by Anna Martin
Great.
Jared was about to divert and go outside, sit in his car, and smoke or something, when Chris noticed and waved. Not a cheerleader wave, more a “hey-you, get your ass over here.” Jared didn’t want to argue with the big guy in charge, so he went over and sat in one of the empty seats.
“Hi,” Jared said.
Chris nodded. “Guys, this is Jared. He’s a’ight.”
Mia grinned at him, and Jared ducked his head. There were still several empty seats around the table, but no one else dared approach them, such was the power of Chris’s aura.
“You again.”
Jared didn’t bother to look up, knowing who was standing next to him.
“Play nice, Hemlock,” Chris said, and Adam sighed heavily before sliding into the seat next to Jared. “Where were you last night? First party of the year, homie, and you split on me.”
“I told you I was going into the city,” Adam said.
Jared silently crunched his apple and hoped to God he wouldn’t get drawn into a conversation. Clare delicately took a seat next to him and raised an eyebrow. He gave her a bitch, please look in return.
“Jared and I caught up last night,” Clare said to no one in particular, although it seemed everyone was listening. She was looking at Jared as if he was the sole focus of her attention, and he felt Adam turn to watch their exchange. “It was nice to get to know the new guy.”
Mia and Ryder tittered appreciatively. Jared couldn’t remember which one was which until the fake boobs popped into his head and startled him into coherency. If there was one thing he was sure of with this group of “friends,” it was that someone was getting played. He had a strong idea that person was him.
“Fuck this,” Jared said, pushing his chair back and standing smoothly. “I’ve had enough. I’m splitting.”
Next to him, Adam snickered.
“Oh, dear,” Clare murmured next to him. “What would Daddy say?”
“Daddy’s probably got his dick shoved so deep down the maid’s throat right now, he doesn’t even know I’m alive. You’re all fucking twisted.”
With deep strides, courtesy of his long limbs, Jared strode out of the school, twirling his car keys around his finger. The last thing he expected when he arrived at the truck was Mia sitting on the hood.
“Get in,” he said simply, and she silently obeyed.
He fired up the truck and still she didn’t speak, even when they got out onto the roads that led from one tiny town to another in the state.
“Where’s the shortcut?” Jared asked.
“Through the gym. The doors are fire-alarmed but they don’t actually go off.”
Jared nodded and didn’t avert his eyes from the road. “What the fuck is going on?”
“What do you mean?”
“Fucking Biggie reincarnate back there, the most manipulative bitch I’ve ever met in my life, Mr. Chip on his Shoulder….”
Mia laughed. “Seriously, Jared, it’s fine. They’re fucking with you. You get used to it after a while.”
“You’ve known them long?”
“Only since we were all still in Huggies. Back when Chris was shy and Adam was really little, and Clare… no, she was still a manipulative bitch back then.”
Jared snorted.
Mia wound a lock of her long, pale gold hair around her finger and tugged on it carefully. In this light she wasn’t as brashly blonde as Jared had first thought when they were in the bathroom the night before. Her hair was almost strawberry blonde, a reddish tone that couldn’t be replicated from a bottle.
Compared to Ryder, whose curves were manufactured, Mia was tiny and looked much younger than seventeen. He wondered if she had skipped a few grades when she was a kid.
“Where are we going?” she asked after a while. It had started to rain.
“Fuck knows. I just needed to get out of there.”
“Honestly, Jared, you just have to go with it, or they’ll drive you crazy.”
“Jesus,” Jared said and ran his hand over his face. “Does he believe the Biggie shit?”
“I don’t think anyone knows,” Mia said. “I mean, it started a few years back, and we all sort of went with it at the time. Then he found out more and more stuff, and now… I mean, look at him. He seriously looks like a mid-’90’s throwback.”
“We need to get him a crown,” Jared mused.
“He’s already got one.”
“I shouldn’t be surprised.”
“Wallace wasn’t his birth name, by the way. His mom remarried when he was a kid.” She tossed around the gossip like it didn’t matter. Maybe it didn’t. “Look… I know it’s weird. But he’s, like, only the third ever black kid to get accepted into the Academy. It’s all old, white money, and he got in anyway. So if he wants to play up to that stereotype, let him. He’s got some of the best grades in the whole class.”
“He does it on purpose?”
“Oh, for sure,” she said with a laugh. “What better way to get the upper hand than by convincing everyone you’re beneath them? Chris is playing a game, Jared. And he’s winning it.”
Jared nodded. “And Clare?”
“Clare wants you to think she’s this all-seeing psychic.”
“She’s a psycho.”
“Right?” Mia said it like it was a foregone conclusion. “She’s a bitch. But there are two sides you can be on: her good side and her bad side. After seeing what happens when someone gets on her bad side, I know where I want to be.”
Jared nodded, understanding. He could tell a lot about Clare from seeing her interact with other people. He wouldn’t be surprised if she had some kind of social anxiety; all she seemed to do was push people away and hurt them. Clearly even her closest “friends” were wary of her bite, and that had to mean something.
“Isn’t she, like, your BFF?”
Mia snorted. “You know that old phrase? Keep your friends close….”
“Yeah.”
“I’m good at keeping her real close.”
Jared signaled and turned onto the highway that looped them back into town. “Give me the lowdown on Hemlock.”
“No way,” Mia said. “Totally not worth it.”
“What does he have on you?”
Mia didn’t respond for a long moment.
“Adam is Adam,” she said with a shrug. “We told you all you need to know already. You’ll learn a lot more by watching than me telling you.”
Weirdly, that made sense. Jared drove Mia back to school, then went home.
The house was empty, of course; his aunt, who was only a few years older than him, wasn’t at home, and she lived there alone. Hadley had promised his mother she would take good care of Jared while he finished his senior year, then promptly fucked off to Vegas the day after he arrived. Hadley was a party girl—Jared could appreciate that—and her first ex-husband had given her the house as part of the divorce settlement.
From the one conversation he’d had with her, Jared got the impression she hated it here. He didn’t know why she kept the house; if she sold it she could easily get a cool million. He had a feeling his father had something to do with it, and Jared’s failed career at military school.
Still, he hadn’t seen his father in over a year, which was the best thing for everyone involved. Even though his parents were still technically married, they lived in separate states and had sex with whomever they liked. Jared liked to tell his father that his own loose sexual morals had been inherited, although he went after a different kind of tail.
It had started to rain again, so Jared jogged up the steps to the front door and let himself in, only just remembering the code for the alarm before it sent an automatic signal to the police.
With nothing to do for the rest of the afternoon, and absolutely no chance of Hadley coming back, Jared did what any self-respecting eighteen-year-old would do: watched porn, ate junk food, and played video games. For nearly seven hours. With an aching wrist (for more than one reason), he force
d himself to get out of bed and take a shower. He had to be up early in the morning. For school.
Jared had always liked taking long showers, especially when there was no one around to interrupt him. He was an Aquarius. It had been one of the worst things about the military school—apart from the inherent homophobia, the bastard instructors, and getting terrible grades because the teaching sucked, he was forced to live in a shared dorm room with locker-room style showers.
Spend too long soaping your balls and someone was bound to notice, and not being noticed had been one of the key things to staying sane and alive in that hellhole.
With both his older sisters electing to take liberal-arts degrees, rather than the political or law careers their father had pushed for, it was left to Jared to pick up the slack they had left behind. He was more than okay with Daddy paying Jared’s way into an Ivy League school, but he needed halfway decent grades to back it up. Hence, New Harbor Academy, one of the country’s best private high schools with a 100 percent pass rate in the graduating senior class, and nearly 70 percent gaining a place in one of the top ten best colleges in America. Most of the remaining 30 percent ended up studying abroad. The Academy boasted strong ties with Cambridge University in England.
Jared rubbed his hands through his short, dirty-blond hair and let the water run onto his face. Hadley had installed one of those rainforest showers, and he adored it. After considering (and dismissing) rubbing one out again, Jared quickly washed the rest of his body and turned off the water.
Before turning off his light and going to sleep, Jared forced himself to memorize both his schedule and the map of the school. The last thing he wanted was to get lost or end up in the wrong classroom. If nothing else, he didn’t want to go and make a fool of himself.
With tired eyes, Jared plotted the route from one class to the next, forcing the journeys into his memory so by his second day at school, he’d be able to walk around like he’d always been there. Jared already knew that if he showed one ounce of vulnerability, the vultures around here would eat him alive.
Chapter 3
The next morning, Jared walked into his homeroom class two minutes before the bell rang. That was a tactical move.
The room was almost half-full, and he made his way through the desks, stopping at the third row from the back. There was a girl with pale hair and glasses sitting at one of the desks.
“Is it assigned seating in here?” he asked.
She blushed and ducked her head. “No. You can sit wherever.”
Jared nodded. “Thanks.”
He continued on to the back row, where there was one seat left. Right next to Clare.
“Morning,” he said with a nod.
Clare looked up, met his eyes, then went back to filing her nails. “Well observed,” she said drily.
Ignoring her, Jared slipped into the available seat and leaned back until the chair tipped up on its back two legs, pulling his phone from his pocket. With time to kill, he played Candy Crush until the sunlight spilling in through the window was blocked by someone large.
Jared looked up and grinned at Chris. He looked vaguely ridiculous in the uniform they all had to wear, his tie appearing almost noose-like around his thick neck.
“Yo, you’re in my seat, homie,” Chris said, his voice a thick drawl.
Jared let the chair fall back to all fours with a thunk. “You wanna sit on my lap, Big Poppa?” he said with a smirk.
Chris laughed, but there was a definite edge to his pose. Jared had ruffled him.
“Take a seat, Mr. Wallace,” Bowen said from the front of the room.
Jared rolled lazily to his feet and inclined his head with his hand on his chest, a respectful bow. Clare observed the entire exchange with interest. She obviously knew it was Chris’s seat and had let Jared sit down anyway. Probably so she could watch how it would play out.
By this time the class was full, or near enough, and the only seats free were at the front of the room. Jared tossed his bag over his shoulder and took a window seat, leaving Adam’s seat next to the door free. Adam slid into it as the bell finished ringing.
After the events of the day before, Jared had decided the only way he was going to survive this school was to play the game. He wasn’t sure yet what the rules were, or even who was playing, but losing was not an option. While Adam was surely going to be a very attractive distraction, Jared knew he was going to have to focus on more than just his calculus class.
Things were about to get interesting, and Jared had every intention of shaking it up.
“Military school, eh? Guess you’re good at sports, then, Mr. Rawell.”
Jared rolled his eyes. The gym teacher, whose name he hadn’t bothered to remember, was a walking cliché, right out of the cast of a Fox teen drama. Overweight, balding, clearly had absolutely no control whatsoever over the group of seniors who were lounging around the gym doing what appeared to be whatever the fuck they wanted.
“Sure,” Jared said. Bored. He was bored.
“What do you play, then?”
“Lacrosse, soccer, field hockey, and basketball, if I’m forced to,” he said evenly. “Put me on a football field, and I’ll run the wrong way. On purpose.”
Coach regarded Jared closely, his expression unreadable.
“Look, can I just go work out, please? I’m out of shape.”
“Sure,” Coach said. “I’ll be keeping an eye on you, Mr. Rawell.”
The gym was better equipped than most fee-charging places Jared had been to. The cardio kit was shiny and brand new, by the looks of it. All the girls in the class were currently on a line of treadmills, their headphones plugged into the TV screens that were tuned in to Gossip Girl or some shit.
It was like an invisible line had been drawn across the room: girls on one side, on the treadmills and ellipticals, and boys on the other with the weights. There was clearly some macho pissing contest going on to see who could lift the most weight.
After taking a look around, Jared muttered “fuck this” and crossed the invisible line to the girls’ side of the gym.
Clare and Mia weren’t in this class, but Ryder was, so Jared hopped onto the treadmill next to hers. Ryder’s dark eyes widened comically, and she almost fell out of step.
“What are you doing?” she hissed at him.
“Um, running,” Jared said. He immediately set a fairly quick pace and, while jogging, plugged his earbuds into his phone to play music.
“Boys don’t usually come over here.”
“No shit.”
“You’re strange,” Ryder said, and Jared slowed enough to answer her.
“I’m a lot of things, Ryder. I’m gay. I’m tall. I’m an avid reader of gay pulp fiction and eighteenth-century French literature. And yes, I’m probably strange, too.”
“Don’t you care what people think?”
Jared shook his head, pushed his earbuds into his ears and turned the speed up on the machine. “What people think means exactly shit to me,” Jared said, content that his music would drown out her reply.
He covered five miles at a decent pace, then slowed down and accepted a bottle of water from the girl on his right, chugging deeply and nodding his thanks. This period led straight into lunch, so even after the bell rang to signal the end of the hour, Jared stayed, wanting to push himself a little further.
The girls disappeared into their locker room, and Jared thought he’d been left alone until someone hopped onto the machine Ryder had just vacated. It almost made Jared jump, but he forced his reactions down and looked over.
Great. Hemlock.
Jared nodded and turned up the speed again, wondering how far he was from his personal best of a five-minute mile. Apparently it wasn’t the day to find out.
Hemlock reached over and whacked the button that turned down the speed. Jared pulled his earbuds out, annoyed.
“What the hell?”
Adam shrugged. “Just thought we could chat.”
“I’m not much of
a chatter.”
“That’s a shame. There’s been a lot of it about you.”
“I don’t give a fuck,” Jared said easily, slowing down to an easy walk. The run had done him good, much better than posing with the weights. He grabbed his towel and wiped the sweat from the back of his neck.
“People are intrigued about you, Rawell. You’re in with Chris and Clare already, and those are two tough nuts to crack.”
“Chris is cool,” Jared said with a nod. “Clare is a class-A bitch.”
Adam laughed, a sharp, clear sound. “Yeah. God, I love that girl.”
With the machine slowing to a stop, Jared stretched his calves, and his neck from side to side, then shook out his aching limbs.
“Well, it’s been nice and all….”
“Wait. I’m partying on the weekend. You should be there.”
“Jesus, you’re arrogant.”
Adam grinned. “Be there,” he repeated and turned the speed up on his treadmill.
In the locker room, Jared was pleased Adam hadn’t followed him in; most of the boys were done in the showers and were finishing preening or leaving already. The last thing he wanted was rumors circulating about him and the only other openly gay guy in school. Especially when he’d vowed to Clare and her fellow witches he wasn’t going to give Adam the satisfaction.
There was clearly something going on with Clare, and it wasn’t as simple as her wanting to be completely in control. Jared wasn’t stupid—he could sense a trap from a mile away, and it might have been a while since he last had to deal with manipulative women, but he’d grown up with a mother and two older sisters who were masters at getting their own way, so he was familiar with the concept.
Since he could, and apparently it was bugging the other kids, Jared walked into the cafeteria and immediately found a seat at Chris’s table, sitting down without being invited.
“What up,” Chris said.
Jared grinned.
“You been messin’ with these basic white kids in gym?” Chris asked, then offered him a fist-bump across the table. Jared laughed.
