s cheeks turn red with the number of people staring at them. “Why would he want you when he has me?”
“Because I have a brain, what do you have other than a D-cup?” Crystal practically shouted, drawing more attention to them.
“D-cup? Wow, I know you’re practically non-existent in that area, but these are nowhere near D-cups,” Emma said contently from Ben’s hold.
“And as I’ve already told you a dozen times Crystal, stop talking about Emma as though she’s dumb. The last thing on earth she is, is dumb. After all, she got the spot you wantedat the summer program at NYU this past summerandher papers were just selected as the grand winner out of all of the participants selected to attend, even over mine.” Ben pressed a kiss to her temple extremely proud of her for it. “If you don’t believe me, why don’t you go check out the website? The announcement’s up on the front page.”
“What?” Megan said, and Ben showed her using the saved link from the email all of the participants received. “Oh my god Emma, this means…”
“She won a seventy-five-thousand-dollar a year scholarship, good to anywhere she wants to go, as the top prize,” Ben said as Crystal saw the list of winners and the school they went to and stormed past them.
“Hold up…you’re screwing nerd-alert here?” Josh asked, looking around the group before bursting out laughing as he spied Carter. “You got tossed over for anerd? Dude that’s even lamer than me…”
“For getting Stephanie pregnant and dumping her?” Emma asked, making him pale slightly. “Yeah, I know all about that one Josh. I ran into her over Christmas break, and she asked if you were coming to attend the festivities tonight. It seems like you’ve been dodging some process servers…that never works out though,” she warned, and he looked around them before hightailing it out quickly.
“Josh is the baby daddy?” Megan asked, and Emma nodded leaning further into Ben’s hold. “Oh, that’s rich…and you’re in so much trouble for not telling me about this,” she said pointing to the phone. “So much more than not telling me about that until I walked in and saw you two making out,” she added motioning to them.
“Whoa, what?” Becky said, looking between the three of them. “When exactly did that happen?”
“Which time?” Megan said keeping the truth to herself for them. “I certainly understood seeing it though,” she added as Becky’s brow lifted higher. “Oh, come on, you saw them at the mall this weekend, what the heck do you think was really going on huh?”
“Wait,he’sthe one you said you had your eye on going with?” Amber asked and she simply smiled snuggling into Ben’s hold further.
“Only person to ever get me to a school dance would be this girl,” Ben stated, making her laugh lightly as she pulled a jellybean out of his pocket tossing it up towards him.
“And what number are you up to now?” Megan asked as he caught it easily.
“Forty-three?” she said, testing him. He leaned down and stole a quick, soft kiss before giving her a smile as the others let out surprised gasps.
“Forty-five, Em,” he said looking to Megan adding, “with nine now stolen.”
“Huh?” Jessie said looking around them in confusion.
“It’s beyond you,” Megan said disregarding her as she looked back to Ben. “You better be good to her; you even think of treating her like some unmentionable jackass and I’ll be right behind her dad to take you down.”
“I’d never be anything but good to her,” Ben stated, and Emma smiled sliding her hand down his arm until she reached his hand.
“Then come dance with me,” Emma said pulling him away from the group with ease, turning into his hold once they reached the dance floor, enjoying the ability to be close to him in public.
“Come here baby.” Ben pulled her tighter into his hold, letting his hand rest on the bareness of her back as he held her other hand gently. She laid her head on his shoulder, and hepressed a kiss to her forehead well aware of the remainder of the room that was now watching them. He felt like a king being with her and he wasn’t about to let that go, let her go. “Did I mention I love how you handled Crystal?”
