Page 10 of Wicked Games

“Thanks for explaining how my own school works,” I said, voice dripping with condescension. “This is Dressler Hall. The seniorboys’hall. So I’ll ask you again. What the fuck are you doing here?”

“This is the dorm they assigned to me,” she replied, nostrils flaring with indignation. “Why else would I be here?”

I took a deep breath and raked a hand through my hair as I considered this fucked-up turn of events. “It must be your name,” I finally said. “It’s unisex. Whoever was overseeing the room assignments probably thought you were a guy, saw the empty spot in my dorm, and placed you here.”

Carey nodded slowly. “The woman at the officedidsay she was pretty new to the job and still getting used to stuff. I guess she could’ve made the mistake.”

I gestured around the room. “How the hell did you not notice earlier? Didn’t you see any of my stuff?”

She scoffed and planted her hands on her hips. “Everything you have out in the open is generic-looking. Like the stuff on your desk. It could belong to anyone, male or female. And it’s not like I rifled through your closet and drawers when I arrived. I’m not a total psycho.”

Aren’t you?I wanted to say, upper lip curling. It was seriously pissing me off to look at her right now. Not only because I hated her after what she did, but also because she was irritatingly hot. Nah, not even hot. That word didn’t do her justice.

She was fucking beautiful. Long, shiny hair, big chocolate-brown eyes that seemed to sparkle even when she looked confused or pissed, delicate button nose, and pouty lips.

Before now, all I knew was her name, so I had no idea what she looked like. No idea that she was essentially the perfect girl in terms of looks. But I guess she had to have somethinggoing for her, given her major shortcomings in every other department.

“Oh, wait. There wasoneexception which made me think you were a girl,” Carey went on, arching a brow. She turned her head, looking pointedly at a pair of panties that lay on the carpet near my bed. “Nice underwear.”

I rolled my eyes. “Obviously they aren’t mine,” I said. I grabbed a tissue and used it to pick up the panties so I could toss them in the wastebasket.

“Really?” Carey flashed a sardonic smile at me. “I think they’d look cute on you.”

I glared at her, wishing my eyes could shoot laser beams that would melt her right into the fucking carpet.

Her mocking smile faltered, and she looked down at her feet. “Jeez, I was just making a joke,” she muttered.

“Pack your shit and come with me,” I said icily. “You’re getting reassigned.”

“I’m not packing anything until I know exactly what’s going on,” she retorted, crossing her arms.

“Fine. Let’s get this shit sorted right now.”

I turned and marched out of the room, jaw clenched so tightly that it felt like my teeth might shatter. Carey dashed ahead of me in the hallway, leaving a fragrant trail of cinnamon and vanilla-scented perfume that lingered in my nostrils as I followed her.

I hated it. I hatedher.

After a heated discussion at the main admin office, we were informed that the issue had snowballed from a simple room assignment mistake to a total clusterfuck. Apparently, all the available spots in the girls’ hall were taken, so there was nowhere to send Carey.

“How the fuck is that possible?” I asked the principal, who’d gotten involved after he heard me shouting at the reception staff.“Do you have any idea what my parents are going to say when they hear about this bullshit?”

“I’m very sorry, Maverick. Very sorry to you too, Carey,” he replied, dipping his head contritely toward Carey. “I’m really not sure how an error of this magnitude has occurred, but let me assure you that we are going to do everything we possibly can to fix it.”

He stepped into his office with two of his staff members to confer with them. Five minutes later, they returned. All of them had harried expressions on their faces.

“We checked the staff housing to see if there are any empty rooms for Carey to stay in, but unfortunately there’s nothing available there either,” Principal Saunders said, wringing his hands.

“Are you serious? How the fuck did this happen?” I asked in an acid tone.

“We looked into the problem, and it seems that our new receptionist was responsible for the room assignment once Carey’s scholarship was, er… created,” he replied in a delicate tone, glancing at her. “She thought Carey was a boy, so when she saw the empty spot in Dressler Hall, she placed her there. If she knew she was a girl, she would have alerted us to the lack of space in Sundance Hall much earlier.”

“What about the other girls’ hall? The one for freshmen and sophomores?”

He shook his head. “It’s completely full too, as we’ve had four new transfers this semester.”

“So what’s going to happen, then?”

“One of our female students is leaving us partway through the semester to return to her home country. Carey can have her spot then.”

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