Page 13 of The Love Penalty
Fucking fantastic!
I thought she was into it.
Dammit, it felt like she was so into it. And then she just pulls away with no warning and cracks me across the face.
Fucking psycho!
She’s surprisingly strong, and I can still feel remnants of her stinging slap on my cheek. I bet I’ve got little red finger marks on my skin.
Witch.
She should be in Slytherin, for fuck’s sake. She’s pure evil.
Clenching my jaw, I drive the rest of the way back to her dorm without saying a word. Thankfully, we were over halfway home when we stopped for dinner, so it doesn’t take too long.
It’s raining again when I pull up outside Huxley Hall, but it’s only lightly spitting, so I don’t offer her my umbrella from the back.
Maybe that makes me an asshole, but let’s not forget that she hates me. She probably wouldn’t take the offer anyway.
“You need a hand with your stuff?” The words come out of me before I can stop myself.
Dammit! Curse my parents for raising me to be a gentleman.
“No.” She unlatches her belt and nudges the door open.
“Can you get inside safely?” I mutter.
“Yeah, I’ve got my card.” She unzips her purse and pulls it out of her wallet, then reaches across the seat to grab her overnight bag.
My finger taps against the wheel as I fight the urge to carry it for her.
The second her feet hit the curb, I hover my foot over the accelerator. There’s no need for pleasantries when you’re dropping off someone who doesn’t like you, so as soon as the back door is shut, I punch it, rocketing away from her with a screech of my tires.
I don’t bother looking in the rearview mirror.
Maybe she’s standing on the curb watching me drive off.
Maybe she regrets what she said to me.
Part of me hopes she does.
And then the sensible part of me decides not to give a shit, because there are plenty of gorgeous women at Nolan U, and I don’t need one who’s gonna give me so much fucking trouble.
My phone starts ringing and I growl, wondering if I should ignore it. It’s probably Caroline, checking that Lani got back okay.
But then I see my cousin’s name flash across the screen and I punch the console.
“Harvey, how’s it going, man?”
“Yeah, cool, cuz.” He sounds drunk.
I roll my eyes. He always does this to me. He gets drunk, then gets weird, and I have to talk my way through a bullshit phone call.
“Where you at?” I ask, hoping he’s not after a rescue somewhere.
That’s another thing he’s pretty good at. He gets plastered (or arrested—that happened last year), and I have to sweep in with a pickup so he doesn’t have to call his parents.
I’m closer, right?