Page 45 of Foolish Games

Like I could afford fucking Harvard. Worse, I can’t tell if she’s being sarcastic. I’m sure she is, and I must be missing something, because there’s no way Vivienne Delacroix would compliment me.

“And become an entitled prick like y’all?” I ask, finding the page we’re working on. “Pass.”

“Jerk.”

“Bitch.”

She doesn’t answer, and after a second, I glance at her.

“What?” she asks.

“No one’s ever called you that before, have they?”

“Not to my face,” she admits, cracking a little smile.

While I wrestle a sheet of paper from the bent rings of my used binder, I catch Viv checking out my arms, so I add a little flex so she has something to really drool over.

She gives her head a little shake. “You’re not sleeping with that girl, then?”

“What girl?”

She shrugs, opening her fancy new binder and unzipping an inside pocket to pull out a little tube of lead and two mechanical pencils. “Krissy saw you at the Battle of the Bands competition with a girl.”

I can’t help the grin that spreads over my face. “Are you jealous?”

She scowls. “No. But you really should have been more careful. There were kids from our school in some of those bands, so of course people went to see it.”

“If you were just telling me to be careful, you wouldn’t have asked if I was fucking her,” I point out, smug as hell and not even trying to hide it. This is too much fun.

“I asked because you said if you weren’t getting it from me, you’d be getting it from someone else.”

“I said that would be true if I was only after one thing,” I point out. “Which I told you I’m not. Therefore, you should be able to deduct with that big brain of yours that I’m not sleeping with her. So, the only reason you asked is because you’re fishing for info, because you can’t stand the thought of me with another girl. Admit it.”

She scowls harder. “You also said if you were with someone else, you wouldn’t be doing this with me. I’m just making sure I know what’s going on in case you meet someone you actually like and want to end this. We have to have a strategy, so it looks believable.”

“Sure,” I say, chuckling.

“I am,” she protests, stuffing the eraser back into the mechanical pencil and handing it to me.

I reach over and smooth the cute little wrinkles between her brows from her frown. Then I lean in and kiss them. “You have nothing to worry about.”

She huffs and slams her binder shut.

I could tell her that I took Mel to the concert to feed her music obsession, but it’s too much fun to let her stew. Her jealousy might be even hotter than her sharp tongue.

“So, does Chaz have a big dick?” I ask, jotting down the first question.

“What?”

“Just trying to figure out what I’m up against here.”

“Sounds like you’re the one who’s jealous,” she says, obviously trying to save face after showing her hand a little more than she meant to.

I just shrug. “Not jealous. Just can’t make him feel inferior if he’s bigger than me.”

“I’m not going to tell you that.”

“Come on,” I say. “How can I scope out the competition if I don’t know what they’re working with?”