Page 64 of Forbidden Lessons

I nod, and she comes to take a seat in front of me.

“Dice?”

She was taking a sip of her cola and just shakes her head. “Rock, paper scissors.”

“Yeah, cool.”

She wins and wriggles her shoulders victoriously as she pulls the elastic off the stack of laminated cards. There’s a big ONE on the first card, and she lifts it to read what’s on the other side.

“Huh.” She shrugs as she hands over the card. “Yeah, I’m not dying of salmonella.”

I frown at her. Look at the card. My eyebrows shoot up.

Cruelty:

Read your partner’s last five text messages out loud.

Consequence:

Eat a raw egg, shell and all.

“Seriously?” I groan.

Melissa shrugs again and holds out her hand. “Give.”

“This is an invasion of privacy.” I cringe, but hand over my phone, doing my level best not to look toward the dresser as I take a sip of soda.

Melissa glances up at me after a few seconds. “This a new phone or something? There’s nothing on here.”

She smiles when she sees my exasperated expression, and surprisingly, it lasts longer than a millisecond this time. Then her smile fades, and she gives me a hard stare.

“Really?” She cocks her head at me, her red hair flat against her cheek. “Pretending to be a goody two shoes, and then I find this?”

Heat surges up my neck. “I’m not?—“

“Oh my God, are you blushing? What is this, sixteenth century Verona? Fuck it. We’re too sober for this.” Melissa getsto her feet and goes to her closet. My gaze follows her until I realize I’m staring point blank at the camera. I quickly avert my eyes, keeping them fixed on the snacks until she’s sitting in front of me again.

She sets two plastic shot glasses down on the envelope and pours us each a tequila.

When I groan, she tuts me with a finger.

“When did this turn into a drinking game?” I say as I hold up the shot glass.

“When he told us to ‘have fun with it.’”

“Shit,” I murmur.

We tap our glasses and throw back the tequila.

It’s like swallowing oil. Only, someone set it on fire first.

“So, chronologically from the fifth message,” Melissa says, holding up my phone again. She glances toward the dresser. “Names have been changed to protect the innocent.”

That makes me giggle, because thinking of Professor Rooke as innocent is hilarious.

“Person one. Thank you for your submission. Person two. Sorry about today.”

She reads the rest of the messages while I try not to spontaneously combust. Then she blows out a breath and gives me back my phone. “Rock, paper, scissors.”

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