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Oh. My. God. When Summer complains about being bored, it’s acceptable, and kind of cute because she’s a kid.
When Nick complains about being bored, it makes my head want to explode. “You said that already.”
“I know what would be a lot more fun than studying.”
He leans in and puts his hand on my thigh. Oh, here we go. I’m surprised it took him this long to completely disregard our agreement.
I grab his wrist, squeezing hard enough to make him wince, and return his hand to his thigh.
“Watch the hand, I’m an athlete.” He rubs his wrist.
“Then keep your paws to yourself. We’re not doing this,” I say to him. “I told you the deal when we first got together.”
“What’s the big deal?” he pouts. “It’s just a hookup. It doesn’t have to mean anything.”
“Seriously, could you be any less of a turn-on? No, you couldn’t.” My lady bits are closing down shop. “Listen, Nick. You have to pass, or you’ll fail the summer session too. You are on probation. The test is right around the corner. Do you seriously want to fail, have your parents drag your ass back home and ream you out, which you deserve by the way, and not be on the team?” I’ve raised my voice. I’m practically shouting now. “Is that what you want?”
“No,” he scowls. “Jeez, calm down.”
“I don’t want to be here any more than you do. I am trying to help you pass this test and unfortunately there is no way for you to charm or bribe your way out of it. You actually have to do work. Picture your future, Nick. You’re sitting in your parents’ living room, hating life. You’re bored. No girls are interested in you anymore. You’re picking out classes for state college. Your friends are in New York partying without you. They’re already forgetting you exist. What classes are you going to take at state college? More English? It’s a Friday night and you’re—”
“Okay, I get it. I get it.” He shoves himself away from me and moves to the far end of the bed. Thank God, because I am about to slap him upside the head.
“Three days, two hours, eight minutes...” I mutter to myself.
“What? What are you talking about?” he asks.
Not me, counting the minutes until the final exam starts.
“Nothing.” I smile at him. “Just repeating some positive affirmations to myself. Now, where were we? I think somewhere in nineteenth-century London?”
7
RUBY
A-minus?
My butt, I got an A-minus.
It’s the last day of this semester of school. Our grades are tacked up on the bulletin board right outside of our classroom. We’re all crowded around the bulletin board and there are cries of triumph and curses of despair. I just remain silent, chewing my lower lip.
I look at the grade next to my name and shake my head in disgust. I am an A-plus student and I know it. This is bullshiznit, but what can I do about it?
But I’m nowhere near as mad as Nick is. He failed. And now he’s truly screwed.
“This is fucking bullshit,” he shouts. “There is no way I failed.” He shakes his head and spins around to snarl at me, his eyes blazing with anger. “This is all your fault.”
Becca is standing right next to him. She just scraped by with a B-minus. “Yeah, this is all your fault,” she echoes loyally, and then simpers at Nick. “I told you it was a bad idea to pretend to date her.” She fixes me with a glare, her thick, perfectly powdered brows drawing together.
Kirk, who’s also in the class and got a C-minus, scowls at me.
“Are you freaking kidding me?” I snort. “I put up with you whining and complaining all damn week long and tried to help you study, and you put in no effort at all. It’s not my fault you slacked off all semester.”
“It’s your fault I failed, because the professor has some weird thing for you, and he hates me now because he thinks we’re dating. He failed me on purpose. And I know he failed me on purpose. I know I passed. I can prove it,” Nick snaps.
“Really? Do tell,” I say dryly.
“Because I copied the test word for word from Angelique, the smartest girl in class, and she got an A-plus,” Nick says triumphantly.
