“I sit here,” he finally says, and again, he doesn’t sound pissed, just matter-of-fact, like that’s the way things are and I should know it like everyone else. Does this mean I’m supposed to get up? Move? Where? This is where Mr. Turner put me and I’m trying to decide if I want to have a stare-down with Josh Bennett or get up and move because our near silent dispute already has an audience. Before I can make my decision, Mr. Turner calls Josh over to his desk. He leaves his books on my—his?—table in an obvious show of ownership and refusal to concede and walks to the front of the room. I see Mr. Turner look in my direction and back to Josh and I assume he’s telling him that he told me to sit here. I don’t know if Josh is going to get his way or not, but the way things seem to go around here, that’s usually what happens. I’m not going to give him a chance to be smug about it, so before he turns to come back, I move myself.
There aren’t any other empty tables. The one I was sitting at was the last one. There are empty seats at the others but I don’t want to sit next to anyone; it becomes too awkward for me and for the person stuck sitting with me. Plus, I like sitting in the back so I know no one is behind me.
There’s a counter built around the perimeter of the room with storage cabinets underneath, so I take my books and place them on it and hope like hell I can sit up here without flashing the world. I push myself up on the counter and turn to face the front. As I do, I see Josh walking back. He doesn’t look at me but he does speak. His back is turned to the rest of the class and his voice is low so I’m pretty sure no one but me can hear it.
“I wasn’t going to make you move.”
I’m not sure if I should be annoyed that he assumes he had the power to make me move or if I should feel bad for misinterpreting him. I’m thinking I’ll never understand Josh Bennett and then I’m wondering why I try.
***
“There’s a party tonight at Trevor Mason’s. Want to go?”
I look at Drew. We’re sitting in Debate. It’s almost two-thirty and I’m trying to pull the last five facts I need to finish my assignment off of the internet before the bell so I don’t have to deal with it tonight or any other time this weekend. I don’t know what Drew’s working on, other than me, because I don’t think he’s accomplished a thing this entire period. He’ll no doubt procure an A for whatever non-work he did. That’s how things work for Drew around here.
What did he just ask me? It was pretty straightforward and shockingly innuendo-free so I’m momentarily dumbfounded. Go to a party tonight? Not what I was expecting. He’s been tossing all of his sexually-charged material my way since the first day of school. I’d call it banter, but it’s really not, since my contribution is nothing more than pointed looks and hand gestures and even those are few and far between. He tried to get me to resort to note writing a few days ago but I shut that down quickly enough. Note writing is for fact-based, pertinent information only, not conversations.
Go to a party with Drew? Why not? I surprise even myself, but really, why not? Okay, there are probably about a hundred reasons why not. Because let’s face it, he’s probably not asking me for my sparkling wit and entertaining anecdotes. But much to my chagrin, Drew is actually one of the few things in my day that I don’t completely dread, because at least with him, I feel a certain sense of control. I can handle Drew. He doesn’t scare me, and right now, that may just be enough. I find that, in spite of his blatant man-whorishness and put-on cocky smolder, I like him. Not like him, like him. But I do like him and I wonder what that says about me. He’s entertaining, and I am sorely in need of entertainment. I nod to him. Sure, party, of course. He looks surprised for a moment. Hell, I’m kind of surprised myself. Then the surprise is gone and the self-assured, of-course-you-said-yes smile spreads across his face.
“I’ll pick you up at nine?” he asks.
I nod, digging a notebook out of my backpack and ripping a page out of it. I grab the pen he’s been holding out of his hand and write down the address because addresses are acceptable note material.
“You should probably wear black,” he mocks as I write the address. I’ve worn nothing but black in the past two weeks. I hand the paper to him, seeing that conquering gleam lingering in his eyes. I tilt my head to the side and look him up and down in all his preppy hotness until my eyes rest back on his face. Then I shrug and walk away.
CHAPTER 10
Josh
Drew pulls into my driveway just after midnight and I know immediately that no good can come of this. I put down the pencil I’ve been using to mark down measurements with and watch him get out of the car and walk towards the garage.
“Dude, I need a favor.”
“Of course you do.”
“I need you to take Nastya.” Take Nastya? At first I wonder where he wants me to take her, until I glance down the driveway and see what he means.
“What? No way.” I look past him to the dark figure slumped over in the front seat of the car. “What did you do to her? Is she even conscious?”
“Nothing. No,” he says defensively, following my eye-line back to the car. So now we’re both standing in my garage, his arms crossed, my hands shoved in my pockets, watching through the windshield of his car for signs of movement. “She just drank too much.”
“Too much of what?”
“Flame throwers.” He avoids my eyes when he says it.
“What ass**le gave her flame throwers?” He looks at me without answering which is answer enough. He’s an idiot. A flame thrower is grain alcohol mixed with cherry Kool-Aid. He might as well have chloroformed her. “What were you thinking? She weighs like 25 pounds.”
“Yeah, OK, Dad. Thanks for the lecture, but it’s not really solving the problem. Besides, how was I supposed to know she couldn’t handle it? She looks like a badass.”
“A 25-pound badass.” It’s true. She does look like a badass. I’ve seen her arms, and she’s ripped which is kind of weird and scary all at once because it just seems all wrong on her. She’s really small and fragile-looking, and at the same time, it’s like she’s some exotic teenage mercenary, all rock solid, dressed in black, ready to take somebody down. None of it makes any sense. It’s kind of disconcerting. She’s like an optical illusion. You look at it from one angle and you see the picture and you think you’ve got a lock on it and then it shifts and the image changes to something entirely different and you can’t even find the original picture anymore. It’s a serious mindfuck.