Page 18 of Smut

I’m sure you’ll find at least one of these suitable.

Look forward to seeing you, tomorrow at 7 p.m. at the library. Be there or be square.

Wait, too late.

Blake.

I’m floored.

And then angry.

So very fucking angry.

No wonder he was acting that way earlier, he was probably expecting me to punch him in the face, and fuck, I really should have! Maybe gone for his overused nuts right afterward.

With my pulse thudding in my throat, I go back and read over the email I sent. Again, it’s wordy, and yeah I was trying to make him feel like an idiot, so sue me. But it didn’t justify his response whatsoever. And now, now he thinks that I just took it, that I’m totally cool with being addressed as Sugar Tits. Who does he think he is, Mel Gibson?

“Aaaargh!” I roar, bursting into the living room where Ana is sitting on the couch, totally engrossed with a soap opera that’s been on since before I was born.

She cocks an eyebrow at me and it’s only now that I realize she’s at the “brow phase” of her beauty school, because it looks like two singed caterpillars have laid down on her forehead to die. I have a hard time staring at her eyes without my gaze drifting upward to the hairy, pencilled massacre.

“What’s wrong?” she asks idly.

She means aside from her eyebrows.

I flop down on the couch next to her. “You know that asshole from my writing class?”

“Yes, the British babe.”

I flinch, giving her a look of disgust. “Babe? What the hell are you on?”

“Percocet and vodka,” she says cheerily. “Remember I met you after your class one day and he was there. Tall. Nice smile. Thick hair. A butt you want to bite.” She clacks her teeth together.

My lip curls. “No.” I shake my head. “He’s not a babe or an anything except a fuckfart.”

“Fuckfart,” she repeats. “New word?”

I sigh. “Yes, but don’t use it, it’s patented. Anyway, I’m paired up with him for the final project in Marie’s class. I have to write a novella with him.”

I expect her to make a face but she’s still smiling. Must be the Percocet cocktail.

“Oh, this is going to be fun,” she says, wiggling her fingers, her prismatic gel nails catching the light.

“No,” I admonish her, twisting in my seat to see her better. “It’s not going to be fun, Ana. You know how important this class is to me. He’s some playboy who thinks he’s on an extended vacation. He doesn’t take anything seriously. His email is proof of that, and he’s going to sink my grade. On purpose now.”

She doesn’t look as worried as I feel she should. I mean, she does realize that if I fail, she’ll have to hear about it until she ends up moving in with the Nigerian. “Have you talked to your teacher? Or him?”

“Both. Kind of. I bumped into him on my run, but at the time I hadn’t read his email yet. I was actually nice to him. Nice!”

She turns back to the TV, the adventures of Eduardo the doctor enthralling her once again. “Maybe it’s good. Let you be the bigger character.”

“I don’t want to be the bigger character.”

Ana gives me an earnest look. “Do you want me to deal with him?” she asks in such a measured voice that I move back from her an inch.

“Uh no, that’s okay.” Whether she knows some old Soviet murder technique or just wants to yell at him while shoving her boobs in his face, I say hell no to her involvement.

“Suit yourself,” she says with a shrug.

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