“I mean, she was there?”
“Did you go with Petra?” She repeats the question, jerking herself away from me and taking a step toward him. “Answer me, damn it.”
“Yes,” he shouts. “Yes, I went with her.”
Part of me wants nothing more than to pick him up by his designer collared shirt for hurting her like this. The other part wants to thank him because last night was nothing short of amazing.
“Good.” She nods. “I’m glad you got to go,” she says, turning around and grabbing ahold of my shirt and pulling me away from her friends.
B gives a wave over her shoulder and we keep walking.
“Well, that was a disaster,” she says quietly.
“What exactly did you expect? You came to your hangout spot with the new guy who just took the QB’s place. The same QB who ditched you for your arch enemy. Were you expecting a grand welcome?” I chuckle.
She doesn’t say anything. I know she came here to rub our presence in Levi’s face. She didn’t expect it to backfire.
“You ok?” I ask, as we approach a coffee shop.
She doesn’t respond but orders us both a coffee and I follow her over to an empty table after she hands me mine.
“He’s enjoying this. He knows he’s getting to me.”
“Why do you care about what people think, anyways?”
“People’s opinions of me are all that I have. You’ll never understand, and I don’t expect you to.”
“You really want to be with that guy?” I point over to where Levi sits, laughing with his friends, his lap now accompanied by Petra.
“I really do.” She shakes her head as her eyes zoom in on them. I can see the fury rise in her. I take no pleasure in her pain, but part of me is relieved that Levi is moving on with someone other than B.
“Look at me,” I snap. Her focus remains on the man she dreams of. “Look at me.” I take her face in my hands.
“You’re better than that. You deserve more than a man who makes you beg for his attention. You deserve a man who will fight for you, not fight against you.”
Her eyes close as her head tilts in the palm of my left hand before they open again. “He’s all I want, Jasper.”
It stings a little. Something about this girl draws me in, but it’s clear that her head is somewhere else.
“Well, I don’t take you as a girl who gives up easily. But, I need you to promise me something. Can you do that?”
“It depends.”
“I want you to promise me that when you have Levi right where you want him, you’ll have no regrets.” With my hands still cupping her rose colored cheeks, she bats her eyelashes a couple of times to try and deter my attention from her skin swelling with agony beneath my grasp.
“I promise,” she says quietly.
“What’s that? I didn’t hear you.”
“I said, I promise.”
I can almost feel the echo of the drum in her chest. Pulsating through her veins and releasing at my touch. I do something to her, she won’t admit it yet, because the queen wants all the control, but I have this little princess in the palm of my hand and I know that the day will come when she will beg for me, all of me.
I release my hands abruptly and sit back, taking a sip of my coffee and watching her over the brim of my cup. She places a hand on her cheek where mine rested, before returning to her natural state. “I could never regret having Levi. No girl ever would.”
All I can do is laugh. Girls like B only want something when everyone else has tried dipping their finger in it. She’ll snatch it away right before they get a taste, just so she can watch their reaction as she feeds. It doesn’t even matter what it is, as long as someone pines for it, she takes it—just because she can. Greedy? Maybe. I call it lonely—empty and broken.
“What now? Do you want to rejoin your friends?” I ask her, hoping that she says no.
“Nah,” she shakes her head. “Now that Petra is here, I suddenly feel nauseous.”
“Good. We can go get a head start on this project.”
“Aren’t we almost done with that?” She smirks.
“Umm, no. We have a lot to do. We’ve chosen our constellation and now we start our research. I really need you to start taking this seriously. Not all of us have our futures set in stone. My grades are my ride out.”
“Ok, I get it. It’s important to you. I suppose I can use a nice shiny A on a paper. My parents are sure to be proud.” She rolls her eyes. “Where do you plan on going to school anyway?”
“UCLA. Physics Major.”
“Dayuuuum. You’re like smart and shit, aren’t you?”
“Smart and shit.” I laugh. “If you call a 4.0 smart and shit then show me where to sign.” He laughs. “What about you? Do you plan on going off to some ivy league school that Daddy will sign a check for?
“If you must know, I’m not going to college.”
My eyes widen as I repeat her response in my head. “Why wouldn’t you go to college? It’s not like your family can’t afford it.”
People like me bust our asses all through life just to get into a good school. People like B have the opportunity in the palm of their hands from the day they are born. Why in the hell would she pass it up?
“Actually, I can afford it on my own. I don’t need my parents. As soon as I graduate high school, I get my trust fund and not a dime of it will be going to further my education at some institution. I’m buying a house for my brother and I and getting us both away from our parents and then I’m opening my own art studio, like The Atelier. It’s one of my favorite places to go alone.” She smiles. “Not every dream in life has to be fulfilled with a degree. Sometimes just a dream is enough.”
“Well, at least you have dreams. Without them, we just exist.”
“Alright.” She grabs her coffee and tosses her Burberry purse over her shoulder. “Let’s go.”
I let her lead the way and she walks back over to her group, which has grown. Do people seriously just sit and hang out at the mall all day? It’s not even exciting. I’d rather sit in the living room with Knox and his boring ass friends than have small talk with these idiots.
“We’re taking off,” B says, directing her attention to Chloe and Meg.
Thank fuck.
“So soon?” Chloe whimpers.
“Yep, we’ve got a project to work on.” I cut in, giving B’s arm a tug. I can’t get out of this place soon enough. To my surprise, she follows my lead, giving a wave over her shoulder.
Chapter Eleven
Blakely
Control—It’s something that everyone wants but few fight for. It would be easy enough to just move on with my life, let Petra swoop in and take what I want, but easy is for the weak, and I am far from it. No one humiliates Blakely Porter and gets away with it. It’s just a bonus that my co-pilot is gorgeous as hell with a body that tortures me to the core. I look over at him as his eyes are fixated on the road, so attainable, so charming.
“What do you wanna do now?” He turns his head abruptly, catching me watching him. “What? Why are you looking at me like that?” He does a double-take, trying to examine my expression while watching the road in front of him.