Arabella followed my line of sight and plastered a poisonous smile on her pink lips.
“Creeper at three o’clock. What’s up, Good Girl? Is this a figment of my imagination, or did you suck Vaughn off and get a perfect ten, so now he’s your knight in Wal-Mart armor?”
Len’s eyes widened and sliced to mine. She thought I’d told people about our kiss. Maybe worse. Arabella called her Good Girl, but that was a fluke. Truth was, I hadn’t told anyone about her nickname or kissing her. Twice. I would erase both kisses from my memory if I could.
Lenora pretended to laugh. “Don’t flatter yourself. You don’t have brains, much less imagination, Arabella.”
“That’s not a denial.” Arabella popped her finger into her mouth, sucking suggestively.
“You want an official statement?” Len rolled her eyes, folding her arms over her chest. “Fine. I’d never kiss Vaughn Spencer, let alone do anything more with him. I’d rather die than touch him. Happy?”
A dispassionate smirk played on my lips. “Feeling’s mutual, Astalis.”
“Ouch, Spence. That means you defended her pasty ass for nothing. She doesn’t even want you,” Arabella taunted.
Anyone with half a brain could tell from a hundred-mile radius that she was trying to rile me up. That, in itself, didn’t bother me. It was Lenora’s words that pissed me off.
I’d never.
I’d rather die.
Fuck. You.
“Defend?” A smirk curled in the corner of my mouth. “I didn’t defend anyone. The mean-girl bullshit just gets old. And boring.”
“I-I’m not a girl,” Soren pointed out, stuttering.
I threw him a disinterested glance. “But you are a pussy.”
“Liars. Both of you.” Arabella stretched like a kitten, trying to be sexy.
Soren looked between me and Lenny. They were right. If I had a penny for every time I stood up for someone who’d been bullied at school, I wouldn’t be able to afford a fucking used piece of gum.
So why her? She was the only girl at school not to give me mad respect.
“Oh shit, man. I didn’t know she was your girlfriend.” Soren cupped his mouth, his eyes glittering.
He thought she was my weakness. My Achilles heel. He thought wrong.
“She is not my girlfriend.” I yawned.
But Lenora had the poker face of a tablecloth. She was scarlet red and had her fists curled beside her body. Everything about her screamed rattled.
“I hate him,” she said, losing her footing.
It was annoying, but not unwarranted. I took her internship, manipulated her dad, bled all over her bathroom, and threw garbage at her door. It was only a matter of time until she snapped.
“Why would I ever want to be with someone like him?” Lenora shook her head, oblivious to the audience around us. “I despise him in every single way. He is a monster. A cruel bully. A fuck-up.”
Monster.
Cruel bully.
Fuck-up.
I swallowed, but grinned, cocking my head at Arabella.
See? my humorless smile said. No love lost here.
“Hmm. Still unconvinced. Prove it.” Arabella jutted one hip out, pushing her breasts in my direction, even though we were standing a few feet apart.
“You act like I give a fuck what people think. That is very unbecoming for someone who is not a complete idiot. You know what the word unbecoming means, right, Arabella? And idiot? I’m sure you’re familiar with that word, too.”
Arabella blushed under her five coatings of makeup and insecurities, but didn’t break character. She knew how to fake it—unlike Lenora, who was too real for her own good.
“Why don’t I suck your cock in front of Emma Watson’s Goth twin? Let’s see if you caught feelings. It’s been long overdue, anyway. You did take me on a family vacation, did you not?”
Fucking Indiana.
Everyone in my family was on my case after that. Nobody bought our relationship. They all wondered who I was trying to piss off.
Myself, I wanted to scream. I deserve a piece of shit like Arabella, so that’s who I invited.
Arabella’s lifelong goal was sucking my cock. She put more effort into her cause than most researchers working to cure cancer. Unfortunately, her sheer desire to please me made her a boner-slaughterer of the highest degree. I’d get turned on by a baboon trying to lick its own armpit before considering dipping my dick into her mouth.
But Arabella didn’t only want to suck me off. She also wanted to hurt Lenora, who never bowed down to her Queen B status and had slapped her at her own party.
I happened to have a dog in this fight, too.
Good Girl thought she was too good for me. Maybe she was right, but it was time to teach her a lesson. I was going to take every single thing she loved and cared about. Not because she interested me, of course, but because she was a means to an end. A way to get what I wanted.
Both kisses had been mistakes.
The first one, in the janitor’s room, was to calm her the fuck down and prove a point—that I could have her if I wanted her.
The second one was human error.
I was drunk, busted up like a piñata, and she was there, piecing me back together. Literally. Not metaphorically. I refused to grow a vagina like Knight, who was a total fucking goner for Luna, the girl next (to his) door.
I wasn’t going to make a third mistake, and the sooner Lenora knew that, the less chance I’d have to gain another pathetic stalker.
Plus, it fucked me up to think I hadn’t gone all the way with Alice in the janitor’s room. I always went all the way, and Lenora couldn’t continue screwing shit up for me.
“Spen-cer! Spen-cer! Spen-cer! Spen-cer!” People threw their balled fists in the air, chanting in the circle formed around us.
It was nine o’clock in the morning, and way too goddamn early for anything that wasn’t coffee and a bullet to the head. But Arabella wanted to suck me off, and everybody wanted to see it.
I glanced at Good Girl. Her eyes glittered with rage. She’d never witnessed me getting a blow job. Yet.
Her eyes said, Don’t you dare.
Mine answered, Fuck off.
Students cupped their mouths, barking, howling, snickering between them. It was one last hurrah before I pissed off from this town for good. Why not?
I pushed the tip of my boot toward Arabella.
“Kiss it first.”
This was where it was supposed to end. I didn’t think she’d do it. Arabella had a reputation to uphold. But I’d underestimated how far she would go to hurt Lenora. She strutted her way to me on her studded heels, stopping when we were toe-to-toe. She sank to her knees, placing her glossy lips on the tip of my muddied boot.
Everybody took pictures of that shit. I looked between Lenora and Arabella. There was a story behind this, more than just this BJ.
This wasn’t about riding someone’s dick. No. This was personal.
Revenge.
What did Lenora do to Arabella?
I glanced at Astalis with a smirk. Her expression made me want to throw up, but she said nothing.
Step forward and end this, my eyes challenged her. She looked like fire, radiating heat from across the room with her gaze alone.
But she didn’t move an inch. She just watched and let it happen.
Arabella looked up, grinning at me in triumph.