Page 29 of Riot Rules
He inches closer. Closer, still. God, his mouth is so close to mine that he could kiss me. It wouldn’t take much. Just a couple of millimeters. “It’s not about knowing you, or what youwant, Carrie,” he whispers. “I knowmyself. I’m bad news for anybody, darlin.’ Don’t go thinking you’re special.”
A worrying heat burns at the back of my throat; my eyes are stinging like crazy. At long last, I realize how weak I’m being and scrounge together a scrap of self-respect. Stepping back, I look away from him, forcing myself to swallow. “Get out. I mean it. It’s time for you to leave.”
I hear his hushed laughter. Mercifully, I save myself from seeing the ruinous smirk that he’s undoubtedly wearing, though. “Atta girl. Made me believe it that time.” He goes to the door and opens it, but he doesn’t leave right away. Ofcoursehe has to get in one last parting shot across the bow. “You’ll forgive me if I don’t say hi next time we cross paths.”
“Am I supposed to be upset by that?” I hiss. “You’re acting like you just ruined my life. I hate to break it to you, but I’ve survived way worse than you, Dashiell Lovett.”
“Oh, sweetheart,” he croons. “You’re mistaken. Thereisnothing worse than me.”
The door clicks softly closed behind him.
14
DASH
Yeah.
Now you’re getting it.
Iaman asshole.
A grade-A, motherfucking, piece-of-shit, break-your-heart, rude-as-hell, evil fucking cunt.
I think this as I sit in English the next morning, affecting an expression so bored and supercilious that even Wren shoots me a mocking,‘who shit inyourcornflakes?’look from his sprawled-out position on the leather sofa beneath the window.
I feel soiled. You can’t call me a man at this point; that’s too generous a title. I am a golem, constructed out of flaming bags of shit and garbage. On the other side of the room, Carina sits next to Mara Bancroft. I can feel her throbbing with embarrassment and anger—her mood generates a heat that can be felt from the other side of Fitz’s Den. It’s blistering my skin, giving me radiation poisoning, singeing my nerve endings, and yet no one else seems affected by it. No else seems to have evennoticed.
She hasn’t looked at me since she entered the room and dumped her bag down at her feet. Just as I promised her last night, I haven’t looked at her, either. Not directly. I’m really good at watching her in my peripherals, though; my eyes have wandered the room, skipping from the white board at the front of the class, to the ceiling, to out of the window, but the only thing I’ve been able to focus on is the girl wearing the bright purple jeans on the other side of the room.
I’m supposed to fuck a random at Cosgrove’s soon, to convince my friends that I don’t give a shit about this girl. I do, though. Really fucking do. I can’t stop thinking about her. Can’t stop being mad at her nosy ass. Can’t stop thinking about how cute she is whenshe’smad. I’d pay someone good money if they could tell me how to get the image of her tight little nipples poking through that t-shirt out of my head, too. That’d be fucking nice.
Ican’tbe interested in her. I just can’t. So I pretend.
My disinterest requires me to be convincing. I yawn. I stab the tip of my ballpoint pen into my notepad. I kick my feet out and cross my legs at the ankles, and I donotlook at Carina Mendoza.
Fitz is still banging on aboutThe Count of Monte fucking Cristo. I tune him out. When Idotake a moment to check back into reality, I can’t help but paint a picture of what was going down between my friend and that motherfucker in the maze the other day, and my insides noodle themselves into knots. My dislike of Fitz, which might have been a little unjustified before, now feels perfectly justified. Too smooth. Too polished. Too fucking cool. He’s an English teacher at a school for spoiled rich kids, for fuck’s sake, and he walks around this place like he wrote fuckingCatcher in the Rye. He’snotcool. He’s a fucking rat, and I do not like fucking rats.
If he does anything to mess with Wren, and I meananythingthat has a negative impact on my friend, I will destroy him.
Wren’s never been one to make safe choices. He’s smart as hell, but that often doesn’t translate to careful. I could throttle the dumb bastard, really. If he wanted to have an illicit tryst with a Wolf Hall faculty member, he could have chosen literallyanyoneelse and made a better call. Miss Naismith from the I.T. department? She’s got a stick shoved a mile up her ass, but then again, saying that, it’s a fine fucking ass. He could have had plenty of fun with her.
And if this whole thing was more about experimenting with a dude, then fine. I have no issues with that whatsoever. But what was wrong with Sam Levitan? Levitan’s the head of the Math department. Way hotter than Fitz. Wolf Hall’s female demographic are constantly pissing and moaning about the fact that Levitan’s actually gay and none of them stand a chance with him.
Fitz typically dates women. Or should I say girls. It’s common knowledge that he used to fuck senior chicks in the gazebo all the time back when we were freshmen. It’s so unexpected and unlikely, this weird connection between this asshole and Wren, that something about it just doesn’t feel right.
Halfway through class, Fitz notices me staring at him and pushes his glasses up his nose, squinting. “I’m sorry, do I have something on my face, Lord Lovett? You’ve been drilling holes in my skull for quite some time now.”
Oooh, look at you, being all observant and shit.Wren, who’s been feigning sleep for the past thirty minutes, cracks an eye and looks at me. Everyone’s looking at me. Everyone but Carina, who keeps her eyes affixed on the door, like she’s fantasizing about making her escape.
“You give me shit when I’m not paying attention. You give me shit when I’m paying too much attention. There’s just no pleasing you is there, Wesley.”
“Well…” Fitz grins. “Since we’re being so diligent about using each other’s correct titles in this class, Doctor Fitzpatrick’s just fine, I think. It’s not really appropriate for a student to use my first name.”
My turn to grin. “And we’d hate for there to be any impropriety between a student and teacher now, wouldn’t we?”
Wren closes the eye he opened, throwing his arm back over his face; he’s totally unmoved by my little dig.Fitz, on the other hand, doesn’t have the same kind of poker face my friend does. His cheeks color. He sweeps a hand back through his hair in an action that might appear casual to the rest of the class but looks agitated as fuck to me.
“Let’s just get on with our work, shall we? Since you’re so riveted by my class today, Lord Lovett, why don’t you come up here and play a little game. Give me a talking point aboutThe Count of Monte Cristo. I think we should have ourselves a little debate.”
