“So this is just a temporary—”
“Very temporary.”
I don’t even bother to finish the sentence. I have the information I need from him now. He’ll never see me as girlfriend material. He just wants to fuck me until he’s had his fill of me, and then he’ll disappear from my life. And…isn’t that kind of perfect? We’ll graduate soon. He’ll keep my mind occupied enough that I’m not thinking about…about anything else, and then I’ll be at Sarah Lawrence. He’ll be in Boston. The chances of us running into each other are practically nil.
“You’ll come tonight…” He runs his tongue over my skin, producing a sharp inhalation out of me. Fuck, that feels so good. The wet heat of his mouth, coupled with those words, suggests his head between my legs and me screaming out his name. And, holy shit, does that suggestion sound good right now. But…
My eyes snap open. “No.”
Pax chuckles into my ear. “No?”
“What the hell, Davis?”
I whip around, searching for the source of that voice. Pax merely smirks as he steps away from me, turning to face the full-blown anger of Carina Mendoza. In her bright purple overalls and the garishly yellow shirt she’s wearing underneath, she looks far too bright to pull off furious. But you’d be surprised. She stalks forward, ignoring me, and stabs Pax right in the solar plexus with her index finger.
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” she hisses. “No. Wait. Forget it. Whatever it is you think you’re doing, it stops. Now.”
A gunshot of panic ricochets around the inside of my ribcage. Carrie should not be talking to Pax like that. I love her so much for wanting to protect me. No matter what she thinks is going on here, though, she should not come at Pax like that. He will eat her alive. As if to prove that point, he closes his hand around Carries wrist and physically removes her finger from his chest. When he drops hold of her, he runs his tongue over his teeth, regarding her with utter disdain.
“You’re probably thinking that the fact you’re Lovett’s girlfriend buys you some grace with me, Carina,” he seethes. “And you’d be right. I respect my brother’s decision to date you. I don’t understand or agree with it, but I respect it because I respect him. The grace your association with Dashiell buys you is limited, though. You get one opportunity to disrespect me, and you just cashed it in.” He leans forward, whispering so only she—and I—can hear him. “Pull that shit again and I’ll rip your fucking finger right off your hand, you hear me?”
“Go fuck yourself,” Carrie spits.
He grins. “I’m gonna take that as a yes. I’ll see you later, Chase.”
He stalks off down the hallway, casually rubbing a hand over the back of his head as he goes.
“What the fuck was that about?” Carrie’s tone is a combination of amazement and horror.
“I don’t know.” The answer’s weak. An obvious lie.
She looks at me, mouth hanging open. “Why don’t you try that again, and this time try and remember that I’m not completely blind.”
I try not to shrink in on myself, but it’s difficult to face her horror when I can still feel how embarrassingly wet my underwear is. “Sorry. I just... It’s Pax.” It’s the only explanation I can think of that will make any sense to her. She shakes her head, rubbing at her temple with one hand. “God help you, girl,” she says.
“What, so it’s okay for you to date Dashiell, and for Elodie to date Wren? But I shouldn’t date Pax?”
Her eyes double in size. “No! if you haven’t noticed, Dash and Wren aren’t pulling the stunts they used to pull. They’ve changed.”
“No, they haven’t!”
She snaps her mouth shut. Thinks. “All right. Fine. They haven’t changed, but they’ve modified their behavior for us, which is almost the same. Do you really see Pax Davis modifying his behavior for you, babe?”
I can’t answer that question. I know him well enough to know that he probably isn’t even capable of modifying his behavior. But…a part of me doesn’t even care. I don’t need him to be someone else for me. I need him to be every inch himself if he’s going to make me forget everything that went down during break. “Look, I…”
Carrie sighs, placing her hands on the tops of my shoulders. “I’d shake you if I thought it’d do any good,” she says. “Just…for god’s sake, be as careful as you can be, okay? I’d hate to see you get chewed up and spat out by the likes of that boy.”
She doesn’t have to say it out loud. She knows that’s what’s going to happen, and in all honesty, I know it will, too. I’m not stupid. But being destroyed by Pax is way better than being eaten alive by the dark memories that threaten to claim me whenever I’m not around him.
22
PAX
* * *
She doesn’t show up.
And there I was, so sure she would, too.
“You had a choice. When you decided to live down the hill and not here, you gave up your rights to wander the academy after hours, Mr. Davis. I don’t know what to tell you. You have to go.”
I look at Jarvis Reid very closely. There’s no two ways about it: the new English teacher is hot as fuck. I wanted to screw the shit out of her the first day she showed up at Wolf Hall, but she turned out to be even more unstable than the last one. She has cats. Seven of them. She thinks she can communicate with them. Or she thinks they’re telepathic? Something like that. I’m not sure of the specifics. All I know is that a healthy dose of crazy can quickly turn a ten into a one, and Ms. Reid is bordering on negative numbers right now. She’s only been here five minutes but she’s already memorized Wolf Hall’s code of conduct and student rule book and she lives by the damn thing.
I bounce on the balls of my feet, shoving my hands into my pockets. “Chill, okay. It isn’t even seven yet. I just want to see a friend.”
She lets out an exasperated breath. “I’ve decided that you can’t call me Jarvis.”
“What? Why?”
“Because you make my name sound like a dirty word, Pax. At the end of the day, I’m your teacher. We don’t have a personal relationship—”
“Damn right we don’t.”
She huffs. “I was too quick to tell you guys you could use my first name. It’s been shown that students who refer to their teachers by their first names do not hold them in high regard, and often do not respect their author—”
“I don’t conform to hierarchical ideology, Jarvis. I’m a human being. You’re a human being. We’re equals. I’m not going to bow in deference to you just because you’ve been a human being longer than I have, and you chose to pursue a path in life whereby you’re financially rewarded for sharing knowledge with me. That doesn’t make you any better than me. Respect is earned. Me calling you by your first name has nothing to do with that in any way.”
She opens her mouth, staring up at me. Closes it. Opens it again. I think she’s having a hard time figuring out what to say. After a beat, she frowns, shaking her head. “You know your problem?”