Chapter 38 – Thomas
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Thomas
I’m close enough to do whatever I want with her, but I sense from the position of her unwieldy elbows that Clover Robinson wouldn’t hesitate to slam them into my torso.
I’m still healing from the bruises. Just talking.
What’s the harm in getting to know a girl, right?
If I get to know her, I won’t want to hurt her. I can stop myself.
If I keep my hands to myself, I can’t touch her. I can’t allow myself to hurt her.
“So halloween…”
“I don’t get the obsession.”
“Right,” I mutter. “What about your kid videos? Would you let me see them?”
“Absolutely not,” she hisses. “But you could go look them up if you want. I can’t exactly stop you. Weirdo.”
“I won’t. If you don’t want me to.
Clover rolls her eyes. “Great.”
“We’ve got to set a trap,” I suggest. “But you seem to be the expert on trap setting.”
“My trap failed.”
“Not your trap for me. I fell pretty hard.”
Clover smirks, visibly delighting in the night she walloped me with a cricket bat. She’s really pretty when she smiles. It’s hard to resist touching her.
“You’re right,” she says. “I am the better trap setter. But there are other things to consider.”
“Like what?”
She pushes gently against my shoulder.
“We should do a better job of staying away from each other,” she says. “Our blackmailer clearly has eyes on us at all times.”
“Should we make a list of suspects?”
“Every girl at this school,” Clover says. “Except me, Sylvia, and Kola.”
“Why not Kola?”
I don’t know Clover’s friend, but she’s awfully quick to defend her, making her automatically suspicious. Vi used to read me Agatha Christie to send me to sleep. I have deductive reasoning skills – I must.
“She doesn’t like white guys,” Clover explains as if that’s an explanation at all, and as if I’m not supposed to take offense. How would she feel if anyone said the same to her? I bite my lip to stop myself saying something stupid. Vi would tell me that someone probably has said the same to her.
“Bit racist,” I mutter, incapable of keeping my mouth shut completely.
Clover rolls her eyes again. I thought I was doing a good thing pointing out how not liking one race of guys is racist. I’ll have to ask Violet again how I’m screwing this up.
“Shut up,” Clover mutters. “She’s just not going to blackmail you all jealous. That’s not Kola.”
I lean closer to Clover and she doesn’t pull away.
“Are you sure we should rule her out?”
“She’s one of my best friends,” Clover insists, her brown eyes widening dramatically.
Girls. They’re so… much.
“Haven’t you only known each other a couple months?”
“I want to kill you,” Clover says.
“Better not,” I mutter.
Clover elbows me in the side again and I don’t even grunt because I’m just happy she’s touching me, giving me one second of contact, even if it hurts like hell.
Then, her elbow just lingers, touching my torso ever so gently and sending a surge of energy between my legs.
Fuck. This is the worst time to get hard.
I hope she doesn’t notice. She’d probably kill me if she noticed me getting stiff around her. It happens every fucking time too.
“We need bait,” Clover says, interrupting my dirty thoughts about her gorgeous lips and curvy hips. “I think you should be the bait.”
“Me!? So far they haven’t attacked me,” I remind her. “How would I make good bait?”
“So I’m supposed to be the bait?”
“You were fine with it before,” I point out, which only makes Clover nudge me in the stomach again. But the next words out of her mouth are completely off topic.
“Has anyone ever told you that your body is like a wall? I’m really hurting my elbow.”
I grin. “People tell me all the time how ripped I am. That’s the point of it, isn’t it?”
“Ew,” she answers, but I catch the corners of her lips turning up into a smile.
“I don’t want you to be the bait,” I tell her. “Maybe you should ask your friends for help. Kola. Sylvia.”
“I can’t ask them to risk their lives.”
“They won’t be risking their lives. We’ll work together and look out for each other.”
Clover shrugs, shaking her pretty dreadlocks out of her face. Maybe it would be a great time to kiss her? My cock wants to do more than kiss her. I have to slowly learn to control myself, don’t I? Even if it’s fucking impossible.
“That would be great, but Sylvia won’t text me back.”
“And I don’t trust Kola,” I reply, earning another glare from Clover. She tenses her elbow, but leaves it resting against my side instead of thrusting it into me again.
“What? Just being honest.”
“Your honesty sounds a little like racism.”
I swear, I’ll never get it right with girls. I’m always fucking something up. At least with the girls I want. Agreeing with her has to work, right?
“Sure, Clover.”
“I’m serious! You don’t trust Kola because she’s black. Admit it.”
“You realize I’m friends with Sylvia, right?”
“Sylvia’s loaded. Or at least her sister is. In your twisted mind, I’m sure that makes up for it or whatever. I’m standing up for my homegirl.”
“It’s not that. I swear. I just don’t know her.”
“Well you can get to know her when she helps us. And keep your bad attitude to yourself. She already hates white guys.”
“This ought to be fun for me,” I grumble.
Clover rolls her eyes and then glances down at her phone. “Seriously, where is Sylvia? It’s not like her not to text back.”
“She’s probably having really dirty sex.”
That earns me an extremely sharp jab in the stomach.
“OUCH!”
“There’s something mentally wrong with you,” Clover says, hopping out of bed. “Come on, idiot. Let’s go look for her.”
“Are you sure?”
I’d rather stay in bed with her. I’d rather keep her body close to mine, or pin her there, or something.
But Clover confuses me. She gets me hard, but she makes me want to be a good person, too.
It must be all those loose elbows. I think she’s reactivating some of my old bruises with her harshness.
But I love that harshness. I think beneath it all, there’s a girl I could love forever.
Ugh. She turns me into a sappy, fucking hopeless romantic.
Only trouble is that she doesn’t like me much. Our blackmailer has it all wrong.
“Before we search for Syl,” I ask her, climbing out of bed and following Clover to her bedroom door. “Mind telling me how you plan to use Kola as bait?”
She’s so small when we’re standing next to each other. Noticing her size makes me feel guilty for hurting her. She’s tall for a girl, but still shrimpy compared to me. She’d kill me for thinking she was cute instead of tough.
“You two are going to fake date. Obviously.”
Christ, Clover.
“If you want me to agree to that, you’ll have to agree to something.”
“Like what? Saving your ass with my entire friend group because your friends are all panty stealing alcoholics and drug addicts?”
“No,” I answer, ignoring her insult. “Like a kiss.”
Clover turns to face me and then awkwardly stumbles backward, leaning against the door to her bedroom with a bewildered look on her face.
“Why?!”
“Because. You’re a good kisser and so am I.”
“Cocky fuck. Who said you were a good kisser?”
I grin and move in closer to her. “You did.”
“I did n–
Ha. I seize my chance and take her hips, stopping her sentence by kissing her forehead.
“Bastard.”
“It’s just one kiss.”
Before I have to work harder at convincing her, Clover grabs my cheeks and pulls my face against hers.
She kisses me. My face burns at the exact point her fingers touch and I never want her to stop.
I kiss her back, letting my fingers pinch together and run along the length of a thick dreadlock.
I love how her hair feels. Clover’s back presses hard against the door and I kiss her so hard that I swear we almost fall through it.
I have to force myself away from her, make it just one kiss and not a thousand. Clover looks stunned.
“I hate you,” she breathes, as if I’m the one who made her jump all over me, all horny and everything with her soft, perfect lips.
“I know.”
“You’re agreeing to my plan, then?”
“Sure, babe.”
“Call me babe again and I’ll kick you in the balls.”
It’s hard not to smile at everything she says, even if they’re either threats or insults.
“Let’s find, Syl,” I mutter.
“Yeah,” she says. “And keep your lips to yourself.”
She grabbed my face first.
“Sorted.”
We walk outside the dorm and search for a few feet. I don’t expect us to find anything, or anyone, but then Clover points in the distance.
“Do you see that on the path?”
“No.”
“It’s a person. I think it’s her.”
Then I see it. A girl, lying on the path, her limbs contorted. Possibly dead.
Sylvia. I think I’m going to be sick.
* * *