I paid attention when Bev flinched and sort of put on her mental armor, standing up straighter and like she was bracing for impact. The woman looked familiar. Yeah, she’d given Bev shit at the first treat truck day and Tracey had banned her.
Was she really stupid enough to give Bev crap? What was her deal?
I needed to see if any of my friends were TAs in her classes. Probably not since there were only a couple of classes each year that were large, Derek’s being one of them. And that wasn’t something for TAs.
Still, worth checking.
“You know, I never learned your name,” Bevin said, going right for the woman. “All the times you’ve obsessed over me and jumped into my business and no one still has mentioned your name or—it’s weird right?” She smirked at the woman. “Anything you want to tell me?”
The woman pursed her lips as Bev talked but then opened her mouth. “I’m so jealous of you that it actually disgusts me. Iloveyour hair and desperately want to know what products you use. And how do you keep your skin so clear? I get your body now from all your running, but I do not care enough to crazy run like that to—”
“Are you high?” her friend demanded and grabbed her arm.
“No, she’s thinkingpositivelytoday,” Bev purred. “It’s Positive Thinking Day after all. I’m so glad you’re celebrating it too.” She reached over like she was going to pat the woman’s shoulder, but she moved out of the way, tickling Bev. “Hopefully, this is a new leaf for you. Maybe if you stick with it, I’ll leave the scalp mask I use at your door and that should help.”
“That’s really nice of you when she’s been so horrible to you and doesn’t deserve it,” one of her friends blurted, looking horrified.
“Did you give them drugs?” that first friend demanded. “Why are they acting like this?”
Bevin pointed to one of the huge hanging banners that we’d managed to pull out of our asses for this. “I told you. It’s Positive Thinking Day. They’re just celebrating it.”
“Let’s go,” she said when the others seemed to want to push. “This is her next Wicked Challenges prank and I don’t want to give her points. She’s got enough already and will be the first freshman Wicked Queen which is really cool and I hope she does.” She bared her teeth at Bevin. “You’ll regret this.”
“No,no, I won’t,” Bevin said, her eyes sparkling as she started losing the battle with laughing.
My phone rang instead of a text. I immediately answered when I saw it was Danny. “What’s up?”
“Sooo unintended side effect. I just watched a guy gush to the woman he’s been banging that she’s the best sex ever.”
“As he should,” I chuckled, taking a step toward Bevin.
“Yeah, except she’s not who he’s engaged to and itwasa huge alliance. It’s now a dumpster fire and shit is going down. People are recording it all over and it’s probably going to be on the news, they’re both such big names. So warn her security that the guy and family will probably be out for blood.”
“Or the asshole could not cheat,” I said with a sigh. “Yeah, okay, thanks for the heads-up.”
“Always. For the record, this is amazing. I hate that fucker, but sorry she’ll get shit.”
Me too. “Just remind everyone we were involved. We’re getting points for it after all.”
He sighed. Heavily.
“Do you want to start paying for those sessions she’s giving you?” I asked under my breath. “And access to where you harvest now or—”
“No, you’re right. Sorry. Just hard when you’re the TA for some of the people. I need my life not to blow up, Winter.”
“Fair. Fine, tell everyone those of us who aren’t TAs did it. Or fuck, just me. I got it.” I sighed, scrubbing my hand over my face. Yeah, I didn’t want to drag all my friends into it. “Tell everyone it was me. I’ll make that clear.”
“Gotcha. Thanks.”
I turned to tell Bevin’s security, but one of the guys just held up his phone to me to show a social media post. I swore under my breath before slapping on a smile to face Bevin.
“What’s wrong?” she asked, catching on.
“So there’s been some fallout,” I hedged.
“Yeah, like apparently no one on this campus doesn’t fucking cheat,” the female guard said. “And they’re all outing themselves by saying nice things to the ones they’re cheating with.”
“Oh shit,” Bevin giggled. “Nice.” She simply shrugged when they all looked at her like she was nuts. “It’s not the first time I’ll get yelled at or deal with hate. It won’t be the last time. I wouldthinkI’m going to get some love from the people who found out they were being cheatedon.”