Page 21 of Smut

“Really?” I ask, feeling the corner of my mouth tip up, unable to help myself. “Because I could have sworn you said you did.”

Her chin juts out as she straightens in her seat, her attention going to the notebook in front of her. She quickly closes it up and slips it into her bag on the floor. “I think you owe me an apology and an explanation. All I did was email you wanting to work together on this and you responded by being the rudest, most misogynistic fuckface that ever was. I mean, I thought that’s who you were, but there was some tiny, naïve part of me that hoped I would be proven wrong.”

I should apologize. But I can’t.

I sit down instead, hands splayed on the table as I lean in. “Why do you hate me so much?”

She looks shocked. “Why? How about the reason I just gave you?”

“Ignore the email for now,” I tell her, and her eyes turn damn near satanic. “I’ll explain in a minute. I just want to know. Before all of this. Why all the hate?”

She blinks, her mouth dropping just a bit so I can see her run her tongue along the back of her teeth. “Because you’re an asshole,” she says, her voice so hushed and incredulous, it nearly makes me laugh.

Her admission doesn’t sting. It just spurs on my curiosity.

“Granted. But what makes you say that? What have I ever said or done to you?”

But the moment those words leave my mouth—and the moment she levels me with her gaze—I know she has a list prepared.

She ticks off her fingers one by one. “The first day of class you asked if you could call me Big Red. I said no. Then you asked if the carpet matched the drapes.”

I try not to seem ashamed. “In my defense, I was pretty sauced that first class.”

“Then,” she goes on, ignoring me, “we had to read our one-page stories out loud. After mine, you said that my stuff works better than Nyquil.”

“Hey,” I tell her, defensive and vaguely embarrassed. “I didn’t think you heard that.”

She cocks her head and shakes it. “Oh really. Then there was that time where I dropped my books right in front of you, and instead of helping me, you just stared at my ass as I bent over. Not only that, but I’m pretty sure you made a sound like you were coming in your pants,” she adds, wrinkling her nose for added effect.

That vaguely rings a bell. “So you don’t like being appreciated by the male species,” I say, goading her.

“I don’t want any species staring at my ass when they could be helping me,” she says. “Not that I need help anyway.”

I lean back in my chair, studying her. “Oh, of course not.”

“What does that mean?”

I lick my lips and shrug. “I don’t know, it could explain why anytime anyone has a critique about your writing, you just laugh it off, as if their opinions don’t matter, don’t count, and aren’t warranted.”

She stills. I know I’ve hit a sore spot.

A flash of pink tongue comes out, absently licking her lips. “That’s not true,” she finally says, though her voice is soft now, a whisper. “I can take criticism.”

“Right.”

“But, I mean, most people in that class couldn’t string a sentence together if they tried.”

I raise my brow. “You mean people like me.”

Amanda thinks that over, like she’s chewing it in her head.

“Why are you taking this class anyway?” she asks, and I know she’s had a change of heart and doesn’t quite want to call me an idiot to my face. I’m not sure if I like this sudden politeness, nor the change of subject.

“Because I want to.”

She stares at me for a moment, still chewing, still digesting. I get why it’s hard for her to believe, that she thinks there is some ulterior motive on my behalf, perhaps an easy grade, perhaps I just live to annoy her.

“Look,” I tell her, feeling the need to explain myself, maybe just because of the way I’ve been acting. I half recollect the things I said to her in class and I’m surprised she noticed. Thank god there’s no way she knows what I’m thinking most of the time. “I’m not taking writing because I think it’s easy or a joke or I just need a credit. I’m taking it because I like it.”