AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Nothing.” I dropped down onto one of the chairs, regretting it at the very last second because the hard wood was a lot different than the molded plastic I sat on in class, and I had two spots on my ass that felt bruisy as hell, even though they looked totally normal. The second that ache slammed into me, though, it was like dopamine and adrenaline and a tranquilizer all at once, and my mood shifted as I squirmed around and he watched, smirking.
“You okay?”
“Yeah.” I pulled the chair up close to the table, sitting myself down a little gentler as I got semi-comfortable. “Just team shit. Walker and his… whatever. And Ellis. He doesn’t think I’m gonna pass.”
“He’s wrong. Like always. Ignore him, he’s a fucking idiot.”
“Yeah, I know.”
He leaned over for his bag and pulled out the note cards, dropping them on the center of the table, and then held his fist out in my direction, uncurling his long fingers to do a slow reveal of the tiny candy bars sitting in his palm. “Chocolate make you feel better?”
I smiled a little, and I mean, yeah. When did chocolate not make you feel better. I peeled it open slow, and we sat there a minute while he kept pulling more candy out of his bag every time I thought we were finished, like the best kind of magician.
Was it pathetic my mood could be lifted that easily? Yeah, probably. Was it even more pathetic I wished we were at home and I was curled up in his lap and he could feed me chocolate instead of handing it to me? Honestly, I doubted pathetic was even the word for that. Probably not the kind of dirty details Ellis was looking for, but they still made me squirm around in my seat more.
“You already know you’re going to pass,” Caleb told me, starting to spread out the cards, and like another kind of magic, the repetition of the even rows and the soft snap when he flipped them down on the table top started to relax me a little more. “You’ve passed two practice tests, last night’s was even better. Just keep doing what you’re doing.”
I grinned, drumming my fingers on the edge of the table and thinking about the second test he’d given me after dessert last night, sitting bare ass at the kitchen table while he washed the ice cream bowls and put them away. Focusing was a lot easier when he was around. And when my ass hurt so much it took over all my other distractions. “Yeah. I’m not sure Mendleton’s gonna let me take it naked, though.”
“I’ll write you a note,” Caleb told me, leaning back in his chair, and I reached out and evened the edges of the cards as he laid them out.
“Deal me in, losers,” Ellis said, walking up and grabbing the chair next to me, spinning it around and sprawling on it backwards, leaning it back and forth like a rocking horse. “What are we playing? Cover me, Beast, I’m good for it.”
“You’re good for nothing,” Caleb told him, not looking up from the cards.
“Damn.When did you get somean?”
“What do you want, Ellis?” I asked him, sighing.
“I just wanna play. Help you study. Obviously. If you’re gonna do it the loser old fashioned way, I guess I can pitch in. Not like this team is getting anywhere without me taking charge.” He reached over and peeled up the edge of the corner card, leaning his head down to peek underneath. “You got any… Osa… momium? Is this English?”
“It’s Chemistry, dumbass,” I told him. “Go play on the computer. We’re busy.”
“Right, right.” He ignored me and started plucking cards up off the table, dealing himself a hand. “How about Krypton? Got any Krypton? Wait, that’s not real, is it? Is this a joke card?”
Caleb snorted. “It’s not Go Fish. If you want to play, you have to follow the rules.” He held his palm out for the cards, and Ellis and I both stared at him.
After a minute, Ellis slowly handed his cards over. “Okay. What are the rules, Beast?”
“Flip over two cards,” Caleb told him, shuffling the cards back into the rest of the deck. “If they match, you get to go again. If they don’t, it’s someone else’s turn.”
I waited for the punchline, for Caleb to tell him to fuck off, but he didn’t, and that seemed to confuse Ellis into silence a minute which maybe was the punchline.
“That’s it? And then I’ll be a genius at Chemistry?”
“No. Then you have to study nonstop for two weeks doing all sorts of different things. But if you like games, this will help.”
“I like games.”
Caleb grunted. “No shit.”
“What does that mean?”
“Means you’re an asshole.”
Ellis shrugged. “Everyone at this table is an asshole. That’s why we’re friends.”
Caleb looked up startled from lining up the last of the cards. “What would make you think we’re friends?”
