Page 9 of The Bargain

“It’s the middle of autumn.”

“I run hot.”

She narrows her eyes—the closest she’s going to get to showing her annoyance. Her shoulders are tight, her jaw clenched hard. She looks like she’d rather be travelling deep into the bowels of hell rather than be here at my door.

But she’s here in the first place, so her back is already to the wall. And that wall is going to push her all the way into my bedroom, which smells like my aftershave and cigarettes and contains me, shirtless.

I step aside to let her in—only just enough that she will have no choice but to brush past me. She does so with her back so straight her spine might as well be made of granite; I know I’m not much to look at, but I wish my skin was as dirty as she’s acting like it is.

I close the door, and now she’s alone in a room with me, trapped in my space. She smells like summers on golden beaches and lazy evenings on a Cape Cod porch—like the sun only exists for her.

“Why don’t you sit down?” I tell her, gesturing at my bed.

“I prefer to stand.”

I tilt my head. “So formal, love, and for what?”

Her eyes widen almost imperceptibly, like I’ve reminded her of something.

“Don’t call me that,” she says.

“You don’t like it?”

“I prefer being called by my name.”

“It’s a bit of a mouthful, your name.”

“So? Time seems to be a plentiful resource of yours.”

She punctuates this with a distasteful glance around my small bedroom. The old skateboard propped against the wall, the hamper full of dirty clothes, the school laptop gathering dust on top of the wardrobe. I shrug.

“That why you’re here?” I roll my chair away from my desk, spinning it around so I can sit and lean my arms on the backrest. “You after some of my plentiful resources?”

She looks down her nose at me. God, she’s fucking beautiful, and like all beautiful things, she’s just begging to be ripped up and scribbled on. Desdemona’s had several boyfriends since I started at Spearcrest; not one of them has managed to make a mess of her.

Their hands are too soft and delicate—they lack the strength to leave a dent in something as hard and unfeeling as her.

“I’ve come to ask you for a favour,” she says.

Fuck, what trouble has she gotten herself into that’s brought her here, that’s forced her to stoop this low? To her, I’m the stinking muck at the bottom of a rotting pit. She must know there’s no chance she’s coming away from this clean.

“I know you have,” I tell her. “Why else would you be here? Nice girls like you don’t sneak into the bedrooms of scummy guys like me.”

“Sneak?” she says sharply. Of course, that’s the part that would ruffle her feathers. “I walked in through the front door.”

“In the middle of the night.”

She says nothing to this. Her fingers tremble.

Is she angry? Would she like to hit me? Has Desdemona ever hit anything other than a tennis ball with a racket? Has she ever screamed or opened her mouth wider than an inch? Even when she speaks, her lips barely move. And now I’m looking at her lips and she catches me looking, so she takes a step back and a shiver of satisfaction runs through me.

“Come on,” I tell her. “Ask me, Desdemona. You need something only I can give you.”

“Not how I would phrase it,” she snaps.

“Then phrase it your way. Didn’t you win that poetry competition last year? I’m sure you know plenty of ways to phrase things.”

“Are you always this unpleasant?” she asks.