“Fine, huh? I can totally see how fine things are from the vein threatening to pop on your forehead. You know, if you scowl any harder, those wrinkles are going to be a permanent thing. You’ll look fifty before your twenty-third birthday.”
I let out an exaggerated exhale and turn to face my inquisitive friend.
“Can you please just let it go, East? Seriously, I’m not in the mood for your twenty questions or your sarcasm.”
“No can do, brother. That’s the price you pay for being my best friend. I’m a curious fucker.” He chuckles, squeezing my shoulder.
“Emphasis on fucker,” I quip back with a small smile, slapping his hand off me.
“A joke. I’ll take that as progress,” he teases.
Even though he’s a cocky motherfucker, I love the asshole for trying to uplift my spirits. But as grateful as I am for his stubbornness in trying to change my disposition, I’m equally pissed off when he mentions the one person that has been constantly on my mind for the past two days.
“I got it! It’s the Southie, isn’t it? She’s the one who has your panties in a twist.” My face must rat me out because the victorious smile cresting his face is so damn wide that I want to slap it right off him. “I must be losing my touch. She should have been the first person to come to mind. I knew she’d give you trouble. So, what happened? I thought you were finally gaining some leeway with her.”
“Nothing happened. And I was… I mean, I am gaining some leeway,” I mumble, frustrated and confused.
“I can see that. So, Friday night didn’t go as planned, huh?”
“It went as expected,” I reply through gritted teeth, not really interested in giving Easton the specifics of what went down with Stone.
“Is that all you’re going to give me? Come on now. Something must have happened for you to be all bent out of shape. What did she do? Mace you? Kick you in the junk? Break a bottle over your head when you tried to kiss her? What? Because with a girl that feisty, my imagination can paint quite a picture.” He chuckles, stretching his long legs and resting his big black army boots over the headrest of the vacant seat in front of him.
The girl sitting hunched over right next to it shakes her head profusely, unimpressed with his comfortable, yet disrespectful pose. I knock his feet off and mumble a pathetic ‘sorry’ to the top of the girl’s head, apologizing for my friend’s poor manners.
“Stop being a dick, East,” I reprimand in a low voice, but he just shrugs it off ‘Easton-style’.
He relaxes his shoulders, placing his entwined hands behind his head, and looks up at the high ceiling while manspreading, as if he had all the space in the world, which he doesn’t. These auditorium rows hardly allow enough room for me to sit comfortably, and Easton eating up my precious space is not going to fly. I slam my knee against his, commanding the fucker to close his legs and give me back my legroom, only to have him chuckle in my face some more.
“You don’t want to talk, then don’t. I’ll get it out of you eventually. One thing’s for sure. We lucked out on whoever is trying to fuck us over. I can think of a whole list of ways that they could be making our lives a living hell. Sending letters ordering your ass to spend time with a Southie hottie doesn’t feel like one of them. I mean, we should be groveling for mercy, or running errands for them so fucked up that it would sicken us to our very core. At least that’s what I would be doing if I were in their shoes. Not ordering us to chat up pretty girls like Stone Bennett. But, hey, that’s just my two cents for you.”
“I guess we should all feel lucky you’re not the one who’s calling the shots then,” I mumble.
“Ah, but what fun I’d have if I were.” He laughs out loud, not caring about his deep, throaty laugh interrupting the class.
“Jesus, can’t you take anything seriously?” I bark at him, not impressed that he is talking about this whole society thing so cavalierly.
“When the shit hits the fan, then I’ll take things seriously. Now, are you going to spill, or what? I’m getting more bored by the minute, which may actually force me to start paying attention to this lecture if you don’t talk.” He yawns loudly.
“Oh, dear lord!” exclaims the brunette in front of us, throwing her hands in the air in aggravation before turning over her shoulder. “Will you two ever shut up?!”
Her ponytail, which is tightly bound on her head, and her dark-rimmed glasses poised to the brim of her nose make her look twice her age and just as stern. She’s wearing a light-beige grandma sweater, which is a little bit ridiculous since it’s still late August and eighty degrees outside. If the girl was going for an unflattering and dull look, she hit the nail on the head with her choice of wardrobe and hairdo, which is a shame, since she isn’t that hard on the eyes.
“Oh, I’m sorry. Were we too loud for you?” Easton feigns concern with his open palm to his chest. Always with the dramatics this one.
“As a matter of fact, yes, you were. Some people here actually came to learn, not listen to you two bickering like an old married couple,” she scolds, pushing her glasses up the bridge of her nose.
“Too bad for you, I’m not one of those people.” Easton shrugs unapologetically, back to his dark, who-the-fuck-cares persona.
The black look she throws at him only deepens as she white-knuckles the pen in her hand, pointing toward him in a way that looks like she wants to poke his eye with it.
“Just keep your conversation to yourselves, will you?”
“Why? You were the one eavesdropping on us, not the other way around.”
The girl’s brown eyes become two large saucers, bugging out to the point that not even her glasses could keep them contained on her face.
“I was not eavesdropping! For me to do that, the two of you would need to have a coherent conversation. Not grunt and cackle every few seconds,” she snaps enraged.
“For a girl who says she’s here to study, you sure do pay a lot of attention to strangers’ intimate conversations,” Easton argues, stretching his legs once more onto the empty seat next to her, his boots inches away from the angry girl’s face.
“Just keep it down.” She tries again, ignoring the boots swaying left to right beside her head.
“No promises, your highness. Now be a good girl and turn around. You’re boring me.”
She rolls her eyes before straightening forward, but both Easton and I hear her loud and clear when she mumbles ‘asshole’ beneath her breath.
Damn it. She really shouldn’t have said that.
Easton, never being one to let anyone have the last word, takes his feet off the headrest to lean right into her. Her back is visibly stiffened by his move, which makes his menacing grin split his face in two. He then pulls at her ponytail to bring her head back, making her gasp out sharply, and putting his mouth right next to her ear, he says, “You know, if you ever want to remove the stick up your ass, I could deal with that problem for you. A few orgasms will definitely relax that stiff upper lip.”