Epilogue
Taylor flipped the test sitting face down on his desk over, not the least bit surprised to see the big red A in the upper right-hand corner.
Flipping it over again, he went back to scrolling on his phone, the grunts and groans of his fellow classmates as they looked at their grades all too familiar.
He knew that they were all going to be mad at him, he’d probably blown the curve in a big way, screwing everyone in the process, but he couldn’t help it and refused to feel guilty about it.
It wasn’t his fault he had a perfect memory; he hadn’t asked to be born with it, and had spent most of his life trying to compensate for it, but this year, he decided he was done.
No more pretending that he had to study just as hard as everyone else, no more putting down wrong answers just so he didn’t blow the curve and upset everyone.
This year he’d decided to just be himself and to show everyone what he was really capable of.
It was time to stop worrying about everyone else and take care of himself.
He was used to the angry stares of his classmates now, but when he looked around the room, one pair of eyes caught his attention as they studied him.
Emily Torres was new to the school. She had transferred in at the beginning of the semester, was in every one of his classes, and had been something of a pleasant distraction for him, if only in his mind, over the last few months.
Now she was staring at him as if she could see deep into his soul, instantly making him nervous, which only got worse when she got to her feet and headed toward him.
“What’s the deal, Taylor?” she asked, putting her hands on her hips.
“You never study, you miss half of your classes, and you still ace the test. Something seems off about that to me.”
“Off…oh, you mean you think I’m cheating,” he said, shrugging his shoulders, hoping she couldn’t sense his attraction to her. “Why didn’t you just say that in the first place?”
“I was trying to be diplomatic,” Emily hissed at him. “I was hoping that if anything funny was going on, a little warning would put an end to it without anyone getting in trouble.”
“Well, wasn’t that sweet of you,” he said, acting as if he was bored, even though his entire body was tingling with desire. All his fantasies about Emily were crowding his mind and making it hard to think. “But I assure you, there’s nothing funny going on.”
“We’ll see about that,” she spat at him. “I’m going to be watching you, Taylor Gordon.”
He was forced to watch her flounce away, hips swaying; it was almost more than he could take, and he closed his eyes, hoping it would calm the need racing through his blood.
She was just plopping down into her seat when he opened his eyes, and he groaned when her breasts wiggled under her tight shirt, sure that he was losing his mind.
Feeling completely out of control, he turned away, then gathered up his things and fled the classroom, knowing that it made him look guilty, but desperate to get away from Emily and the forbidden images that raced through his mind.