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With a nonchalant shrug to kick us off, we dove into the assignment, translating sentences about our fictional family’s vacation plans. Surprisingly, the atmosphere was light and easy,even as my body remembered being inside her and wanted more. I’d always want more of this girl. Jade's sharp wit complimented my slapstick humor surprisingly well, and we traded banter effortlessly as we worked on the assignment, her at the helm of this still-afloat ship.
“Mi hermano se llama Juan,” I struggled to say to her, enjoying her clear amusement too much to be embarrassed about my accent. “Es un payaso," I added, grinning at Jade.
"He’s a clown, huh? I don’t see that in the assignment.” She looked over her worksheet skeptically, holding back a wider grin I hoped to pull out of her by the end of class. “Well, if you’re talking about yourrealbrother, you two must get along famously, then."
“Nah, you’d think that, but my actual brothers are all kinda dicks,” I admitted with a dry laugh. I didn’t love the way her face fell at that admission, but the overwhelming need to share this with her was clawing its way up my throat anyway.Shut up, Bryce, you big doofus.
I could not.
“It’s not a big deal. I’m the youngest of five boys, so they fuck with me, you know? Just usual brother stuff. It's their way of showing affection, I guess."
Jade's eyes softened, and she nudged me a little, reminding me that she was there in a quick, kind physical touch. “I don’t have any siblings, so… I guess I can’t really relate to that. It just sounds mean to me, them picking on the youngest and weakest one.”
“Hey, I didn’t say anything about being theweakest,” I shot back, puffing up my chest to emphasize my bulky frame. “When I was a kid, yeah. But now I’m bigger than all of those assholes. They mess with me about my grades and stuff a lot more now, but at least they’re all out of the house and have less opportunity.Of course, they were all fucking geniuses at school, like Xander and you.”
“You’re smart, too,” she said quietly. “It takes brains to remember all of those plays on the football field, and you’re clever sometimes with your jokes. There are different ways to be smart, you know.”
I couldn't communicate with words how much it meant to me to hear her say that. To sense that she was being real, not just buttering me up. What reason would she have to lie now? I’d already embraced the turncoat life. Plus, she already knew she had me wrapped around her little finger in the sexual sense. As far as I could tell, there was nothing else I could really give her.
I shrugged, feeling surprisingly vulnerable. "Yeah, maybe. But anyway, not to get all therapy on you or anything, but that’s kind of why I’m… sort of a bully. After all those years being kicked around, sometimes it's just nice to mess with people to feel a bit more in control, you know? I’m working on it, but it’s a hard habit to break.”
Jade nodded, her empathy evident. "I get it. But you're more than that, Bryce. And for what it’s worth, I like this side of you. Therealyou."
To lighten the mood, I couldn't resist throwing in a flirtatious joke. "So, Jade,voulez-vous coucher avec moi?" I smirked as I butchered another language, hoping to bring us back to our usual banter.
Jade laughed, a full, loud sound that devolved into an adorable snort-giggle. Señora Sanchez shot us a dirty look, but I used my signature charming smile to get her to wave us off and turn back to her computer.
“Wrong language, dumbass,” she said with enough affection to soften the blow. While no one was looking, she reached up to brush a stray curl off my forehead, the tender swipe of herfingers across my skin filling me with warmth. God, I could get used to this. “But yes, you utterpayaso,of course.”
23
XANDER
“Ugh, this is sofrustrating,”Jade let out instead of swearing up a storm. We were in physics class, to be fair, and she certainly knew not to further bother Mrs. Parsons with her bad behavior after our last foray into being lab partners. “I’m usually good at this stuff, but this assignment just doesn’t make any damn sense.”
After what had gone down at my house the day before, I was seeing everything Jade Wells did in a new light. Instead of another mundane physics class, right now, it was an adventure. I enjoyed watching her work, deciphering the mysteries of the universe with her in whatever small way I could. She had a way of making even the most mundane tasks more interesting, and it was only partly because I could picture her naked.
She was hunched over our lab equipment, her dyed brows furrowing in a way that gave her a cute crease to her forehead. I wanted to kiss it, but I wasn’t a freak, so I stayed in my seat and kept my hands to myself.
“Maybe you should take it up with Sir Isaac Newton,” I quipped. Jade narrowed her eyes.
“Cute, Xander. Why don’tyoutry it, if you’re so smart?”
“I think you can do it,” I said to her instead, and I tried not to feel bad about how surprised she looked at my kindness. “Let’s look at the variables again, alright? See what went wrong.”
With a few more tweaks and tries, our experiment worked, and I could tell how relieved Jade was to be finished with it by the sincerity in her voice. “Thank yousomuch, Xander. I—” She cut herself off, shook out her red hair a little to clear her head, then met my gaze again. “I get pretty stressed about school stuff, and then I shut down. So, I appreciate your helping me out. And with minimal Townsend smugness, too. I’m impressed.”
I raised an eyebrow, feigning offense. “Gee, what a glowing endorsement.”
She laughed, the sound echoing a little in the otherwise quiet classroom, but Mrs. Parsons just smiled at us when we glanced toward her desk to make sure we weren’t being too disruptive. What a difference a bone-meltingly hot foursome could make in our relationship as lab partners.
Jade wasn’t the only one in class who struggled to understand the experiment, as it turned out. I ended up helping the two pairs on either side of our lab station figure it out, and they paid it forward, helping students throughout the room until eventually, we’d all finished the assignment. Mrs. Parsons thanked me, and I brushed it off, almost embarrassed by the praise. But when I finally made it back to my spot beside Jade, she was watching me with wide, green-eyed wonder that made it a little less embarrassing.
“Wow,” Jade said with genuine awe in her voice, even under her usual layer of sass. “You’re… really good at this stuff, actually. Like, I knew you were smart, but you’re actually pretty good with the teaching stuff, too.”
“I’ve, uh, had some practice,” I admitted, fidgeting in my seat. I avoided looking at her. “I actually do volunteer tutoring at an education-based nonprofit once a week.” I saw her expressionsoften, but before she could get any funny ideas about being too sweet and genuine with me, I hurried to punctuate the thought. “It looks good for college, alright? I need all the help I can get if I wanna make it to Harvard.”
Jade nodded, holding back the sly smile I knew she wanted to unleash. I appreciated that she was nicer than me, resisting the urge to tease. “Yeah, Harvard totally tracks for you. I’m sure you’ll get in. But in the meantime, you should let more people see that you’re not a total selfish dickhead sometime. Maybe you’d have more friends and fewer frightened followers.”
