“Are you okay?” I ask Lumen, because she looks like she’s about to cry. Her mascara has run down her face in two charcoal streaks and her left falsie looks like it’s about to peel off.
Parrish snaps his attention over to me and our eyes meet.
He looks temporarily relieved—until Lumen throws herself into my arms, hooking them around my neck and sobbing into my shirt.
“No, I’m most definitely not!” she sniffles as she burrows into me, and Parrish’s flash of relief turns into an angry scowl.
“Twenty minutes into the party and you’re stealing my fangirl, too?” he growls in my ear, low enough that likely I’m the only person who can hear him. With her racking sobs, I doubt Lumen can hear a thing besides herself. “I hate you, Dakota Banks.”
He tears himself away from me as I grit my teeth and prepare myself to shout after him. What I’m going to say, I’m not sure because Lumen starts choking like she’s about to throw up and I end up dragging her into the nearest bathroom. There’s no line. Like, not even a single person waiting. Apparently, this place has enough toilets to satisfy the entire population of Whitehall Prep.
“I hate him,” Lumen moans, blonde hair hanging in glossy waves over one shoulder. Despite the fact that she just threw up—and also that her left falsie is like, floating in the toilet bowl—she still looks like she could walk onto a photoshoot at any moment.
“My sentiments exactly,” I murmur under my breath as Lumen forces herself to stand up. When I reach out to grab her shoulder and help her, she gives me a watery smile.
“It must be hell having to live with him,” she murmurs, moving over to the sink and leaning in close to the mirror. She notices right away that her lashes are missing and rolls her eyes as she peels the remaining one off and then proceeds to wash her mouth out with cool water.
“At least he has a small dick,” I reply with a smile and a shrug, my hands buried in my front hoodie pocket. Taking care of Lumen has helped a bit with my initial nausea, but I’m not exactly … sober? At my response though, Lumen turns so slowly to look at me that I wonder if I’m in a horror movie and there’s somebody with a knife that’s just revealed themselves behind the shower curtain. Eat your heart out, Norman Bates, and just stab me already.
“You’ve seen his dick?” is her response. It takes me a good thirty seconds to parcel that one out.
“Huh?” I ask just as Lumen takes my silence for acquiescence.
“His majesty claims there isn’t a single girl at Whitehall that’s good enough for him,” she says, seemingly unperturbed by the idea of someone else getting it on with her … boyfriend? I have no idea if Lumen and Parrish are actually a thing, but Chasm seemed to think they were. Danyella, too. Parrish said ‘fangirl’, didn’t he? That’s pretty dismissive and rude actually … “Guess you’re the one he’s been waiting for.”
“Oh?” I ask, still wondering if I’m misinterpreting the entire conversation.
“He moved in quick, didn’t he?” Lumen replies with a scoff and a shake of her head, digging around in her purse for a piece of gum and popping it between her lips. “Screw him, but good on you.”
“Good on me for … what, exactly?” I ask, but then Lumen is snatching my arm and dragging me out of the bathroom.
“Lumen and the new girl making out in the bathroom just now!” someone calls out, and I gape as Lumen leans over to press a minty kiss to my cheek.
“Don’t let anybody tell you that I didn’t steal Parrish’s girl out from under him,” Lumen calls out, and then she’s strutting off like the queen of the school. The attitude of the crowd shifts dramatically, and then everyone is smiling and laughing and offering me drinks.
“What the hell did you do?” Chasm asks, appearing by my side an hour later. Doubtless he’s been drinking all night, but he doesn’t look it. His gaze is sharp, his mouth a thin razor across the bottom of his handsome face. “You’re a bi-icon now, Little Sister.”
“Yeah, not sure how that happened,” I start, sitting in an armchair near the huge fireplace, a sea of untouched drinks beside me. I’ve been secretly taking sips from a water bottle buried under my hoodie and eschewing the alcohol, and I feel about a million times better now. “Apparently I’m dating both Lumen and Parrish right now.”
Chasm takes a seat on the arm of the chair, watching the crowd with a smirk playing about his lips.
“You should’ve seen his face when the news reached us.” Chas glances my way and lifts both brows in my direction. “He’s going to kill you, you know that? Like, verbally destroy you in front of everyone.”
“Let’s see him try,” I challenge, just enough of the alcohol in my veins to keep my confidence up. Chasm laughs and shakes his head, leaning back on the chair arm as Parrish slips through the crowd to find me. His rich-boy saunter is pronounced as he makes his way across the room to pause in front of me.
He adjusts the sleeves of his jacket as I look up at him.
“You’re the only person in Whitehall who’s seen my dick,” he says, almost like it’s a real fact. “Congratulations. Now the entire school knows that.”
“Sucks, huh?” I ask, pretending to cringe. “Now that they all know about … the size.” I shift in the seat as the edges of Parrish’s mouth curves down in a violent frown. “Or lack thereof, really.”
He looks me over like I mean too much and nothing all at once. I don’t get it, what our issue is.
“If you think I’m going to sputter around and deny this, you’ll be sorry.” Parrish’s frown turns into a smile, one as cruel and wicked and obscene as everything else about him. He’s a villain in a very pretty story, that’s what he is. And once he’s set you as a target, that’s it. I can feel it now: he’s bringing me down. At least … he’s going to try. And he can try his fucking best. “I’m going to embrace it. Actually, I’m going to start spreading rumors of my own. Just remember that you brought this on yourself.”
He leans down beside me and presses his lips against the side of my jaw, his kiss iniquitous and violent and searing as anything I’ve ever felt. Heat flares through my veins and I shoot to my feet, but all that really does is put us closer together.
Parrish gathers my head in his hands and then his mouth is on mine, his tongue stealing between my lips as they seem to part of their own accord. Oh my gods, what the fuck am I doing?! I wonder as my arms go around his neck and I end up on my tiptoes in an attempt to deepen the kiss. Parrish seems mildly surprised, but then his arms are around my waist, squeezing hard enough that it almost hurts.
When he pulls back from me, his lips move near my ear.
“That’s what I thought, Gamer Girl,” he says, releasing me like I’m venomous and stepping back with a confident smile warping his lips. Lips that are just this side of glossy from kissing. From kissing me, specifically.
Oh shit.
Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit.
Did I … was that … oh hell, that was my first kiss?! With Parrish of all people? What the actual fucking fuck is wrong with me? I clamp a hand over my mouth as my cheeks flame and that ember in my belly turns into a raging fire, crawling through my veins and burning me up from the inside.