Page 36 of Lethal in Pink

This asshole has another thing coming if he thinks he can just drop a flower on my seat and retreat to the goddamn cheap seats like nothing happened.

Jae looks up when I’m about four feet away. His expression does that thing where it rearranges itself too slowly, like he was expecting me but is performing surprise anyway.

“Hey there, hotshot,” he says, pleasantly.

I wish he would stop with the stupid name already.

“What the hell is this?” I hold the rose out between us.

He considers it. “Looks like a rose to me.”

God, he is fucking infuriating.

“It was on my seat.”

“Interesting,” he replies, in the tone of a man who does not find it interesting at all and is simply toying with me.

I look at the flower, glaring up at him and then I set it down on the desk directly in front of him, stem pointing toward him, petals facing me, a clean transfer of property.

“Keep it,” I say. “I don’t want it.”

His mouth shifts.

“You don’t want it.” he repeats.

“I don’t want it.”

“Okay,” he says, and does not touch it.

I cross my arms. “Why are you sitting back here?”

He tilts his head toward the front of the room. “You said I was sitting too close.”

“I said you were in my personal space.”

“And now I am not in your personal space.” He spreads his hands in a gesture of peaceful compliance. “I solved the problem.”

“Solved the problem? By what? Moving to the back of the classroom like a punished child?”

“I was being considerate.”

“You were being dramatic.”

He laughs then, a short, genuine sound that he doesn’t seem to have planned on making. “There is no making you happy,” he says, and he sounds genuinely delighted by this, like it’s a puzzle he’s decided to enjoy rather than solve. “One week I am too close. The next week I am too far. What is the correct distance, Amiyah? Should I measure it? Bring a ruler?”

My jaw tightens, the muscles in my cheeks working overtime to keep my expression neutral when every instinct I have is screaming at me to wipe that smirk off his face with my bare hands.

“There is no correct distance when you’re actively trying to annoy me, smart ass,” I snap, my voice tight.

His smile doesn’t waver. If anything, it turns into a wider, and more infuriating smile that makes my blood pressure spike.

“Am I annoying you?” he asks, his eyes crinkling at the corners, “Because from where I’m sitting, it seems like you’re the one who came all the way to the back row to talk to me. And to me, that seems like an awful lot of effort to expend on someone who annoys you.”

I open my mouth. Close it.

He watches me with that dark gaze of his. He’s enjoying this.

Fucker.