Page 31 of Boys Who Taint

With what little fight I have left in me, I kick him in the balls. The momentary lapse in his strength allows me to free myself from his grip, and I punch him in the face so hard it knocks his head back.

I bolt away while he gathers himself, chucking chairs and tables in my way to make sure he can’t follow me.

“You’ll pay for this,” I growl before I slam open the door.

He groans and wipes the blood off his lip. “Stay away from him, Aspen. I’ll be watching you.”

Before I run off, I stick up my middle fingers. “Suck on these.”

CHAPTER 7

Grey

I’ve been searchingthe campus for fifteen minutes, trying to find Aspen, when I finally spot her near the women’s bathroom. When I place my hand on her shoulder, she nearly jumps out of her skin.

“Oh, it’s you,” she murmurs, breathing a sigh of relief like she just got caught planning a murder.

“Only me,” I muse, smiling when she turns around. “Were you expecting someone else?”

“Um … no.” She quickly tucks her long red hair behind her ears.

God, she’s so goddamn beautiful, I could never take my eyes off her.

“I texted you, but you didn’t reply,” I say.

“Sorry, I got … distracted.” She rubs her lips together. Is she telling me the full truth? Not that it matters, I will find out one way or another.

Her phone buzzes, and she quickly checks the messages. “Oh shit, I completely forgot.” She grabs my hand. “C’mon.”

“Wait, where?” She drags me out of the old college building and into the open air, where the sun shines so brightly that it’s making me squint. She pulls me to the grass out front near the fountain, where a bunch of people are sitting on a blanket.

“Grey, meet my friends,” she says.

“Hi, friends,” I say awkwardly, and a bunch of them giggle.

“Well, well, who’s this now?” A girl with curly hair and radiant black skin holds out her hand. “Océane.”

She’s followed by another girl with medium brown hair and downturned lips. “Ivy. Nice to meet you.”

“And this is Xavier. He clings to me, and I pretend he doesn’t exist,” Aspen jokes.

“Hey,” a guy with brown hair and a face eerily similar to Aspen’s says, while sticking up two fingers. “Don’t let her fool you. I’m her twin. You her boyfriend?”

My eyes widen. “What?”

Aspen’s whole face turns red. “Um …”

“No comment,” I say.

“I told you they were totally hooking up,” Océane says to Ivy, and they give each other a high five.

“We arenot,” Aspen says. “We’re just exploring.”

“Oh, right … ‘exploring.’” Ivy makes quotation marks with her fingers.

“As long as you don’t go exploring my sister’s caves without asking my parents first,” Xavier says.

The two girls laugh.

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