Page 111 of Spearcrest Knight

She turns to blow me a kiss and then disappears out of the door. Her shameless words tug at my mind later during the Maths exam. Tragically, the intrusive thoughts don’t revolve around Axel and Audrey’s amorous adventures. Instead, my mind is stuck remembering how skilled a linguist Evan unfortunately is.

That’s definitely not a thought I need to be having right now—not in the middle of a Maths exam. So I throw the thought firmly out of my head and bury myself in the comforting difficulty of trigonometry and kinetics.

Evan

Igetbacktomy room after swim practice to find Leo gone and Zachary sitting in the chair by the window, thumbing through my newly-annotated copy ofPersuasion. He’s wearing black jeans and a black turtleneck sweater—his most festive outfit. I unwrap my towel from around my neck and throw it on the back of my desk chair, then glare at Zachary.

“I’m not going to that stupid party.”

He doesn’t look up from the book. “Why not?”

“Because—because I’m not in the mood. Those exams were stressful as fuck.”

“You don’t say,” he murmurs, peering closer at a page in my book. “You misspelt the word naval.”

“Navel?”

“No,naval, as in naval officer, as in the navy. Doubt Captain Wentworth made his fortune inspecting belly buttons.”

I roll my eyes and grab my book out of his hand to shove it under my pillow. “Shouldn’t you be at the party glaring at Theodora from afar or something?”

He smiles. “Shouldn’tyoube at the party, acting excruciatingly awkward towards Sophie?”

My mind flashes an image of the peace garden party, Sophie’s hand fisting in my T-shirt, her disdainful gaze, our first kiss. I sigh. “As if Sophie would be caught dead at another party.”

“Well,” Zachary says, standing with a sigh. “Thought you might prefer to catch her alive, but whatever. If you’re not coming then I’ll be off.”

I grab his arm as he tries to go past me, and shove my face in his. “Are you saying she’s going to be there?”

“I can tell you’re not interested,” Zachary says, shoving my face away from his. “I’ll see myself out.”

“How is that possible? Sophie probably—Sophie doesn’t even like parties.”

“Because you’ve invited her to so many parties, right?”

I glare at Zachary, but he stares back steadily. “As if she’d ever say yes to me.”

“I don’t blame her, to be honest,” Zachary says, glancing down at his nails. “You’re annoyingly whiny. Still, I’ll tell her you say hi.”

He shakes my hand off his arm and walks over to the door.

“Wait!” I shout, yanking off my loose T-shirt.

Zachary leans against the doorway, watching me dispassionately as I stumble around the room, kicking off my shorts, yanking clothes out from the back of my drawers, splashing cologne on. When I’m done dressing I stand to peer into the small square mirror by the door.

“Should I brush my hair?”

“You can, but I’m leaving regardless.”

“Alright, fine! I’ll leave it. Fuck me, I’m nervous. Do I look good?”

“You look like you committed a crime and you’re terrified of getting caught.”

“You mean nervous? I look nervous because I am!”

“You’re rich and good-looking—what’s there to be nervous about?”

I can tell Zachary doesn’t mean that, but I still shake my head in melancholy. “If only that was enough.”

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