Page 21 of Forbidden Lessons

“Feet are hot,” iPhone mumbles, his eyes back on his phone.

Jesus. What if he has a serious porn addiction, and he’s just scrolling through hardcore fetish videos all day?

“Guys!” Ezra slams the gavel. Breathes out a centering breath. Points the gavel at me. “I want her gone, Kai. I don’t fucking care how much fun you had tying her up in the woods or whatever shit you used to do back then. That trailer trash whore doesn’t belong here.”

I open my mouth, but fuck it if I’m not at a loss for words.

That Ezra is my older brotherandthe Campaign Manager of our fraternity sucks on so many levels. He knows exactly where to pinch, so it’ll hurt the worst.

“Mess with her grades or something,” Myles says, twirls his mustache again, a villain pondering his next maniacal scheme. “These charity cases need high grades or they’ll get kicked out. You’re Rooke’s TA. Manipulate that shit.”

I turn to Myles. “Yeah? And how the fuck would I do that without Rooke coming down on me like a ton of fucking bricks?”

“I dunno.”

“He’s right,” Ezra says. “You were adamant you took that TA position because it would open a bunch of doors. Well, when God closes a window—” the gavel swings toward Jace, then back to me “—you’d better open a fucking door.”

There’s a lighthearted tone to his voice, like he’s just going along with this fucked up rhetoric…but then his gaze laser focuses.

That’s the Ezra I know and fear.

“Don’t fuck this up, bro.”

I shut my room door and grunt as I collapse onto my queen bed.

The memory foam upper feels so fucking good I just want to kick off my shoes and crawl under the covers.

But I have two assignments due, and Ezra said the social committee needed help with the fucking Rain Dance party coming up in a couple of weeks. Now I have to go to some bullshit sorority hookup and discuss, I dunno, how many solo cups and streamers we need to buy?

Fighting the urge to nap, because I know it will last until tomorrow morning if I risk it, I heave myself up and drag my backpack closer.

I don’t even have the strength to go to the kitchen and grab a snack before I head out, so I dig through my stuff and find a half-crushed bag of crisps and some M&M’s that fell out of the packet I had today, and are now collecting lint at the bottom of my bag.

My snacks are hitting just the right spot until I examine the last M&M for lint.

Green M&M’s were Haven’s favorite.

Used to make her arm wrestle me for all the green ones in my pack when I brought them to the woods. When I got stronger and beat her every time, she insisted on trading kisses for candy instead.

I throw the piece of green candy so hard against the wall it almost bounces all the way back to the bed.

My dorm room in the NEX frat house is just big enough for the queen-size bed, a large walnut dresser with a matching desk, and an armchair currently piled high with discarded clothes.

Our house girl, Riley, only comes into our rooms once a week to tidy up. I guess she realized frat boys were a bunch of pigs, and their rooms looked the same whether she came a day or a week apart. We didn’t notice, anyway.

Except Jace, maybe. His room is really,reallyneat. She only dares to go inside once a month, and when she’sreallysure he’s not around.

I upend the crisp packet, pouring the crumbs into my mouth.

Fuck Haven.

Fuck her heart-shaped face and her pouty little lips. That one freckle on her cheek I used to try to rub off her skin until she’d slap me and call me a shit-turd. And then I’d correct her, because shit-turd was redundant, but words weren’t always easy backthen, so I’d say redundun, and she’d laugh, and sometimes I’d laugh with her.

Not always, though. Sometimes, I’d slap her right back.

Seriously, fuck her.

I hadn’t meant to spit at her, or choke her.

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