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25
It’s eleven o’clock at night when Rory and I shamble out of detention, both of us having been instructed to rewrite our lines from the very start — and for Rory’s to be numbered this time. I’m absolutely exhausted. My head is dead and my wrist has gone to sleep. I didn’t know youcouldbe so exhausted just from sitting in one spot and writing.
My heart hurts with what became of my personal statement. At the end of detention, I’d been decorating my hand with ink, frantically scribbling down all slivers of my statement that I could remember before Baxter ripped it up.
As we ascend the staircase hand in hand, I sigh. “How am I supposed to get a decent academic reference off Baxter?”
“Fuck it,” Rory says easily, scowling. “I’ll write one for you.”
“You know it needs to come from a teacher.”
“So I’ll pretend to be one.” Rory shrugs. “The twats here arenotgoing to hold you back. Who else would you go to?”
I’m quiet for a moment, thinking. “I suppose — well, I suppose — as a last resort — Dr. Moncrieff seems to like me.”
Rory goggles at me. “Moncrieff? That fucker’s the reason Ihavedetention for the rest of my life.”
Honestly, I can’t decide what Dr. Moncrieff thinks of me. He clearly doesn’t hate me enough to land me in multiple detentions like Rory. But ever since his brother appeared on the scene, he’s definitely been cold with me. Still — beggars can’t be choosers, and no other teacher here can vouch for me in the same way as him.
Still, though, I hesitate. “I think back to Moncrieff giving me that A last year,” I mutter as we reach the top of the stairs. “And I wonder… did he only do it because I said the right words? He heard them and assumed I was talking about Antiro, when really I was talking about…” I drift off, glancing uncertainly at Rory, “…you.”
It had been the speech of ages — or at least, that’s what it had felt like. Standing there, as defiant as I could be, daring to connect bullying to fascism. My face scarred in the aftermath of Li’s assault on my body, my mind like sludge after Rory’s year-long attack on my mind.
“I don’t care about last year,” Rory says shortly, and I know it’s because part of him is ashamed about what went down between us. “I care even less about what Moncrieff thinks and feels.” He takes hold of my wrist and pulls me toward him. “You, though,” he murmurs, his lips close enough to caress mine, “you I care about very much.”
At the top of the staircase, he presses his mouth to mine. We kiss in the dim candlelight, breathing in one another in the dark. I loop my hands behind his neck. He slowly strokes the top of my thigh with his thumb. Each leisurely caress lifts the pleat of my skirt until I’m convinced my whole leg is on show, and I find myself not caring at all.
Rory’s lips brush the sensitive corner beneath my ear. “Will Moncrieff write about the whimpers you make when I kiss your neck like this? The soft sigh when my hand travels up?” His hand slides under my skirt and between my legs until he reaches my clit — and as if on cue, I release a small, needy sigh. “He doesn’t know the taste of your mouth, the flecks of silver in your eyes when you’re turned on, the way you scream and convulse when you come. Really,” Rory adds in an unimpressed drawl, “how can he write a personal statement about you when he doesn’t know you at all?”
When he pulls away from me, I’m breathless and craving more.
Rory smirks down at me. “Your eyes are looking rather silver there, little saint,” he notes with a smug, wicked glint in his own eyes. “Get some rest. I’ll see you in the morning.”
He leaves me at the bottom of the girls’ tower with a sly smile and a long kiss, and in an ideal world I’d invite his self-satisfied ass back to my bedroom. Specifically my bed, where we wouldn’t leave each other again. But we’re not in an ideal world, and I sense Arabella prowling behind the door of her own bedroom, ready to pounce if we linger too long at the tower.
* * *
“Check.”
I move my king.
“Check.”
I move my king again.
“Checkmate.”
“Oh, fuck off.”
Luke watches in amusement as Danny and I play chess — or rather, Danny plays chess and I’m resoundingly whooped by him. “You know, if we teamed up,” Luke murmurs, his dark eyes examining the board, “we could easily beat him.”
“Lose solo or eke a win as a duo?” I mull it over. “I don’t know, you’re really overestimating my ability at chess—”
“And you’re severely underestimating yourself as usual,” Luke declares in a pointed tone. “I told you, self-deprecation is not an attractive feature. Of course you’re going to pale in comparison to someone whose only friends for years were chess pieces—”
“Hey!”
“Danny, I used to watch you talk to the knight.”
