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At least until Rowan, who sat behind me, started shifting in his seat… and whenever I heard the sound of him moving, I felt a prodding sensation in my lower back through a gap in my chair… and then, my arse.
I would have turned around and told him to knock it off at any other time—I thought I would have, that was. I didn’t get this sort of treatment that often. At least he was just poking me with a pen or something, probably. Callie and Aileen were in front of me, so I couldn’t signal them to help me figure out what was going on. Maybe they wouldn’t even want to. It seemed like I was going to get punished more harshly for doing something that was no worse than what Callie had done. Better. I’d just wanted to look out for her from the start, and since when could she say the same about me?
I tried to hold back when everyone else was leaving the classroom, so I could make my more subtle way to the library, but when Mrs. Patterson left and the room was still pretty crowded, I realised I’d gone about this in a bad way.
I started hurrying to the door and heard a quick tread behind me, and some laughter.
“Got someone to hurry off to, Tamara?”
I turned, and before I could snap out a response, Rowan’s smirking face was looming over me, and then he smacked my arse and kept on sauntering past as if nothing had happened.
I stared at the two girls who were still left in the room: Mari, and Tina. “Did you see—”
They both just shrugged and made awkward sideways steps around me to leave the room.
I couldn’t even process what had just happened. I wanted to sit down right where I was and cry, but that wasn’t going to help me.
I bolted out of the room, pushing past some of the people who had left before me. I could only think of one person I wanted to reach for right now, who might be able to help.
It wasn’t hard to track down Steven during a lunch hour: I just had to follow the loudest shouts and laughter across the campus. Some part of me was cringing that I was running straight to a man to protect me—a man who was himself violent, at the very least. But when the only other option in my head was a meltdown, surely this couldn’t be such a bad choice.
Chapter Thirteen: Steven
I easily swatted away the ball Tyrell shot in my direction. That fucker thought he was going to get back at me for putting him in his place now that things were coming out about me and Tamara. Well, good for him, but it wasn’t like I gave a shit about that coming out anyway. I had tried to keep things quiet because Tamara clearly didn’t want her family to get to hear about her personal life, and gossip had a way of spreading everywhere in this stupid small town, but for myself, I actually didn’t care. Tamara was hot and pretty much all of the guys at Burgundy would have killed to fuck someone as wild in bed as her. I practically felt like punching myself for having gotten to do that. I doubted she’d given it up to many of the guys I knew. There would have been gossip for sure if she’d gone with any of the sorts of guys I hung out with. They were fucking pigs.
I guess I was a fucking pig too, for wanting to fuck her before I really got to know much about her, but I wasn’t the kind of fucking pig to talk about her to other people. They’d just think I was making half of it up anyway.
I realised I’d zoned out a bit, but it seemed like everyone else had too. Mic and Tyrell and Pat were staring at something behind me.
When I turned, there she was. I felt a smile spreading across my face, but it was pretty obvious once I’d gotten a good look at her that she was upset.
Just like that, I was fired up, ready to do some serious damage to whoever had said or done anything to hurt her.
Tamara skidded to a halt in front of me, red-faced, a little sweaty. She still looked stunning like that as far as I was concerned—maybe even more so because of it.
She was struggling to meet my gaze, hesitating to reach out. But she’d run all this way to me. Even if she was a b
it shy, she had to be hoping I would be happy to see her.
I spoke quietly enough that the others wouldn’t hear. “It’s okay, Tamara, I don’t bite… unless you ask.”
That got a quiver out of her lips, a smile that couldn’t quite take off.
She was a little more relaxed once I got her to come close enough to touch, though we didn’t. She was still barely able to speak, eventually communicating what had happened to her in a weird combination of two-word sentences and pantomime. That fucking creep Rowan had slapped her arse. He was always such a randy shit. Couldn’t stand someone else getting into something he couldn’t have.
“I’ll sort him out,” I promised, even though I wasn’t really sure what I could do about him. Getting into someone I spent time with on the field was one thing, but this wasn’t fucking America where you were a god just because you put on a jersey in high school and ran around on the field. Had to make it to the draft for that. “But I tell you what, Tamara. Next time, you just turn right around fast and put your knee in his junk. It might be a bit hard to find, but if you kick him there it’ll go a long way towards teaching him.”
Tamara’s shoulders went up. That would have been a real turn-on at any other time, but right now it just meant I hadn’t been funny enough to calm her down. “I do not want to ‘put my knee in his junk’, Steven. I don’t want that asshole anywhere near me ever again.”
“Because of his hand on your arse for less than one second? That sounds like a bit of an overreaction to me, sweetheart.”
She just bristled up even more after I said sweetheart. “Do you think this is some joke?”
“Your reaction is a bit of a joke.” She recoiled like I’d actually hit her. “I get it, I really do, nobody wants to have that happen to them, but… it was just a swat on the arse, right? It happened right in front of everyone too, it wasn’t like it was going to go anywhere else. I mean, you’ve had that happen a few times before, both wanted and unwanted, I’m sure.”
Now she just looked angry. Whatever was going on right now was doing my head in. “Okay, so maybe you never fucking go to parties unless someone drags you along, but you…”
That was when I realised I’d made a fucking huge assumption that might be already coming back to bite me.
