taken out of my hands when the lunch lady picks up a serving of each and dumps both on my tray. The ball of tension that’s been rapidly growing between my shoulderblades suddenly releases.
I nod, muttering a thanks as I leave the line.
The person behind me huffs, “Finally,” and someone else says, “Oh shit, that’s the guy?” and someone else says, “Yeah, I think I remember him from before.”
I’m not a fan of being the object of whispered talk in the hallways. In the classrooms. In the lunch line. In the seat directly behind me. It’s hard to know what’s basic ’new kid’ chatter and what’s gossip about what I’ve done and where I’ve been. At least having Emory by my side makes it easier. He might not be leading the Devils, but you wouldn’t know it going by the way he’s treated here.
It becomes obvious pretty quickly that scandals don’t carry huge weight at a school like Preston. Wealth and access make it so that parents can get their kid out of any kind of trouble. Drugs, DUIs, vandalism, and—if the gossip is true—even bigger charges, like assault. If anything, my mysterious background and the fact I came back a foot and a half taller, boosts my image—something that no one cared about at military school. Over there, I was just another fuck-up sent away for doing something dumb enough to get caught.
In short, I can survive the gossip. It’ll pay dividends. But you don’t exactly need super-hearing in this place to realize that people are talking about Vandy, too. Without consciously realizing I’m doing it, I’ve searched her out in the cafeteria. She’s coming from the south doors, eyes trained ahead as she limps into the room.
Watching her walk is an exercise in masochism, much like having a knife buried into my gut, twisting sharply with each of her stilted steps.
I want to say it’s not as bad as when I initially realized it, that first day back at school. The way her hand supported her back as her hobbling gait carried her across the quad, right leg faltering with each step, it was undeniable.
That’s what I did.
I’d met up with Emory to walk to my first class and couldn’t force a single word from my throat the whole way. I wasn’t prepared, then. In photos, she looks perfect. And that day, standing in her window in nothing but a bra and panties, she looked... well, miserable.
Miserable, but also fucking breathtaking.
If fourteen-year-old Reynolds could see seventeen-year-old Vandy, he would have made a move so fast, her head would have spun. Of course, my crush on her back then was just a curious little hint of a thing. I never fully nursed it. Emory wouldn’t have even let me. He’s smart like that.
I expect it now, knowing exactly what it is to watch the consequence of what I’ve done. But in truth, even three days later, I still feel those vicious stabs just watching her.
My teeth are already tightly clenched when I finally find Emory’s table, dropping into the seat beside him. “Fuck.” I realize, “I forgot to get a drink.”
Emory uses my shoulder for leverage when he rises from his seat. “It’s cool, I need to get something from the vending machine, anyway. What you want?”
“I don’t know.” Choices, choices. Goddamn it. “Something wet.”
Emory shoots me two finger guns. “I don’t think they’re putting pussy in the vending machine yet, bro.”
I flip him a middle finger as he walks off. “Walked into it.”
“So, what’s the word on that?” Ben Shackleford asks through a mouthful of food. “You managed to score any yet?”
I don’t know any of these guys well enough to talk about pussy with them. Even if I did, I probably wouldn’t brag that there are a lot of choices. Well. Not too much. I’ve already gotten looks, had notes passed to me, girls asking for my number, girls giving me theirs. Paying dividends. It’d be like shooting cum in a barrel.
Uncomfortably, my mind instantly flashes to that moment of seeing Vandy in her window, the way her tits looked peaking over that bra, how soft her skin seemed in the evening light, the way my hands would probably fit perfectly on her narrow hips.
Even more uncomfortably, my mind flashes to how, thirty minutes later, I was in the shower angrily stroking myself off—gut-clenched and empty—just to make my erection go the fuck away. It was only a brief respite, because there’s plenty of girls around here