Page 56 of Magical Academy for Delinquents
“Zavier, just please, I’m begging you. Carry me. You’re my only friend here.” Saying that out loud made me emotional for some stupid reason. I knew it was true. But still. I swallowed before I continued, “It’s Emelia’s last day. I’d like to be able to say goodbye.”
That seemed to get his butt moving. Finally. He hopped off the bed and grabbed my backpack. He slung it over his shoulder and then came and picked me up so that I faced him. I felt odd. Was he going to carry me facing backward all the way to class? “Wouldn’t you rather give me a piggyback ride?”
Zavier leaned in and nipped my ear before he answered. And the strangest part of it was that, for some reason, I let him. “A piggyback ride won’t make you think about you and me, and how well we’d fit together as dirty friends—so no, I wouldn’t rather give you one of those.”
“We do not fit together,” I growled, even as I wrapped my arms around the tattoos that floated up his neck. I traced a bird colored in greens and blues that flew toward his dark hair.
Zavier walked to my dorm room door. But instead of heading into the hall, he shoved me up against the frame. He pressed his pelvis into mine. “Yeah we do.” His hands tightened under the backs of my thighs as he gently rotated his pelvis side to side. “Do you feel that?” he whispered as he started to get hard.
The friction felt good. So good. If Zavier was a whiskey, I would have been halfway drunk. His touch. His smile. And then he leaned forward and kissed my neck, right at the base so that my nerves sang. He leaned up and said, “Look. I could fuck you and kiss you perfectly at the same time.”
And then he leaned in. His mouth edged closer to mine.
My heart raced and my stomach flipped. I shoved Zavier away and went skipping down the hall. “Run, run, run, as fast as you can. You can’t catch me—”
That’s when the twerking caught up with me the second time. “Dammit!”
After Zavier filmed it and laughed so hard that he gave himself a coughing fit, he turned into a gentleman, picked me up, and carried me to class.
“I’m saving you from public humiliation. You owe me two BJs for this.”
“I’m not paying for you to get a Bachelor’s in Journalism. Definitely not paying for two. What do you want to be when you grow up anyway?” I asked, realizing I’d never asked him anything like that before.
“An accountant,” Zavier quipped as he carried me down the stairs.
I punched him in the shoulder. “No! That’s my go-to sarcastic answer. You can’t steal it.”
He shrugged. “Didn’t you know that I’m a thief?”
I scrunched up my face in disbelief. “Yeah, okay.”
Zavier paused in his walk across the quad, shifted me to a hip so that he could hold me one-handed (which was hot) and pointed down at his ankle monitor. “What do you think I got that for?”
“Cause you’re annoying and your parents want to make sure you don’t run home?” I teased. But then I worried I’d gone too far. I leaned back in Zavier’s grip to check his facials.
He didn’t look hurt. He looked smarmy, greasy, too smooth and proud of it.
“Reach into my shirt pocket,” he said.
I squinted at him, not sure how to read his change of topic. Slowly, I reached into his pocket. I felt some string, silk, lace.
I pulled out a brand-new pair of my underwear. “Zavier!” I seethed, squishing the thong into a ball and hiding it in the palm of my hand.
He laughed, and bounced me, returning me to straddle position.
“How did you even get in my drawers! I didn’t even see you!”
Zavier’s only response was, “A good thief never tells.”
Chapter 23
Emelia’slast day was bittersweet. As much as I’d liked having her around to talk to or eat with once in awhile, I hoped she didn’t come back. I needed to focus. I needed to game plan just how I was going to break the news to Malcolm and Grayson and get them to agree. Just the thought of telling them made my palms sweat and my throat grow tight. So much was riding on their ‘yes.’ And up to now, I’d really just learned to make myself a hated entity. A bitch.
I should have been able to shove emotion aside and just focus on next steps—that was what I’d done for the past few years. But I wasn’t finding it as easy as before. Maybe because I was emotionally invested in these guys.A little. Just a bit. Fuck.
My attempts at sculpting deer in Huchmala’s Art Therapy class reflected my lack of attention. I accidentally squashed two of the legs together and had to rip the entire back half of my clay sculpture off and start over. My annoyed huff drew the prancy teacher over.
“Ms. Dunemark, are you feeling okay today?” her eyes stared at the guy behind me in class even though she stood right in front of me.
