Page 41 of Revenge

Once I knew I was out of his sight, checking over my shoulder to make sure he hadn’t moved to watch me from the door, I ran down the hall and down the staircase, hiding my laughterwith one hand as I held the railing with the other, and descended into the murmur of voices and music.

Must’ve been pure luck that Elliot’s cousin’s place happened to be so close to campus, because I was back in five minutes, striding through the drive way that led to the dorm building. A few late comers were walking out of the dining hall by the time I’d made it, and I picked up the pace, checking my phone to make sure that Tara hadn’t gotten mad and decided to dis-invite me to her cute little get-together.

Nothing from her. She was either really chill, or too high to care.

Probably both.

Just as I reached for the door to enter to dorm lobby, I felt a hand on my arm, and got jolted back. Letting out a slight yelp, I spun around to find myself face to face with Leo.

That’s all I knew before he forced his lips onto mine and pulled me back around the corner of the building and toward the ramp.

“Whoa,” I yelled, breaking away from his hold at the top of the ramp. “What the hell are you doing?”

“What we were supposed to be doing before that douchebag interrupted us,” he almost growled back, but regained his composure as he approached me once again, resting his hands on my shoulders. My first instinct had been to slap him, but my eyes found his—deep, icy blue, freezing me in his grasp.

“Interrupt what?” I said with a half-smile, half-grimace. “Giving you a hand-job?”

“What were you doing with him?” he asked at the same time I’d said hand-job—as if he wasn’t expecting an answer, never wanted to hear one. In the first place. I stepped back from him, and his hands dropped reluctantly back to his sides.

“And you said he was the jealous one,” I replied quietly.

He clenched his jaw.

“It’s not that,” he said, as if insulted by the idea of actually be attracted to me. “I was the one who pulled the stunt.Isplashed hair dye all over your bitch of a roommate, not him.”

“And?”

“So,” he continued, sucking in a breath, “I should be the one who gets—”

“Rewarded?” I finished for him.

His eyes fell to the ground, and he stuffed his hands into his pockets, his posture crumpling. With that one word, I’d saved him from sounding that much more stupid, and I almost expected a “Thank you,” if not, a nervous laugh. He gave neither.

“I was under the impression that it was Elliot who came up with the idea in the first place,” I continued. “Is that true?”

He let out a sigh. “I guess.”

“Then everything went according to plan,” I said enigmatically, and reached out to give him a weak pat on the shoulder. “Gottarun.”

With that, I turned and hurried back up the steps to the building and into the lobby, my heart feeling it was pulsing at the speed of Elliot’s Mustang at eighty miles an hour. That was twice—twice—that I had either gotten, or almost gotten laid in a single day. I didn’t think Pierre would’ve recognized the new me.

I didn’t.

And I kind of liked that.

Once the elevator dropped me back off, I hurried over to Tara’s room, finger-combing my hair back a bit before knocking so it wasn’ttooobvious I’d just gotten down and dirty with someone. Tara opened the door a second later, and the tinny smell of pot wafted out into the hall.

“Get in, quick,” she giggled, giving me a little hug as she corralled me into the room. “Kenneth, meet my neighbor, Kat.”

A smile flashed across my lips at the name, and I instantly recognized Kenny’s face. Long hair, easy grin, blunt in his fingers. Same guy who’d convinced me to go confess my love to Eric the same day he’d decided it was Vivian he was fucking and not me.

“K and K,” Tara giggled again, sounding more amused than she should’ve been. Result of the grass, no doubt. “Two K’s. Ha!”

“We know each other,” I laughed, sitting down on the floor beside him.

His eyes lit up, and he laughed. “Yo, how’s it going? What happened with your friend?”

Tara looked eagerly between the two of us, waiting for the backstory. I decided I’d give it to them. Why the hell not?

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