Page 57 of Long Live the King
I’m in the cafeteria with Thayer and the other girls, listlessly pushing vegetables around my plate. She doesn’t need to tell me, I feel his eyes on my back like a physical weight. I can tell his annoyance is growing the more I refuse to engage with him.
“Ignore him. He’ll hate it.” I tell her.
Now Nera turns around to look for herself.
“Jesus, he’s glowering at you. Do you think it’s because you didn’t answer his text yesterday?”
When I’d gotten home last night, I’d headed straight for the shower. Standing naked in front of the mirror, I’d found myself looking like a drowned rat, courtesy of my impromptu swim in the pond.
I’d washed the muck and stress of the day away and wrapped myself in fluffy towels before telling the girls about what happened yesterday.
They’d been horrified, immediately wanting to intervene with Principal Thornton in my favor, but I’d refused. I’d gotten myself into this situation, I’d get myself out of it.
My phone vibrates with a text and I know, I just know, it’s him. He won’t be ignored, especially not by me.
I grab my phone and open up the text.
Asshole:Keep ignoring me and you’ll pay.
A shiver of anticipation courses through me before I metaphorically strangle it to death. It’s not anticipation, it’s loathing.
It has to be.
I drop my phone in my bag without replying, in full view of his gaze.
“Was that…?” Six asks me.
“Yup.”
“And you’re not…?” Nera asks.
“Nope.”
Six laughs. “Like I said.” She says, taking a sip of her water. “Balls of steel.”
???
When I walk through the doors of the Mackley Library at 5pm sharp, the dominating emotion I’m feeling is dread.
I finished the rest of my classes without incident, careful to avoid Rogue's gaze when he tried to meet mine.
He also didn’t go looking for a physical confrontation with me and kept his distance instead, so we’ve had no interactions today.
That’s what worries me. He’s not the type to shy away from conflict, especially not with me.
I spot him lounging on the couch in the lounge section of the library. His position is so dominatingly male. Tattooed, muscular arms outstretched on the back of the couch, head thrown back so his Adam’s apple is bared, legs splayed open. He commands the space like he owns it and in some way, he does.
He’s deceptively relaxed, his half-lidded eyes stalking me lazily as I walk across the room, but I can tell from the clench of his jaw he’s ready to pounce at any sign of weakness. There’s a slight smirk pulling at the corner of his mouth when I meet his eyes for the first time today.
I look away quickly, but of course he’s seen me.
It’s not my fault, it’s really not. The way he’s sitting exudes so much raw power and masculinity and his gaze is so intense, it’s hard not to look. Looking at him is like looking at the sun. There’s a pull to stare at such obvious beauty, but you know it’s not good for you, that it’ll hurt you if you look for too long.
A better woman wouldn’t look at all and I am not her.
Without a word, I drop my bag on the table and head into a random row of shelves. There’s a vintage shelf on either side of me and at the end of the row, a small table rests against the wall. Under the table there’s an array of brown boxes. The books have been pre-sorted into those boxes by section so all we need to do is alphabetize and shelve them. Mindless busywork that’ll take us the full six weeks if not more. And that’s if Rogue helps. The fact that he hasn’t moved from the couch doesn’t give me much confidence that he’ll do anything but use the time to organize his next hookup.
I rip into one of the boxes angrily, pulling out the books and stacking them on the table. I figure I’ll start placing them on the shelves randomly and alphabetize as I go.