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“What is that?” Her nose scrunches up in disgust as she waves her hand toward my bag, her dislike of my non-designer, tattered duffel written all over her face.
“Uh, my bag?”
“Why do you have it here? You’re supposed to leave all of your belongings with your driver for the bellboys to collect.”
Drivers? Bellboys? What fresh hell have I subjected myself to?!
Seeing my look of utter confusion, she rolls her eyes, sighing in exasperation before glancing around the hall.
“You,” she calls out, waving over some guy in a uniform as he passes by us, heading out toward the parked cars. He looks like he should be working in a high-end hotel, not a high school.
Barely sparing him a glance, she gestures toward my duffle bag, “Take this...thing,” she sneers, “to, uh”—she glances down at a page in her hand—“Hadley’s room.”
The guy goes to grab my bag and my hand instinctively tightens around the strap, preventing him from taking it from me. We remain in a standoff for a few seconds, him giving me a weird-ass look before I relax enough to let go, letting him walk away with every single thing I own in this world.
Turning back to the annoying girl in front of me, eyeing her up with a critical gaze, I ask, “Eh, who are you? How do you know my name?”
Her lips pinch together in disapproval as she looks down at me. At five-foot-six, I wouldn’t call myself short, but between her height and the six inches her heels give her, she’s a good head taller than me.
“I’m Bianca,” she responds snootily, with all the arrogance of a rich brat as she tosses her hair over her shoulder. She acts like I should already know who she is. Placing her hands on her hips, she sighs. “I’m supposed to show you around today.”
Well, that statement was overflowing with enthusiasm.I’m guessing she wasn’t given much of a choice in the matter, and I can’t help wondering how she ended up stuck with the job. I have to bite my tongue to stop myself from letting her know I’m just as thrilled to have her as a guide as she is. “I take it you got a welcome pack? With a map?” she snarks, not really sounding like she cares one way or the other.
“Yeah, I did.”
“Good, then I’m sure you can work it out for yourself.” She raises an eyebrow at me. “You are here on an academic scholarship after all.”
Barely holding back my retort, I roll my eyes at her as soon as she turns her back to me, taking off across the foyer, not bothering to check if I’m following her. I am, of course—I don’t see I have a choice. She forced me to hand over my bag, with my map and everything in it, to that guy. And I have no clue where the accommodation building is, or what I’m even supposed to be doing this morning.
“This is the main building, where most of your classes will be. There’s an east and a west wing,” Bianca explains, pointing to her right to indicate the East wing before pointing out the West wing on our left. I’m honestly surprised she’s bothering to tell me anything, but I guess she feels like she needs to at least explain the basics. “The east wing is where all the science, math, and computer classes take place; while the art classes, English, history, languages, all that sort of stuff, is in the west wing. The music department has its own building, and anything drama related is held in the auditorium.”
She pulls open the door into the courtyard, the buzz of other students chatting and calling out to one another reverberating around us, drowning out the noise of water trickling from the fountain. By now, the quad is filled with students from all years. A few of them hang back, lazing on picnic tables and laughing with friends, but most of them have joined the throng of students slowly making their way into what I’m guessing is the auditorium—a large stone building on the far side of the quad.
Bianca and I join the back of the crowd, slowly inching our way onward. I can feel the press of bodies around me, people jostling me as they join the crowd behind us. The more they push and shove, my heart rate starts to spike and my chest feels tight.Why the fuck can people not respect personal boundaries. The quad is fucking huge, you don’t need to be shoving against me.I scowl at the girl behind me as her shoulder knocks into me for the third time, my dark glare succeeding in getting her to back up a step as Bianca scans the crowd, oblivious to the students around us as she looks for someone in particular, most likely her friends. She doesn’t spare me a glance when she says, “Stay in your lane, and you’ll get through the year without any problems.”
“My lane?” I question, confused about what she means.
She sighs, and I don’t miss the snooty bitch rolling her eyes at me before penetrating me with a deadpan stare. “There’s a you, an us, and a them,” she explains, as though it’s obvious and she shouldn’t have to clarify any of this for me.
“A what?” I shake my head slightly, not understanding her at all.
“You,” she sneers derisively, her voice making it clear she thinks she’s so much fucking better than I am. She roams her eyes over my less-than-perfect uniform, scowling, before dropping her gaze to my combat boots, her nose wrinkling in disgust.Yeah, okay, the boots aren’t exactly school attire, but they’re sturdy, and I could do some damage to her with them if she doesn’t stop looking at me like I’m shit on the bottom of her designer pumps.“The scholarship students.”
Ah, yes. Us common muck scholarship students that are unfortunate enough not to be born into a life of luxury, and have to actually work for everything in life.
“Us refers to every other student. The ones that actually pay to attend this school,” she says pointedly, once again emphasizing—in case it wasn’t already obvious—that we’re lesser because we don’t have buckets of cash to spend on an education. I doubt she would be open to seeing my point of view if I tried to explain that hard work and dedication make me just as entitled to be here as her precious money does.
“And them?” I ask curiously, wondering who she could possibly be referring to. She’s just lumped the entire school into the ‘you’ and ‘us’ categories...so who is left?
Her eyes flash up to something behind me. “Them,” she repeats absently, her tone breathy, her eyes glazing over at whatever has caught her attention.
Spinning around, I see exactly what has her so distracted. Or more specifically,who. Striding through the crowd, who part for them like they are gods, are four of the most striking guys I’ve ever seen. I’m not sure if the whole courtyard hushes, or if I just become so focused on them that everything around me fades into the background, but all I can hear is the blood pounding in my ears as I soak up the mouthwatering sight in front of me.
All four of them confidently strut through the crowd, looking like one of those sexy-as-hell TikTok videos. All they need to do is remove their tops and flex their muscles, except I’m pretty sure more than a few girls around me will faint. I can’t even be sure I wouldn’t be one of them.
I focus on the guy to the far left, who’s tall and lean, perfectly put together in his gray slacks, white shirt, and forest green blazer as he strides across the courtyard. Every step is filled with arrogant confidence. My eyes roam over his face, noting his short, blond haircut, narrowed eyes, and pinched lips. Everything about him screams ‘stay the fuck out of my way’.
My gaze sweeps to the guy beside him. He’s built like a fucking tank. At over six and a half feet tall and built like an MMA fighter, he’s easily double the size of every other student around us. Similarly to the first guy, everything about him screams unapproachable. His features look like stone, with his sharp, angular jaw, high cheekbones, and icy glare. A few loose strands of his dark brown hair fall forward into his eye, somehow only adding to the fierce image he’s working. I can feel my mouth going dry as I drink him in, before I quickly glance away.
