4. Kai
Chapter 4
Kai
I’ve been dreading this day, but now that it’s finally here, it’s a fucking relief.
Little Miss Heavenly AKA Haven Lee. AHC’s newest grant student.
Aw, look at that. She bought a little notepad and everything, just like a real college student.
But she’s not.
She hasn’t earned this. Not like I have.
I spent my summers being tutored, writing mock SAT exams until I dreamt about them in my sleep, getting migraines because I spent all day staring at a laptop.
What was Haven doing?
Fuck knows, because she pissed off out of Agony Hollow the moment things stopped going her way.
How the hell did she get a grant, anyway?
Sure, the Haven I knew wasn’t an idiot. But she was much too busy dreaming about wedding dresses and fairytale houses in Europe to care about education. Far as I remember, they almost held her back a year in middle school.
She doesn’t belong here. Doesn’t even deserve to be here.
Absurdly high admission fees gatekeep this institution for a reason. This college isn’t for losers like her. Agony Hollow nurtures visionaries and leaders, the top one percent of the one percent.
Haven is the mud I scrape off my Balenciaga sneakers after my morning run.
The mean, childish, slutty mud I?—
“You must be my scholarship student. Miss Lee, isn’t it?” Rooke’s smooth voice cuts off the thought. Good. I’m done thinking about Haven.
I pretend to be busy on my phone, but I’m watching them with voyeuristic glee. She looks panicked. If I was still her friend, I’ll tell her not to sweat it. It’s just the Rooke Effect kicking in.
“Yup!” she bleats.
Rooke crosses his arms over his chest. “And you have been informed that passing my class is a prerequisite for maintaining your funding?”
“Yup.”
“Funding I assume you require in order to remain enrolled at this school?”
This time, her voice is little more than a squeak. “Yup.”
Ha ha ha. Broke ass loser.
“So what led you to believe skipping my first class was a good move?”
And suddenly I’m not smirking anymore.
Dude needs to lay the fuck off. If anyone’s going to be making Haven’s life hell, it’s me.
He almost made her cry. I can see her eyes shimmering.
“I’m sorry, Sir. It won’t happen?—“
He holds up his hand. “Professor.” Then he sighs and snaps his fingers at me. “Coursework.”
Fuck. He’s going to lay into me about the phone thing, I just know it. I’ve seen plenty of moods on Rooke. He’s currently at level five, Irked, but if Haven keeps annoying him, we’re heading into straight into Peeved.
I open his satchel and rifle through it, looking for the black folder where he keeps his class notes. I find a stapled page and yank it out, sliding it over the desk with a shove of my fingers.
Rooke cocks his head to the pages, and Haven glances at me as she picks it up from the desk.
I keep my expression neutral.
Last thing I want is Rooke picking up on any issues between me and Haven. He’s like an emotional bloodhound. I once saw him instigate a fight between two bros in his class that almost broke out into a fist fight.
The remaining notebooks are within easy reach, so Professor Rooke picks one up himself instead of snapping his fingers at me to do it.
He hands it to Haven, and you’d swear it’s a bomb how gingerly she accepts it.
“I’d prefer you hand this back to me at the end of the semester instead of…” For a moment, his voice drops as he studies the bright pink notepad Haven’s hugging to her chest like a shield. “…that.”
“Okay,” she says. Quiet. Uneasy.
It’s my second lesson as Professor Rooke’s TA, but I spent the whole of last week with him prepping for the start of his course. It’s not the first time I’ve heard a student struggle to get their words out around him.
It’s the first I’ve heard Haven sound like this, though.
Sure, she was shy when we first met. We both kinda were. But pretty soon she was yelling and screaming and laughing right beside me as we tore through the woods on whatever mad escapades we were on.
That’s the Miss H I remember, with her sun-bleached hair and curious smile, nose crinkled as she squinted in the sunlight and tried to figure out why the hell I was attacking yet another tree.
Not this mousy, bedraggled bundle of nerves.
“What’s the notebook for?” Haven asks.
“Weren’t you listening?” Rooke narrows his eyes at her, reaching across and tapping the cover. “It’s your Activity Log. It says so right here.”
“Oh, uh…I think I might have missed?—”
“I don’t have time to go over it again,” Professor Rooke says, glancing at his watch. “Meet me before class tomorrow and I’ll fill you in.”
“Okay, thank you.”
This is like watering a dead plant and waiting for it to spring back to life. It’s too fucking painful to watch.
I clear my throat. “Professor?” I stab my thumb toward the door when he looks at me. I’d rather not get into a one-on-one with him about taking that call earlier.
“Yes.” He glances at Haven like he forgot she was there. “Yes, both of you can leave.”
Haven tugs her cardigan tighter around her, juggling her notepad and the new notebook.
If she’s trying to blend in, she’s failing miserably. Around here, students wear designer threads like armor. Even the Steve Jobs types with their monotonous outfits. Haven’s an eyesore in her stained, rumpled clothes and?—
Jesus Christ…she’s not even wearing a bra.
She glances nervously at me when I cannot hold back a bemused chuckle, her blue eyes widening until I can see the dark rings around her irises. Seems to be the only thing about her that hasn’t changed, those haunted blue eyes.
I used to love to make them sparkle.
Now they’re underlined with dark smudges.
I throw Rooke a two-fingered salute and get the fuck out of his classroom, turning at the last minute so I can slam the door open with my back while staring Haven down from the other side of the room.
Rooke is busy putting his laptop into his satchel, so I purse my lips and send a big fucking kiss her way.
I can see the shiver that ripples through her.
Yeah, buckle up, Miss H.
It’s going to be one hell of a fucking semester.
I’m gonna enjoy it.
No fucking chance you will.